Likely 'No' areas excluded from Iraq vote. posted by Richard Seymour

"There are no voting centers in cities like Haditha, Hit, Rawa, Qaim, Ana, Baghdadi and the villages around them," Mahmoud Salman al-Ani, a human rights activist in Ramadi, said on Friday, listing locations across western Anbar province.

"There aren't actually any voting centers or even voting sheets in these cities ... Nobody knows how and where to vote if they decide to," he said of the predominantly Sunni Arab region.

Sheik Rasheed Yousif al-Khishman told worshippers at Tikrit’s al-Raheem mosque to vote against the "infidel constitution written by foreign hands". Mosques throughout the town told people to cast "no" votes, and warned "anyone who does not go to the polls is not considered a Sunni".

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In Baghdad’s biggest Sunni neighborhood, Azamiyah, several hundred demonstrators marched towards the district’s biggest mosque, Abu Hanifa - a centre for the Iraqi Islamic Party - waving banners saying "No to the Constitution", and chanting slogans describing the party’s chief, Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, as a traitor.

Before dawn, someone threw a grenade at the house of the main cleric of the Abu Hanifa Mosque, Sheik Muayad al-Azami, but no one was hurt in the explosion. The night before, his son was threatened by Sunni opponents during prayers, al-Azami said.