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February 26th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
“We have been trapped in our houses for 23 days. We cannot go out,
except into some alleys. Markets, schools and government buildings are
closed, and there is very little movement on the streets because of snipers,”
he said.
“Baba Amro has had no food or water for three days,” Fares said of
another besieged and battered district in the city. “Homs in general
has no electricity for 18 hours a day.”
He said people in opposition areas of Homs had wanted to burn copies of the
new constitution in protest at the referendum, but it was too dangerous to
venture out of doors.
On Saturday security forces killed at least 100 people across Syria, including
six women and 10 children, the opposition Syrian Network for Human Rights
said.
The Syrian government, undeterred by Western and Arab pressure to halt the
violence, says it is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorist groups”.
The outside world has been powerless to restrain Assad’s drive to crush the
11-month-old revolt.
The military onslaught on parts of Homs has created harrowing conditions for
civilians, rebels and journalists.
A video posted by activists on YouTube showed Mohammad al-Mohammad, a doctor
at a makeshift clinic in Baba Amro, holding a 15-year-old boy hit in the
neck by shrapnel and spitting blood.
“It is late at night and Baba Amro is still being bombarded. We can do
nothing for this boy,” said the doctor, who has also been treating
Western journalists wounded in the city.
American correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were
killed in the bombardment of Homs last week and two other Western
journalists were wounded. The group is still trapped there despite Red Cross
efforts to extract them.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was still unable
to evacuate distressed civilians from Baba Amro. After a day of talks with
Syrian authorities and opposition fighters, it said there were “no
concrete results”.
“We continue our negotiations, hoping that on Sunday we will be able to
enter Baba Amro to carry out our life-saving operations,” spokesman
Hicham Hassan said in Geneva.
Despite the violence in provincial cities across Syria, voting on the
constitution went ahead in calmer areas.
If approved, it would drop an article making Assad’s Baath party the leader of
state and society, allow political pluralism and enact a presidential limit
of two seven-year terms.
But the limit will not be enforced retrospectively, meaning that Assad,
already in power for 11 years, could serve another two terms after his
current one expires in 2014.
Dozens of people lined up to vote in two polling stations visited by a Reuters
journalist in Damascus. “I’ve come to vote for President Bashar, God
protect him and give him victory over his enemies,” said Samah
Turkmani, in his 50s.
Bassam Haddad, the director of one polling centre, said: “From the
beginning the voting has been much better than we expected. We can say 200
per cent above expectations.”
Another voter, Majed Elias, said: “This is a national duty, whether I
agree or not, I have to come and vote … I agree with the draft
constitution, even if I object to some parts. Every Syrian must ride the
wave of reform to achieve what he wants.”
Anti-Assad activists have called for a boycott of a vote they see as
meaningless. They said they would try to hold protests near polling stations
in Damascus and suburbs where troops drove out insurgents last month.
Some said security forces had stopped people venturing out to buy food in Homs
on Saturday, confiscated their Interior Ministry-issued identification cards
and informed them the cards could be retrieved at specified polling centres
the next day.
“They want to force people to vote in this doctored, so-called
referendum,” activist Mohammad al-Homsi said from Homs.
This is Syria’s third referendum since Assad inherited power from his late
father. The first installed him as president in 2000 with an official 97.29
per cent ‘yes’ vote. The second renewed his term seven years later with
97.62 per cent in favour.
Source: Reuters
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