Riot Act felt uncertain of their power to take action to stop the riots without a reading of the Riot Act. After the riots, Lord Mansfield observed that the Riot Act did not take away the pre-existing power of the authorities to use force to stop a violent riot; it only created the additional offence of failing to disperse after a reading of the Riot Act. The Riot Act was read prior to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, as well as prior to the Bristol Riots at Queen's Square in 1831. Both are held to be related to the Unreformed House of
Houla massacre meeting on Syria following the attack, and on June 2, called on the U.N. Security Council "to take the necessary measures to protect Syrian civilians, including increasing the number of international monitors". The following day, Assad addressed Syria in a 70-minute televised address in which he denounced the Houla attacks as "massacres which even monsters would not have carried out". He stated that the attackers had been funded by "outside forces" and promised a "real war" against them. Houla massacre The Houla massacre () was an attack that took place on May 25, 2012, in the midst of the Syrian