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Women sit under a Syrian flag with a portrait of President Assad outside a polling station in Damascus on Sunday.
 
 AP PHOTO 
 

DAMASCUS, Syria &mdash; Syria&rsquo;s authoritarian regime held a referendum on a new constitution Sunday, a gesture by embattled President Bashar Assad to placate those seeking his ouster. But the opposition deemed it an empty gesture and the West immediately dismissed the vote as a &ldquo;sham.&rdquo;
Even as some cast ballots for what the government has tried to portray as reform, the military kept up shelling of the opposition stronghold of Homs, which has been under attack for more than three weeks after rebels took control of some neighborhoods there. Activists and residents report that hundreds have been killed in Homs in the past few weeks, including two Western journalists.
The Red Cross spokesman said the humanitarian group had been unable to enter the besieged Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr since Friday, describing the humanitarian needs there as &ldquo;very urgent.&rdquo;
Activist groups said at least 29 people were killed on Sunday, mostly in Homs. At least 89 were reported killed on Saturday alone, one day before the referendum. Activists estimate close to 7,500 people have been killed in the 11 months since the Assad regime&rsquo;s brutal crackdown on dissent began.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Sunday&rsquo;s vote &ldquo;a cynical ploy.&rdquo;
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a phony referendum, and it is going to be used by Assad to justify what he&rsquo;s doing to other Syrian citizens,&rdquo; she said in an interview with CBS News in Rabat, Morocco.
Clinton called on Syrians in business and the military who still support Assad to turn against him.
&ldquo;The longer you support the regime&rsquo;s campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honor,&rdquo; she said. Other countries also lambasted the vote.

West Calls Syrian Vote A ‘sham’