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Change, or at least the promise of it, appears to have come to Syria. President Bashar Assad, who boasted just a few months ago that his authoritarian state was "immune" to the youth-led revolts of the Middle East, bent to the will of his people on Thursday, announcing moves to implement unprecedented reforms to his one-party Baathist state. Presidential aide Bouthaina Shaaban read out a list of decrees at a news conference in Damascus. Shaaban insisted that Assad, despite having ultimate control of the party and regime, did not order security forces to fire on protesters in the southern city of Dara'a, where at least 36 people were killed in less than a week.

The promises were dramatic. Assad has long ignored demands to lift the 48-year emergency law, but on Thursday Shaaban said the President would study scrapping it, as well as the Baathist monopoly on power, opening the possibility that the tightly controlled country might become a multiparty state. The President, Shaaban said, would also mull ways to raise living standards and loosen his grip on the media.

But will these promises be any different from the many Assad has made and failed to implement since he became President after the death of his father in 2000? Is it just a stalling tactic, a bid by a once unshakable regime to stave off what activists expect will be nationwide antigovernment demonstrations after Friday prayers on March 25? The President portrays himself as a reformist, pitted against his father's old guard, yet he rules with an iron fist.

That iron fist appeared to be at work even as Assad's promises were announced. More bloodshed was reported out of Dara'a, a city in southern Syria that has been the site of huge antigovernment protests since last weekend. According to human-rights activists, the city has been ringed by thousands of security forces who are intent to snuff out any further dissent. One prominent human-rights activist in Damascus, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the Syrian capital was also swarming with more than the usual number of security forces. They appeared to be concentrated around mosques.

Human-rights activists have supplied TIME with a list of at least 36 people they say have been killed in Dara'a since unrest exploded onto the streets last week. Tens of thousands of people took part in the funerals for several protesters in the city on Thursday, despite the threat of continuing regime violence. Amnesty International said in a press release that at least 93 people have been arrested this month across the country, but added that the real figure is "likely to be considerably higher."

Dozens of amateur videos attest to that possibility. Many are seeping out of the closed, authoritarian state, some reportedly smuggled out of the border near Dara'a through neighboring Jordan. One purportedly filmed in Dara'a shows three lifeless bodies in the middle of a rainy street as a man who appears to be injured struggles to rise. Gunfire crackles. The muddy thoroughfare is stained by blotches of blood that turn a few puddles red. Men hurriedly carry away the corpses before the footage zooms into extreme closeups of several blood-streaked, inanimate faces, their eyes open. In another, security forces, both in plainclothes and uniformed, stream out of several buses, weapons at the ready. Even as the buses are emptying, the security personnel are dragging men toward the vehicles.

"They are fighting us as if we are a foreign enemy. Hundreds of snipers are all over the city," a man who identified himself as a resident of Dara'a told al-Arabiya, the Arabic satellite channel, on Thursday. "Through your screen, I want to tell human-rights organizations, international organizations, that what is happening is a massacre, crimes against humanity. The people just asked for their freedom — it is their right." The caller, who gave his name as Ali, scoffed at Assad's quick dismissal of the local governor for his heavy-handed response to the protesters, saying the governor was just a "minor official." Ali continued: "Every Syrian knows that orders come directly from the President or from his brother. Nobody else can make these decisions."

In Damascus, Shaaban, the presidential aide, insisted that Assad did not give the order to use bullets against his people. "This does not refute the fact that there were some mistakes or some actions that were not satisfactory," Shaaban said. "All legitimate demands will be met, but in a calm way."

But calm did not appear to be anywhere near Dara'a. Late into Thursday evening, a dissident website was issuing an urgent plea to the people of the city to donate blood to the hospital. More than 20 people were in the morgue, it said, and some 60 had been wounded on Thursday. "Many are in critical condition," it read. In one particularly graphic amateur video, a young shirtless man lies on a couch, a deep gaping wound in his upper left arm. "Mourad, don't look, don't look!" a voice off-camera tells the man, as he looks away from his arm. "Take it easy, he needs a doctor! Take it easy, Mourad, take it easy!"

Syria's President has taken a tentative step toward listening to his people, but will it be enough to assuage the anger on the streets? Will it be enough for those apparently wounded by the forces of their "reformist" President? Friday will provide a crucial answer.

• Rania Abouzeid
• Is President Assad's authoritarian regime in Damascus serious about lifting the emergency law and liberalizing the media? Or are his promises another political game?