On 24 March 2011, Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "We call on the government of Syria to respect their people's right to peaceful protest, and to take action about their legitimate grievances." On 10 August, after Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari compared the protests in Syria to the actions of rioters in England, British Permanent Representative to the United Nations Mark Lyall Grant ridiculed the comparison, saying, "In the United Kingdom, you have a situation where the government is taking measured, proportionate, legal, transparent steps to ensure the rule of law for its citizens. In Syria, you have a situation where thousands of unarmed civilians are being attacked and many of them killed." Cameron, together with French Sarkozy and Merkel, demanded Assad step down in an 18 August 2011 joint statement, which also condemned the crackdown and called for an end to violence.