Syria referendum goes ahead amid military onslaught

Syrians vote on new constitution

(Reuters) - At least 31 Syrian civilians and soldiers were killed on Sunday in fighting over Syria's future that coincided with a vote on a new constitution that could keep President Bashar al-Assad in power until 2028.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a military bombardment of opposition districts in Homs, now in its fourth week, had killed nine civilians, while rebel fighters had killed four soldiers in clashes in the city.

The British-based Observatory said eight civilians and 10 members of the security forces were killed in violence elsewhere in Syria, scene of what has become an increasingly militarized revolt against four decades of Assad family rule.

Voting was under way in the referendum on a new constitution, which Assad says will lead to a multi-party parliamentary election in three months, but his opponents see as a sick joke given Syria's turmoil.

"What should we be voting for, whether to die by bombardment or by bullets? This is the only choice we have," said Waleed Fares, an activist in the Khalidiyah district of Homs.

"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.

He said another besieged and battered district, Baba Amro, had had no food or water for three days. "Homs in general has no electricity for 18 hours a day." With most foreign reporters barred from Syria or heavily restricted, witness reports are hard to verify.

The Interior Ministry acknowledged obliquely that security conditions had disrupted voting, saying: "The referendum on a new constitution is taking place in a normal way in most provinces so far, with a large turnout, except in some areas."

The Syrian government, backed by Russia, China and Iran, and undeterred by Western and Arab pressure to halt the carnage, says it is fighting foreign-backed "armed terrorist groups."

"NO DESIRE FOR REFORM"

Prime Minister Adel Safar, asked about opposition calls for a boycott, said this showed a lack of interest in dialogue.

"There are some groups that have a Western and foreign agenda and do not want reforms in Syria and want to divert Syria's steadfastness," he told reporters in Damascus.

"We are not concerned with this. We care about ... spreading democracy and freedom in the country," Safar said.

"If there was a genuine desire for reform, there would have been movement from all groups, especially the opposition, to start dialogue immediately with the government to achieve the reforms and implement them on the ground."

The outside world has been powerless to restrain Assad's drive to crush the 11-month-old revolt, which has the potential to slide into a sectarian conflict between Syria's Sunni Muslim majority and the president's minority Alawite sect.

Unwilling to intervene militarily and unable to get the U.N. Security Council to act in the teeth of Russian and Chinese opposition, Western powers have imposed their own sanctions on Syria and backed an Arab League call for Assad to step down.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned on Sunday of the perils of any foreign intervention.

"I think there is every possibility of a civil war. Outside intervention would not prevent that, it would probably expedite it," she told BBC television in an interview.

"We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region: al Qaeda, Hamas and those who are on our terrorist list claiming to support the opposition. You have many Syrians more worried about what could come next ...

"If you bring in automatic weapons, which you can maybe smuggle across the border, what do they do against tanks and heavy artillery? There is such a much more complex set of factors."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the referendum was "nothing but a farce."

"Sham votes cannot contribute to a solution of the crisis. Assad needs to put an end to the violence and clear the way for a political transition," he said in a statement.

HARROWING CONDITIONS

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 extricate them.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Saturday 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."

In Hama, another city with a bloody record of resistance to Baathist rule, one activist said nobody was taking part in the referendum. "We will not vote on a constitution drafted by our killer," he said by satellite telephone, asking not to be named.

If the constitution is approved in the vote, a foregone conclusion, 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.

Another voter, Majed Elias, said: "This is a national duty, whether I agree or not, I have to come and vote."

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 percent 'Yes' vote. The second renewed his term seven years later with 97.62 percent in favor.

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We'll screen shocking images of violence and child abuse that proves Syrian torture policy

Shocking Images in Syria

Some of the most graphic images ever to be shown on British television will be screened tomorrow night.

Channel 4 is planning to broadcast shocking film of protesters – including children, teachers and a mayor – allegedly being beaten by members of Syria’s secret police.

It claims the images provide ‘irrefutable prima facie’ evidence that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is torturing its citizens.

Executives have sanctioned the broadcasting of the footage after the 9pm watershed but it was deemed too explicit for the station’s early evening news.

Instead, the documentary, ent-itled Syria’s Torture Machine and presented by Jonathan Miller, will be shown at 11.10pm.

Siobhan Sinnerton, Channel 4’s current affairs commissioning editor, said: ‘Assad’s government has denied accusations of torture. This film aims to establish, through forensic analysis, the extent to which torture is systematic.’

The UN estimates 5,000 Syrians have been killed and 50,000 tortured since the Arab Spring uprising spread to the country in March. More than 30,000 videos showing violent repression have been put on the internet, which Assad’s regime insists are faked.

Now Channel 4 has investigated some of that footage and claims it has verified it, presenting strong evidence that the regime is committing crimes against humanity.

The revelation is expected to cause shockwaves and revulsion around the world. Mr Miller said: ‘We got a group of independent experts, including an exiled former member of the security forces, Syrian translators, a forensic pathologist, a specialist doctor and IT experts to examine the footage.

‘The result is a grotesque collection of verified videos which we believe shows the regime is committing crimes against humanity.

‘The film is too horrific to broadcast on pre-watershed news but we believe it is too important not to show. The world has to know what’s going on in Syria. It’s torture on an industrial scale. And it’s going on right now.’

The images were allegedly sourced from ‘trophy’ footage taken by officers from the four main pillars of the secret police – military intelligence, air force intelligence, the political security directorate and the general security directorate – and mobile phone footage made by protesters and family members.

Perhaps most shocking is what Channel 4 believes is trophy footage of teacher and father-of-six Loay Abdul Hakim al-Amer being tortured and killed. His ankles are bound to an assault rifle so that the soles of his feet can be whipped by Special Forces soldiers.

‘Film me while I’m hitting him,’ one soldier orders. ‘Shall I shoot him and get rid of him?’ another yells. Five days later his body was returned to his family bearing the tell-tale marks of torture.

In another piece of suspected trophy footage, a blindfolded man, his hands tied behind his back, is allegedly kicked and stamped on by soldiers with Alawite accents – the minority Shia Muslim sect to which the President and the army’s officer corps belong. ‘Kick him, kick him,’ one says.

A third shows the mayor of a district in Idlib province being subjected to a foot-whipping technique known as falaqa.

The footage is believed to have been filmed by soldiers from the elite 4th Armoured Division, which is commanded by Assad’s brother Maher. The victim is seen passing out after being kicked in the head.

Professor Derrick Pounder, a forensic pathologist at Dundee University, reviewed 20 videos for the film and concluded: ‘It is crude, physical violence in an extreme form.

‘It would suggest that what was happening was on a wide scale and is carried out with impunity.’

The Mail on Sunday contacted the Syrian Embassy about the film but staff did not respond.

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Syria death toll hits 5,000 as insurgency spreads

People of Syria with dead body

(Reuters) - More than 5,000 people have been killed in nine months of unrest in Syria, the U.N. human rights chief said, as an insurgency began to overshadow what had initially been street protests against President Bashar al-Assad's 11-year rule.

Navi Pillay reported the death toll to the U.N. Security Council as 1,000 higher than the previous toll just 10 days ago. It includes civilians, army defectors and those executed for refusing to shoot civilians, but not soldiers or security personnel killed by opposition forces, she said.

The Syrian government has said more than 1,100 members of the army, police and security services have been killed.

Syria's actions could constitute crimes against humanity, said Pillay, issuing a fresh call for the council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.

"It was the most horrifying briefing that we've had in the Security Council over the last two years," British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said after the session, which was arranged despite opposition from Russia, China and Brazil.

The sharp rise in the death toll is bound to lend weight to those arguing for increased international intervention to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

Assad, 46, whose minority Alawite family has held power over majority Sunni Muslim Syria for four decades, faces the most serious challenge to his rule from the turmoil which erupted in the southern city of Deraa on March 18.

A violent security crackdown failed to halt the unrest -- inspired by popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya -- which turned bloodier in the last few months as defecting soldiers join armed civilians in fighting back in some areas.

DAWN BLOODSHED

In the latest violence around dawn on Tuesday, security forces shot dead 11 people and wounded 26 others in Idlib, a northern protest hotbed, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

At the flashpoint central province of Homs, an explosion set a gas pipeline on fire on Monday, the second reported pipeline blast in the area in a week. "The fire lit the night sky," said a resident who gave his name as Abu Khalaf.

State news agency SANA said the pipeline, near the town of Rastan, supplied gas to an electricity power plant.

SANA also said border guards foiled an attempt by "an armed terrorist group" to cross into Syria from Turkey on Monday, the second such reported incident in a week. It said they shot dead two of the 15-strong group.

The Observatory said a pro-Assad armed group was holding 17 workers seized in Homs on Saturday.

Despite the spiraling violence, Syrian authorities held local elections on Monday as part of what they say is a reform process, but Assad's critics described the voting as irrelevant.

Monday was also the second day of the opposition's "Strike for Dignity," but its success was hard to gauge in some cities where violence has kept many residents in their homes.

Though the strike has found support in protest strongholds around the country, it has not taken hold in central parts of the capital Damascus or the business hub of Aleppo.

Syria has barred most independent journalists, making it hard to assess conflicting accounts of events there.

"SYSTEMATIC ATTACK"

In New York, Western envoys on the Security Council said Pillay's briefing on Monday was horrifying and termed it scandalous that the council, paralyzed by opposition from Russia and China, had taken little action on Syria.

"Independent, credible and corroborated accounts demonstrate that these abuses have taken place as part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians," Pillay said, according to briefing notes seen by Reuters.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud said, "It is scandalous that the council, because of opposition from some members and the indifference of others ... has not been able to act to exert pressure on the Syrian authorities."

More than 14,000 people were reportedly in detention, at least 12,400 had sought refuge in neighboring countries and tens of thousands had been internally displaced, Pillay said, also citing "alarming reports" of moves against the city of Homs.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he too was troubled by Pillay's report, but he said outside intervention could lead to civil war and a far higher death toll.

He repeated accusations that Western countries had gone into "regime-change mode," adding, "The tragedy is that if things were allowed to degenerate and to go in the direction of further provocation, of fanning further confrontation, then maybe (there would be) hundreds of thousands dead."

Russia joined China to block Western efforts to pass a resolution against Syria in the U.N. Security Council.

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said Pillay should never have appeared before the council for a session that was part of a "huge conspiracy concocted against Syria from the beginning."

POLLS -- REFORM OR SHAM?

Assad's government portrays the municipal polls as part of a process leading to a parliamentary election next year and constitutional reform. But critics say local elections have little meaning in a country where power is highly centralized.

Prime Minister Adel Safar urged voters to "stand together to save our country from the conspiracies against us" and SANA said Syrians had flocked to the polls in 9,849 voting centers.

Assad has said reforms cannot be rushed in Baathist-ruled Syria, which is a close ally of Iran, a key player in nearby Lebanon and supporter of militant anti-Israel groups.

Some of his opponents see civil disobedience such as the strike action as preferable to armed confrontation, with the risk of civil war looming.

"The cost will be more human lives I am afraid," said Rima Fleihan, a member of the foreign-based opposition Syrian National Council.

"But it is less costly than an armed uprising and the regime dragging the country into a Libya-type scenario."

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