Two Syrians evacuate an injured fellow rebel in Idlib, Syria, as the US rejected Russia's attempts to broker talks between the vice-president and the opposition to calm the country's violence. Source: AP
(From Article "Syrian forces in further Homs bombings, as US rejects Russia's excuses"
AFP February 09, 2012 9:05AM )
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Syria crackdown worsens ahead of UN vote
From correspondents in Damascus
From: AFP
February 17, 2012 4:52AM
AT least 22 people have been killed as Syrian armour moved on protest hubs, while prominent blogger Razan Ghazzawi and other leading activists were arrested, monitors said ahead of a UN vote on the crisis.
President Bashar al-Assad's troops pummelled the central city of Homs for a 13th straight day overnight, with 18 people killed in central Hama province and four others dying in the southern city of Daraa, the monitors reported.
"It's very methodical," said Mohammed, a resident of Daraa reached by telephone from Beirut. He said regime forces were attacking the province "village by village".
"The (rebel) Free Syrian Army is trying to push them back, but it is not equipped and is forced to retreat. Regime troops are taking revenge on residents."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also said it feared that dozens of civilians had been massacred by security forces when they stormed a village in Daraa on Wednesday.
"There are fears regime forces carried out a massacre in Sahm al-Julan," the Britain-based group said.
The authorities arrested Mr Ghazzawi, symbol of the 11-month uprising against Mr Assad's regime, as well as prominent human rights activist Mazen Darwish, his wife and 11 others, a human rights lawyer said.
The lawyer, Anwar Bunni, said Mr Ghazzawi was arrested in an early afternoon raid on the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, which is located in central Damascus and is headed by Mr Darwish.
"We at the Syrian Centre for Legal Studies condemn these arrests and call on Syrian authorities to immediately release them," Mr Bunni said.
Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders also condemned the arrests and demanded the activists' immediate release.
The latest crackdown came with the UN General Assembly set to vote later in the day on a measure condemning repression in Syria, just days after Russia and China joined forces to derail a similar text in the UN Security Council.
Earlier, the opposition rejected a newly drafted constitution that could end nearly five decades of single-party rule and urged voters to boycott a referendum on it, a day after Mr Assad called a vote on the charter for February 26.
The United States dismissed the move as "laughable", but Russia, a major weapons supplier to Damascus, welcomed it.
The Local Coordination Committees, a main opposition activist group, called for a vote boycott, as well as stepped up efforts to topple Mr Assad.
"The draft constitution is no more than a political tool or a policy paper written by the barbaric regime," the LCC said. "We see no alternative but to topple the regime.
"The LCC calls upon our people to reject and boycott the alleged referendum to confirm the lack of public support for this criminal regime."
The National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, another opposition group, said it also planned to boycott the vote given the ongoing violence.
"It is impossible for us to take part in this referendum before a stop to the violence and killings," the head of the group, Hassan Abdel Azim, said.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/syria-crackdown-worsens-ahead-of-un-vote/story-e6frfku0-1226273355375#ixzz1mZbRErYn
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