Assad government compels state employees to say ’Yes for new term for Assad'

Assad government has planned to provide a petition to the international community saying; ‘’Yes for New Presidential Period for Bashar al-Assad in 2014,’’ sources revealed.

Syrian employees have no escape from signing the petition under threat of termination, activists said.

Ahmed Qassar (he used alias name),26, employee, said, ‘’If you don't sign the petition, you can’t get your salary,'' on the contrary, many colleagues used to exaggerate their loyalty to Assad despite their refugee families and hard life conditions within the war-wrecking  country.

Khaled Hamad, 36, Radio presenter, was fired from the State-television months ago over his support to rebels.

 Hamad who’s working now in grocery said he can’t blame any employee in the government if he boasted loyalty to Assad regime because he must buy bread to his children at the end of the day.

An estimated 126,000 people have been killed and millions displaced by Syria's civil war, which erupted after a fierce government crackdown on pro-democracy protests first held in March 2011

More than 2.5 million Syrians have fled their homes since the outbreak of civil war in March 2011, taking refuge in neighbouring countries or within Syria itself. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 600,000 have fled to immediate neighbours Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Yet the real number of Syrians refugees in these countries is much higher – perhaps double UNHCR statistics, which only record those officially registered as refugees.