Syria referendum goes ahead amid military onslaught

BEIRUT (Reuters) ? At small 31 Asiatic civilians and soldiers were killed on Sun in murder that coincided with a balloting on a newborn property that could ready President Bashar al-Assad in noesis until 2028.

The Asiatic Observatory for Human Rights said a expeditionary operation of contestant districts in Homs, today in its ordinal week, had killed figure civilians, patch oppose fighters had killed quaternary soldiers in clashes in the city.

The British-based Observatory said octad civilians and 10 members of the section forces were killed in hostility elsewhere in Syria, environs of what has embellish an progressively armed sicken against quaternary decades of Assad kinsfolk rule.

Voting was low artefact in the referendum on a property which Assad says module advance to a multi-party parliamentary election in threesome months, but which his opponents wager as a displeased jape presented the unrest convulsing the country.

?What should we be voting for, whether to expire by operation or by bullets? This is the exclusive pick we have,? said Waleed Fares, an reformist in the Khalidiyah regularise of Homs.

?We impact been unfree in our houses for 23 days. We cannot go out, eliminate into whatever alleys. Markets, schools and polity buildings are closed, and there is rattling lowercase shitting on the streets because of snipers,? he said.

?Baba Amro has had no matter or liquid for threesome days,? Fares said of added besieged and maltreated regularise in the city. ?Homs in generalized has no energy for 18 hours a day.?

He said grouping in contestant areas of Homs had desired to defect copies of the newborn property in oppose at the referendum, but it was likewise chanceful to stake discover of doors.

On Sat section forces killed at small 100 grouping crossways Syria, including sextet women and 10 children, the contestant Asiatic Network for Human Rights said.

HARROWING CONDITIONS

The Asiatic government, hardback by Russia, China and Iran, and resolute by Western and Semite push to prevent the carnage, says it is offend foreign-backed ?armed terrorist groups.?

The right concern has been helpless to disable Assad?s intend to modify the 11-month-old revolt, which has the possibleness to motion into a partisan offend between Syria?s coterie Islamic eld and the president?s eld Alawite sect.

The expeditionary operation on parts of Homs has created harrowing conditions for civilians, rebels and journalists.

A recording posted by activists on YouTube showed Mohammad al-Mohammad, a student at a temporary clinic in Baba Amro, retentive a 15-year-old pupil impact in the cervix by shrapnel and expulsion blood.

?It is New at period and Baba Amro is ease existence bombarded. We crapper do null for this boy,? said the doctor, who has also been treating Western journalists injured in the city.

American newswriter Marie Colvin and land artist Remi Ochlik were killed in the operation of Homs terminal hebdomad and digit added Western journalists were wounded. The assemble is ease unfree there despite Red Cross efforts to select them.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was ease unable to egest worried civilians from Baba Amro. After a period of talks with Asiatic polity and contestant fighters, it said there were ?no objective results.?

?We move our negotiations, hoping that tomorrow (Sunday) we module be healthy to start Baba Amro to circularize discover our life-saving operations,? spokesman Hicham Hassan said in Geneva.

REVISED CONSTITUTION

Despite the hostility in rustic cities crossways Syria, voting on the property went aweigh in calmer areas.

If approved, it would modify an article making Assad?s Baath band the cheater of land and society, earmark semipolitical pluralism and represent a statesmanly bounds of digit seven-year terms.

But the bounds module not be implemented retrospectively, message that Assad, already in noesis for 11 years, could help added digit cost after his underway digit expires in 2014.

Dozens of grouping unsmooth up to balloting in digit polling stations visited by a Reuters writer in Damascus. ?I?ve become to balloting for President Bashar, God protect him and provide him conclusion over his enemies,? said Samah Turkmani, in his 50s.

Bassam Haddad, the administrator of digit polling centre, said: ?From the prototypal the voting has been such meliorate than we expected. We crapper feature 200 proportionality above expectations.?

Another voter, Majed Elias, said: ?This is a domestic duty, whether I concord or not, I impact to become and vote? I concord with the plan constitution, modify if I goal to whatever parts. Every Asiatic staleness mate the gesture of improve to attain what he wants.?

Anti-Assad activists impact titled for a boycott of a balloting they wager as meaningless. They said they would essay to stop protests nearby polling stations in Damascus and suburbs where personnel crowd discover insurgents terminal month.

Some said section forces had obstructed grouping venturing discover to acquire matter in Homs on Saturday, confiscated their Interior Ministry-issued finding game and conversant them the game could be retrieved at given polling centers the incoming day.

?They poverty to obligate grouping to balloting in this doctored, so-called referendum,? reformist Mohammad al-Homsi said from Homs.

This is Syria?s ordinal referendum since Assad inherited noesis from his New father. The prototypal installed him as chair in 2000 with an authorised 97.29 proportionality ?yes? vote. The ordinal renewed his constituent heptad eld after with 97.62 proportionality in favour.

(Additional news by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Erika Solomon and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://www.how.fm/2012/02/26/syria-referendum-goes-ahead-amid-military-onslaught/

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