As protests continued in Syria on Tuesday, the newly-appointed cabinet held its first full-scale meeting and took a series of stepstowards "reform". These included approving a draft decree to end the 48-year state of emergency and replace it with a law "regulating the right to peaceful demonstration", "expediting" planned laws for political parties and the media, and a programme to create 10,000 new government jobs every year for young people.

All this needs to be viewed with caution. It's not so much about freedom as "reforming" the regime's means of control. Amid all the talk there is still no move to abolish Article 8 of the Syrian constitution which enshrines the Baath party at the centre of national life: 

"The leading party in the society and the state is the Socialist Arab Baath Party. It leads a patriotic and progressive front seeking to unify the resources of the people's masses and place them at the service of the Arab nation's goals."

The much-heralded announcement about ending the state of emergency (and the parallel abolition of the Supreme State Security Court) caused a flurry of media excitement, though the "emergency" has not officially ended yet and, contrary to what some reports suggest, the idea is not to abolish the emergency law itself but to put it into abeyance, for use in any future "emergency".

How much difference this will make in practice remains to be seen. The provisions under the state of emergency relating to public gatherings will be replaced by a law governing (and probably restricting) demonstrations. The information minister said yesterday that this will cover "licensing procedures and prior approval and mechanisms capable of protecting the demonstrators and public property" – and it seems very likely that the regime's concept of legitimate demonstrations will turn out to be somewhat different from that of the protesters on the streets.

The state of emergency will not be formally lifted until the demonstrations law is in place – which could take some time. In 
his speech on Saturday, President Assad, hinted that it may have to wait while the police are re-organised:

"This process is a challenge to the police because they are not prepared for such things. That’s why the police should be adequately prepared and supported by personnel and equipment. There might be a need for restructuring the police in order to cope with the new reforms."

As with the demonstrations law, there is no clear indication yet as to what the proposed laws for political parties and the media will contain but it's a safe bet they will provide for the licensing of opposition parties and non-government publications, subject to various restrictions.

Though this might be considered a step in the right direction, it can also be viewed as a process of catching up with other authoritarian Arab regimes – such as Yemen under Salih and Egypt under Mubarak. There is a big difference between permitting opposition parties to function (while occasionally closing them down for breaches of the regulations) and having a system where they might actually win power through fair elections.

In all these countries, the law itself is less of a problem than the mentality of the regime that operates it, and until the regimes abandon their obsession with control-freakery there is not much hope for real change. The laws in Arab countries that "permit" political parties, independent media, NGOs, etc, basically provide the authorities with a variety of tools for exercising control in ways that appear less crude than formal bans and direct censorship – though the effect is much the same. It means newspapers can be disciplined on technical grounds for breaking the law or infringing the terms of their licence, even if the real reason is that they have offended the government.

In that context, the rise and fall of Addomari (the Lamplighter) – Syria's first (and, so far, last) satirical weekly – is an instructive example. 

Launched in 2001 shortly after Bashar al-Assad became president, it was the country’s first independent newspaper in thirty-eight years and for a while each issue sold more copies than all the official dailies put together. 

By 2003 the regime had taken a dislike to it and the information minister demanded to see the content of each issue before publication. Its owner, Ali Farzat refused and temporarily suspended publication. Later, when he tried to publish another issue without submitting it for approval, the authorities prevented its distribution. 

A government decree then rescinded its licence on the grounds that Addomari had "violated laws and regulations in force by failing to appear for more than three months" as required by the conditions of its licence. 

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 20 April 2011.