The deaths were reported on Saturday by two Syrian human rights organisations, one of them also saying that hundreds of people were arrested by security forces in Damascus.
“Nineteen martyrs fell on Friday,” the National Organisation for Human Rights said in a statement received by AFP in Nicosia.
“The Syrian authorities had decided to go ahead and kill protesters during the day marked by demonstrations dubbed ‘Your silence is killing us’,” it said.
Published 30 July 2011, 17:38 IST