Troops in the streets of Latakia

Al Jazeera about what happened in Sanamin on Friday.

Syria has deployed security forces to the northern city of Latakia after violent protests left there at least 12 people dead and more than 150 injured amid calls for reform. Protests have grasped Syria since more than a week. On Saturday, demonstrators torched the Baath party's local headquarters in the southern town of Tafas. Security forces have used brutal force gto quell the protests. Syrian officials say that more than 30 people have died since the unrest began earlier this month. But activists have said that more than 126 people have already died, with possibly 100 killed on Wednesday alone in a crackdown on protests in Deraa, in the south, and dozens in similar clashes in other towns and cities across the country. In Sanamin, a city of 35.000 near Deraa, the relatives of those killed in clashes on Friday said the demonstration had been peacefully and that security forces killed at least 20 people there. Bouthaina Shaaban, media adviser to president Assad, told Al Jazeera that what happened in Sanamin 'was not a protest' but 'a group of about 10 people who attacked a police station'.  Syria announced on Sunday that it would end decades of emergency rule in the country. A timetable qs not given, however. he emergency law is in place since the 1963 coup that brought the Baath Party to power. It's abolishment has been a key demand of protesters. The law imposes restrictions on public gatherings and movement. It authorises arrests and interrogation of individuals and the surveillance of personal communications, while it also imposes control over the content of newspapers and other media before publication. In a move said to be aimed at placating protesters, Syrian authorities on Sunday released a lawyer - Diana Jawabra, along with 215 others. She had been arrested for taking part in a silent protest in Damascus demanding the release of children from Deraa detained for scrawling graffiti inspired by pro-democracy protests across the Arab world. The unrest across Syria has put enormous pressure on president Assad, who is confronted with calls to curb the security apparatus, free political prisoners and reveal the fate of tens of thousands of dissidents who disappeared in the 1980s. Assad  is expected to make a public address in the days to come.