BEIRUT: Syria’s government has endorsed a draft law that it says will allow the formation of political parties alongside President Bashar Assad’s ruling Baath Party, part of a series of promised reforms that the opposition has dismissed as largely symbolic.

The development came as security forces detained dozens of people in the capital Damascus and several other cities in search of anti-government protesters and regime opponents, activists said Monday. The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said a 7-year-old child, a boxing champion and a writer were among those arrested.

The multiparty bill, approved by the Cabinet late Sunday, follows other concessions Assad has made as part of his efforts to quell more than four months of protests against his regime.
He has coupled his pledges of reform with a deadly crackdown on protesters that activists say has killed at least 1,600 people.
The revolt has only grown more defiant in the face of the government response, and protesters have shifted their demands from political change to the outright downfall of the regime.

The draft law, which still needs parliamentary approval, would allow for the establishment of any political party which is not based on religious or tribal lines and does not discriminate due to ethnicity, gender or race, the state-run news agency said.
Assad’s ruling Baath Party has held a monopoly over political life in Syria for decades. A key demand of the protest movement is the abolishment of Article 8 in the Syrian constitution which states that the Baath Party is the leader of the state and society.

Lawmaker Mohammad Habash said Monday that the bill still needs to be endorsed by parliament and will likely be presented for debate at the next session Aug. 7.
He said the bill in itself was positive but that some articles of the constitution must be amended first, including Article 8.

Assad has made a series of overtures to try to ease the growing outrage. He lifted the decades-old emergency laws that gave the regime a free hand to arrest people without charge, granted Syrian nationality to thousands of Kurds – a long-ostracized minority – and issued several pardons.
But the concessions failed to sap the momentum of the protest movement, which dismissed them as either symbolic or far too late.

As a first step, the protesters are demanding an immediate end to the security crackdown and the release of thousands of people who have been detained in recent months.

The government, however, has shown no signs of letting up in its efforts to crush the uprising.
On Monday, security forces tightened their siege of neighborhoods in central Syria’s city of Homs, sending military reinforcements and cutting mobile and landlines in the Khaldieh and Bayada districts, activists said.

Ammar Qurabi, who heads the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, said among those arrested in Homs Monday was one of Syria’s boxing champions, 26-year-old Mahmoud Kaadi, who was picked up while training, and 7-year-old Naim Qteifan was detained three days ago in the southern town of Deraa.
The Local Coordination Committee, which monitors and helps organize anti-government protests in Syria, also reported a “massive wave of raids and arrests” in the Hajar Aswad district of Damascus.

The heavy deployment of troops and army vehicles sparked concerns of renewed military operations. An activist in Homs said there were fears of a large scale military operation to try and force an end to the unrest there before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins next week, during which Syrian activists say protests are expected to gain momentum.

“The protesters in Syria are planning on having much bigger demonstrations in Ramadan because people stay up late during the month and more people go to mosques,” said Qurabi.
The authorities have so far been silent about the prospect of more frequent protests during the fasting month. One Damascus resident said the police presence around mosques had increased recently and was expected to rise during Ramadan.

“Each day of Ramadan will be like a Friday. It will be like thirty Fridays, one after the other,” said Mohammad, a 26-year-old law student who takes to the street every Friday, the Muslim day of rest and prayer, which has become the main opportunity for protesters to gather.

But some Syrians said they are fearful that Ramadan will see an escalation in the violent backlash from the government which will see the Ramadan protests as bigger threat to Assad’s rule.
Ammar, a 35-year-old supermarket owner in Damascus, said people have started stocking up on nonperishable food as they are afraid of an escalation in civil unrest during Ramadan with larger numbers of protesters expected on the streets.

“People are buying very large quantities of beans, oil, rice and sugar,” he said.
During Ramadan, religious establishments, charities and the wealthy typically organize large free meals for the poor to break the fast. But activists say there are fewer announced this year as the government tries to prevent any public gatherings which could turn into a protest.