Antalya , Turkey ( CNN ) -- Hundreds of activists at a meeting in Turkey titled `` Conference for Change in Syria '' issued a declaration Thursday calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down and hand power to his vice president , with the goal of then organizing democratic elections . The opposition gathering also declared its support for the `` Revolution in Syria , '' and elected a 31-member council aimed at assisting the protest movement in Syria . For the last two days , the activists from Syria and international diaspora have gathered in the conference rooms and lobbies of a hotel in this Turkish beach resort , to plot ways to support the bloody revolution in Syria . There are signs the gathering is worrying the regime in Damascus , which has deployed tanks and soldiers in a bloody attempt to crush a tenacious protest movement . On Thursday , as activists busied themselves in workshops on social networking and the drafting of a final declaration , dozens of pro-regime supporters gathered outside the hotel wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the portrait of Syrian al-Assad . `` We love Bashar , '' they chanted . Tareq Salhab , a dentist who traveled from the coastal Syrian city of Latikiya to Antalya on Thursday , accused anti-regime demonstrators in Syria and the activists in the opposition conference in Turkey of being `` terrorists '' and `` traitors . '' `` You have to go to Damascus and Homs and Latakiya to see the democracy in Syria , '' Salhab said , listing Syrian cities . Syrian authorities have denied all CNN requests for journalist visas since last February . Meanwhile , human rights groups report more than 800 people have been killed in the government crackdown and more than 10,000 people detained . Turkish police were out in force in Antalya , ensuring that several hundred pro-government demonstrators could not reach the opposition conference venue . `` This conference is a hard message to the Syrian regime , '' said Omar al Muqdad , a human rights activist from the Syrian town of Dara ' a , which has become the symbol of defiance against the al-Assad family , which has ruled Syria for four decades . `` They ( the Syrian regime ) sent these people here to protest outside this hotel . That means our message , they got it , '' al Muqdad said . `` What would post-Assad Syria look like ? That 's the $ 50 million question , '' said Amr Al-Azm , a Syrian-American history professor from Shawnee State University in Ohio . `` We 've been able to begin to address what the alternative would like like ... we 've provided a road map , '' Al-Azm said . Al-Azm helped draft the conference 's final communique , which has yet to be released . He is an unlikely revolutionary though . Until last March , Al-Azm was a senior consultant on a project headed by Bashar al-Assad 's wife , Asma , aimed at reforming Syria 's culture ministry . `` What changed for me was the violence , the unprecedented level of violence that seemed random and almost uncontrolled , '' Al-Azm said . `` There are people that I actually know that have had their fingernails pulled out . '' Conference organizers say their main goals are to organize committees aimed at supporting protesters inside Syria , communicating with the media , and lobbying foreign governments . Their aim , they say , is to help unite the opposition both inside and outside Syria .
NEW : Syrian activists issue a declaration telling President Bashar al-Assad to step down . The activists are meeting in Turkey in support of the Syrian opposition . Dozens of pro-regime Syrians show up in support of al-Assad . Al-Assad 's regime sent the pro-government group , an opposition activist says .