Posts from — August 2011

Arab Spring and repression continue from Rabat to Manama
Published on Thursday 4 August 2011 – Reporters Without Borders

While Bahrain and Saudi Arabia use mainly technical means (including satellite jamming and website blocking) to obstruct media freedom, Yemen and Syria continue to resort to violence. Blogger and reporters covering pro-democracy demonstrations have also been roughed up in Morocco.
BAHRAIN

Lualua TV, a satellite TV station launched by 15 members of the Bahraini opposition on 17 July in London, has been jammed since the first day despite changing frequency regularly. According to Eutelsat, the jamming is being orchestrated from Bahrain. Lualua TV wanted to broadcast from Bahrain but it was repeatedly denied permission. It is still managing to broadcast on the Hotbird satellite.

In a 24 July press release, the head of Lualua TV said: “A lot of hard work has gone into this channel and we are extremely disappointed that we have had trouble broadcasting our message. It comes as no surprise that the source of the jamming is Bahrain. It is as we had expected. We have followed all regulations in the creation of this station and we will not allow this setback to stop us from broadcasting permanently. We are hoping that the interference has now ended, but if it returns we will just have to find other ways to reinforce our message.”
SAUDI ARABIA

The Saudi authorities have been blocking access to the newspaper Al-Akhbar’s website because of its coverage of events in Bahrain, including the Saudi military intervention.

Amnesty International meanwhile reported on 26 July that its website was rendered inaccessible from within Saudi Arabia after it posted comments criticised a Saudi anti-terrorism bill that aims to reduce the impact on Saudi Arabia of the uprisings in other Arab countries (http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/9…).

Shelved in 2003, and revived in response to the wave of Arab revolts, the bill would allow the authorities to prosecute anyone suspected of criticising the king or the crown prince. Its deliberately vague wording would leave room for arbitrary interpretation, restricting free speech and media freedom even more in Saudi Arabia. Like many other international NGOs in recent days, Reporters Without Borders urges the Saudi authorities drop this bill, which would violate its international obligations.

Regarded by Reporters Without Borders as an “Enemy of the Internet,” Saudi Arabia is currently blocking more 1,200 websites (list: http://www.albayan.ae/24-hours/2011…) …more

White House Unveils Counter-Extremism Plan
by Dina Temple-Raston – August 3, 2011
see White House Plan HERE

The White House unveiled its strategy to counter radicalization today, ending months of speculation about how President Obama intends to tackle the problem of violent extremism in this country.

The eight-page unclassified paper, titled Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, has been more than a year in the making and marks the first time the U.S. has laid out a comprehensive strategy to counter violent extremism. Officials say it is a three-pronged approach that includes community engagement, better training, and counternarratives that make a case for why violent extremism is a dead end.

“This strategy is not so much about how we’re changing than having us lay down what we’ve been doing on a key issue,” said National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough in a briefing to a handful of reporters Wednesday morning.

The strategy acknowledges just how much the threat against the U.S. has changed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. When al-Qaida was sending operatives into the U.S., it made sense to rely on federal agencies to catch them at the border or arrest them as plots were discovered. But as terrorists groups have turned to American operatives who are already here, it makes sense to take the fight to the grass-roots level.

Truancy, for example, is a common indicator of kids getting mixed up with gangs. As it turns out, it is also a common indicator of kids who are falling prey to violent extremist rhetoric. The federal government can’t track missed school days very efficiently. A local high school clearly can. That’s why local communities are at the heart of the plan.

“Communities are best placed to recognize and confront the threat because violent extremists are targeting their children, families and neighbors,” the report reads. “Rather than blame particular communities, it is essential that we find ways to help them protect themselves.”

The White House envisions bringing together a roster of agencies and departments — from the Department of Education to the Labor Department and Energy Department — to provide local officials the tools they need to counter radicalization.

Traditionally, the Department of Justice or the FBI has taken the lead on outreach, and officials say they will continue to be involved. What has changed is the emphasis. Local agencies that have day-to-day interaction with at-risk communities are perfectly positioned: By addressing individual problems within the community they not only help residents, they also whittle down the list of grievances that might eventually lead to violent extremism. …more

The Obama Administration’s “Secret Law” to Spy on Americans
by Tom Burghardt – Global Research, July 31, 2011

During last spring’s run-up to the reauthorization of three expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) charged that the administration and the FBI was relying on a “secret” interpretation of law to vacuum-up exabytes of data, including cell phone location records and internet data mining that target Americans.

In March, a written statement to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security by Justice Department official Todd Hinnen confirmed that the administration had used Section 215, the so-called “business records” section of the Act “to obtain driver’s license records, hotel records, car rental records, apartment leasing records, credit card records, and the like.”

Further confirmation of Wyden’s charges came from an unlikely source: a White House nominee for a top counterterrorism position.

Last week Wired reported that Matthew Olsen, the administration’s pick to head the National Counterterrorism Center “acknowledged that ‘some of the pleadings and opinions related to the Patriot Act’ to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that approves snooping warrants ‘are classified’.”

If confirmed, Olsen will replace Michael E. Leiter, the Bushist embed who told the Senate last year during hearings into 2009’s aborted plot to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day: “I will tell you, that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another.”

What those reasons are for wanting a terrorist to board a packed airliner were not spelled out to Senate nor were they explored by corporate media. This raises an inevitable question: what else is the administration concealing from the American people?

White House Stonewall

Back in May, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department “demanding the release of a secret legal memo used to justify FBI access to Americans’ telephone records without any legal process or oversight.”

So far, the administration has refused to release the memos.

According to the civil liberties’ watchdogs, a report last year by the DOJ’s own Inspector General “revealed how the FBI, in defending its past violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), had come up with a new legal argument to justify secret, unchecked access to private telephone records.”

“The Obama administration,” The Washington Post reports, has continued “to resist the efforts of two Democratic senators to learn more about the government’s interpretation of domestic surveillance law, stating that ‘it is not reasonably possible’ to identify the number of Americans whose communications may have been monitored under the statute.”

In a letter to Wyden and Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), Kathleen Turner, the director of legislative affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), claimed that a “joint oversight team” has not uncovered evidence “of any intentional or willful attempts to violate or circumvent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA, which was amended in 2008.”

Turner went on to say that “with respect to FAA” [FISA Amendments Act of 2008, the statute that “legalized” Bushist surveillance programs and handed retroactive immunity to spying telecoms like AT&T], “you [Wyden] asked whether any significant interpretations of the FAA are currently classified. As you are aware, opinions of the FISA Court usually contain extensive discussions of particularly sources, methods and operations and are therefore classified.”

Throwing the onus back on political grifters in the House and Senate, Turner wrote: “Even though not publicly available, by law any opinion containing a significant legal interpretation is provided to the congressional intelligence committees.”

With circular logic Turner claims that because “FISA Court opinions are so closely tied to the facts of the application under review that they cannot be made public in any meaningful form without compromising the sensitive sources and methods at issue.”

At best, her statement is disingenuous. After all, it is precisely that secret interpretation of the law made by the White House Office of Legal Counsel that Wyden and others, including EFF, the Electronic Privacy Information Network (EPIC) and journalists are demanding the administration clarify.

Justice Department Shields NSA’s Private Partners

The FBI isn’t the only agency shielded by the Justice Department under cover of bogus “state secrets” assertions by the Obama administration.

On July 13, EPIC reported that a U.S. District Court Judge issued an opinion in their lawsuit (EPIC v. NSA), “and accepted the NSA’s claim” that it can “neither confirm nor deny” that the agency “had entered into a relationship with Google following the China hacking incident in January 2010.”

The privacy watchdogs sought documents under FOIA “because such an agreement could reveal that the NSA is developing technical standards that would enable greater surveillance of Internet users.”

According to EPIC, the administration’s “Glomar response” to “neither confirm nor deny” a covert relationship amongst giant media corporations such as Google and secret state agencies “is a controversial legal doctrine that allows agencies to conceal the existence of records that might otherwise be subject to public disclosure.”

This issue is hardly irrelevant to internet users. CNET News reported last week that “Google’s Street View cars collected the locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and other Wi-Fi devices around the world, a practice that raises novel privacy concerns.”

And given the government’s penchant to vacuum-up so-called “transactional data” without benefit of a warrant, would media giants such as Google, high-tech behemoths such as Apple or Microsoft, beholden to the federal government for regulatory perks, resist efforts by the feds demanding they cough-up users’ locational data?

Investigative journalist Declan McCullagh found that the cars “were supposed to collect the locations of Wi-Fi access points. But Google also recorded the street addresses and unique identifiers of computers and other devices using those wireless networks and then made the data publicly available through Google.com until a few weeks ago.”

According to CNET, “the French data protection authority, known as the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) recently contacted CNET and said its investigation confirmed that Street View cars collected these unique hardware IDs. In March, CNIL’s probe resulted in a fine of 100,000 euros, about $143,000.”

On Friday, CNET reported that Microsoft too, is in on the geolocation spy game. ..more

FBI Needs Constitutional Law 101, Not “Islam 101”
Posted by Robyn Greene, ACLU

Last week, Wired’s Spencer Ackerman reported on a FBI document released through an ACLU document request that the agency uses to train new recruits on best practices for “successful interviews/interrogations with individuals from the M.E. [Middle East].” As Ackerman concludes, the training document “presents much information that has nothing to do with crime and everything to do with constitutionally-protected religious practice and social behavior.”

The document was released to the ACLU of Northern California and the Asian Law Caucus as part of a nationwide ACLU initiative to uncover information about a new FBI “racial mapping” program. The program, which is authorized by a 2008 FBI manual, raises serious concerns about the FBI unfairly and unlawfully targeting American communities for investigation and surveillance based on race and ethnicity. We are concerned because biased FBI training can only lead to biased enforcement. And biased policing based on misinformation about race and religion violates American values and makes us less safe by drawing the focus away from credible threats.

To learn more, local ACLU affiliates filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with FBI field offices in 33 states and Washington, D.C. for information about how FBI agents around the county have been collecting and mapping racial and ethnic demographic information, the locations of ethnic-oriented businesses and facilities, and even track certain racial and ethnic “behaviors.” The FBI training document is among the hundreds of pages of documents that are beginning to be revealed through the information requests.

Unfortunately, rather than trim the overbroad authorities that allow the FBI to target intelligence collection efforts on nothing more than race, ethnicity and national origin, the FBI is trying to expand them. The FBI should refrain from monitoring people unless there is reasonable suspicion that they have committed a criminal act or are taking preparatory actions to do so. …source

Walking in the footsteps of Archbishop Romero
Web exclusive – by: James Dryburgh

David Rodriguez was a catholic priest. In the early eighties he took up arms and led guerrilla fighters during El Salvador’s 12-year civil war. Today he is a member of parliament. This is his story.

It’s dark now, as I begin chatting to David outside his home in Los Marranitos, a rural village in the Department of La Paz, El Salvador. The weekly community meeting held outside David’s house, which involves community-elected leaders from 14 villages in the area, has just finished. He has had a long day, but then he generally does. Parkinson’s Disease shakes his body as he sits down.

We have a couple of hours before David gets into a battered old Nissan and heads to San Salvador for tomorrow’s parliament. Our discussions are sporadically punctuated by mangos falling from the ancient tree which during the day provides welcome shade. The house is modest. It is adorned by a portrait of David with the FMLN flag and a large poster of El Salvador’s best known face, that of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

In March this year President Obama became the first US president to visit Romero’s tomb, which lies below the cathedral in San Salvador. David believes Romero was a prophet, and that in him, Jesus Christ crossed El Salvador. In the late seventies, whilst he was Archbishop of San Salvador, Romero stood against the brutal, US-backed repression of El Salvador’s poor majority. In 1980, after the order from senior government officials, he was assassinated by a death squad whilst giving Mass. The day before his death, he had these words for his country’s government and armed forces:

‘In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise up to Heaven more urgently with each day that passes, I beseech you, I beg you, I order you to stop the repression.’

His death marked the transition from social unrest and repression to the civil war that would last for the next 12 years and claim around 80,000 lives. Romero’s death and the massacre of mourners at his funeral had a profound effect on David, who was a priest at the time. ‘Romero was four things,’ David explains. ‘A Christian, a humanist, a Salvadoran, and a revolutionary.’ The same could be said of David Rodriguez.

The priest

David grew up in the village of Caldera, in El Salvador’s volcanic zone. His parents owned a sugar cane plantation and a mill for processing the sugar. He recalls a happy atmosphere where the workers were treated as part of the family and everyone ate their meals together. David’s father was very religious and a respected community leader. There was only a primary school in the village, so David’s father arranged for David to live in the church in town, to attend high school in the morning and church teachings in the afternoon.

David later went to Madrid to study an extremely conservative teaching of canonical law. ‘I was of the right, formed of the old school. I was one of the last of the Council of Trent.’ David tells me. ‘We used to give mass in Latin with our backs to the people.’ David became a priest and was soon posted to Tecoluca Church, in San Vicente, a region of coffee and cotton plantations. This immersion in the rural realities of his country began to trouble him. He saw first-hand the ‘hunger wages’ and the abuse of peasant workers. He saw communities denied access to their rivers and land, and, when the élite offered money to his church in return for turning a blind eye, he saw how power buys silence.

This immersion in the rural realities of his country began to trouble him. He saw first-hand the ‘hunger wages’ and the abuse of peasant workers

‘I began seeing the problems without connecting the causes,’ David confesses. ‘But then I saw the aerial fumigation of the cotton fields. It killed the fish in the rivers, the domestic animals, polluted the wells and made people very sick. This was the reality.’ For David, it was this experience that created ‘an internal crisis’ between his religious conservative teaching and the realities flooding his eyes and ears.

In 1969, with this conflict in his mind, David went to a seminar with priests from all over Latin America to analyse the Vatican and discuss the theology of liberation. Suddenly he realized his crisis was the crisis of many. The priests discussed the causes and ‘began to discover reality’.

A movement began with priests meeting each month for discussions and beginning to do ‘real community work’. Traditional Mass continued, but for those who wanted to stay behind afterwards, there was a deeper analysis of the teachings of the church, known as ‘Bible Circles’.

Some priests, including David, began to denounce injustice, but soon the horror intensified. A massacre of peasants took place near Tecoluca. As David tells me that priests had to become revolutionaries, I wonder how this could be reconciled with the teachings of the Church. As if reading my thoughts, David explains, ‘I began to have a new vision of the Bible. The Bible has a lot of revolutionary chapters. I began to think that the more Christian you are, the more revolutionary you are, and vice versa.’ A few years after this realization, Romero was killed and David joined the guerrillas. ‘We priests were like sheep without a shepherd,’ he reflects.

The revolutionary

A very emotional meeting of the country’s priests took place after Romero’s funeral and caused them to split into three groups. One group, which included David’s brother, decided to leave the country. The second group decided to stay in El Salvador, but to ignore reality and simply teach from the Bible as they always had, and the third group decided to stay and support the struggle of the guerrillas.

‘I began to have a new vision of the Bible. The Bible has a lot of revolutionary chapters. I began to think that the more Christian you are, the more revolutionary you are, and vice versa’

Initially, David was providing Mass for guerrillas, marrying people and helping to hide them, but as the war grew, passivity was no longer an option. In 1981, David was named boss of a militia that had the task of trying to take a strategic barracks near the national treasury buildings in the capital, San Salvador. This was the first of many major roles for David during the 12-year war.

After the peace accords of 1992, David felt lost coming down from the mountain camps. He had no family left in the country and had lost many friends. He went to see the new archbishop, hoping to rejoin the church. He was told that if he left the country for three years, did not speak of events in El Salvador and gave a public apology and statement of regret for what he had done, he could become an unofficial helper at a church, but never again a priest. ‘But what I did, I did with consciousness and thought, and I do not regret it,’ declares David.

The politician

As part of the peace process people were offered land and grants. With the support of his friend Jose Luis, who is still his neighbour in Los Marranitos, David took a small grant to rear cows. In 1997, David ran as a parliamentary candidate for the FMLN in the La Paz region. He was elected and still holds this post today.

The Archbishop saw David entering politics as dangerous for the Church and sent an excommunication request to Rome. The request complained that David, ‘adapted the Bible to fit reality’.

Though David is technically forbidden to enter a church or celebrate Mass, he would like the Catholic Church to recognize his marriage and let him use his vocation for communicating with people again. He believes the Church has double standards, and remarks, ‘the old apostles were married and free to express themselves’.

His religious beliefs inform his political views: he argues that Christian principles are socialist in nature. ‘Sometimes the concept we have is of the Soviet Union, but these are models, and I disagree with these models. The State should not own and control everything, people have to own things.’

‘Our country is like a sick body; when it has worms in the stomach, the food is not getting to all parts of the body’

David compares humanity to the human body. If a body is healthy it distributes food to every part: even the toe nails get some nutrients, not just the heart and brain. ‘Our country is like a sick body; when it has worms in the stomach, the food is not getting to all parts of the body.’ He calls this ‘radical capitalism’ and claims that a country has to produce laws to control the distribution of wealth.

David explains his four political priorities for a healthy body. ‘We need to make State institutions work for poor people, combat corruption by organizing people to tackle it together, make complying with our constitution part of our culture and, finally, reactivate our agriculture.’

David is acutely aware of the problems facing his country, and of their complexity. Unlike many politicians, he does not lead a life sheltered from everyday people and everyday struggle.

It’s now 9.30pm and we’ve survived the falling mangos. David hugs me before getting into his car and starting the long drive back to San Salvador. He’ll drive through his beloved country that so often looks as though the war ended only yesterday.

‘If I am killed, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people,’ said Romero, just days before he was murdered. Like Romero, David has devoted and risked his life to help El Salvador’s poor, defending the message of equality and hope. The journey has lost David his pulpit, but not his passion.

James Dryburgh is a Scottish-born Tasmanian writer passionate about truth and helping the world’s muffled voices to be heard. He has lived in Scotland, Spain and Latin America and is Associate Editor of tasmaniantimes.com …source

Bahrain: MSF condemns armed raid on its offices
Doctors without Borders/MSF – Aug 03, 2011 06:00 EDT

The international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières MSF (Doctors Without Borders) today condemned an armed raid on its premises in Bahrain and the subsequent detention of one of its staff members.

On 28th July, armed security personnel violently raided MSF’s premises in Manama, damaging office property and confiscating all medical and office equipment and supplies. A Bahraini MSF volunteer, Saeed Mahdi, who works with the organisation as a translator and driver, was arrested.

Since February, when demonstrations began in Bahrain, MSF has seen almost 200 injured and ill patients who did not seek care in health facilities because they feared being arrested for any involvement in the protests or for any affiliation with the protestors.

The MSF team has seen patients in villages across the country who have refused urgently needed hospitalisation due to the high risk of arrest, and others who were severely beaten in jail.
Violation of MSF facilities

“MSF has been transparent about its work and its intentions with the authorities in the country, including the Ministries of Health and Interior,” said Jerome Oberreit, MSF director of operations in Brussels. “As such, we find the violation of MSF facilities and the detention of our volunteer both unwarranted and unacceptable.”

Last week, a patient with a serious head injury arrived at the MSF premises. An MSF doctor provided first aid and an ambulance was called to transport the patient to the Salmaniya Medical Complex. It is MSF’s obligation to provide treatment regardless of a patient’s ethnicity, religion, or political affiliation.

Despite only assisting MSF and a patient by calling an ambulance, Saeed Mahdi remains detained. Repeated requests by MSF, his family, and his lawyer to have access to him have been denied. MSF has also not been able to obtain any information about the original patient, even after visiting Salmaniya to inquire about him.
Neutral medical humanitarian organisation

Though MSF had been open about its work in the kingdom over the past several months, these events constitute a breach of the sanctity of an office maintained by a neutral medical humanitarian organisation, and a violation of the rights of a patient to receive medical care. MSF has a raised its concerns following these incidences in a letter to the Bahrain Ministry of the Interior.

In March, MSF proposed establishing an emergency medical response in Bahrain, whereby MSF teams would provide first aid and accompany patients to health facilities to ensure that care is not obstructed or used as bait, that patients regain trust in health services, and that health workers are again able to conduct their duties impartially and without fear of reprisal. To this day, however, MSF has not been able to secure guarantees that patients would not be targeted.

It now appears that in Bahrain today, acting within the common boundaries of the duty of care principle – in this case, providing first aid and calling an ambulance for a critically ill person – is no longer possible without negative repercussions on MSF’s ability to work in the country

MSF calls on the Bahraini authorities to respect the integrity, security, and privacy of its premises and personnel, and to allow the lawyer and family of its detained staff immediate access to him. …source

Amnesty International: Bahrain: Imprisoned activists on hunger strike
3 August 2011

Two Bahraini women activists detained for their involvement in pro-reform protests have begun a hunger strike to demand their freedom.

Roula al-Saffar, head of the Bahrain Nursing Society, and Jalila al-Salman, vice-president of the Bahrain Teacher’s Association (BTA), have been held for several months near the capital Manama. Both women allege they were tortured in detention.

“Jalila al-Salman and Roula al-Saffar’s decision to go on hunger strike is a desperate attempt to protest against their imprisonment and the way they have been treated,” said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“Amnesty International is concerned that they are being held solely because they took part in protests, in which case they would both be prisoners of conscience who should be released immediately and unconditionally.”

They are the only two women in Bahrain awaiting trial in connection with the protests who remain in prison. They currently share a cell at a detention centre in ‘Issa Town, south of Manama. Other women protesters are also awaiting trial, but have been released on bail.

Jalila al-Salman was among several board members of the BTA arrested in Manama after the group called for a teachers’ strike amid wide-scale pro-reform protests in March.

Roula al-Saffar was among a group of health professionals accused of committing felonies during the protests, including theft of medicines. The group strongly denies the accusation.

Jalila al-Salman was allegedly beaten during the first days of detention while Roula al-Saffar has said she was subjected to beatings, electric shocks and verbal abuse during the first 11 days of her detention.

“The Bahraini authorities must fully investigate these reports of torture without further delay, particularly because they appear to be part of a disturbingly widespread pattern of ill-treatment against protesters in detention,” said Philip Luther.

Jalila al-Salman faces trial on charges that include “inciting hatred against the regime” and “calling to overthrow and change the regime by force”.

Amnesty International has been told that the two women have gone on hunger strike to protest about the fact that they still remain in prison, while others have been released on bail, as well as the torture they say they were subjected to in detention.

At least 500 people have been detained in Bahrain since pro-reform protests began in February and four have died in suspicious circumstances in detention. Almost 2,000 people have been dismissed or suspended from work.

Scores of detainees, including medical professionals and prominent opposition activists, were brought before military courts for leading the protests and in some cases calling for a change of government.

…source

Bahrain probes abuse after tear gas kills man
The Bahraini government starts investigations after a 60 year-old citizen from Sitra, Bahrain dies from the inhalation of tear gas – Reuters , Tuesday 2 Aug 2011

A Bahraini man died this week from tear gas inhaled during security operations in a Shi’ite Muslim village, rights activists said on Tuesday, and the government said some police were under investigation for “exceeding their authority”.

Small scale protests and clashes with security forces take place on an almost daily basis in areas where the majority Shi’ite population live after the Sunni-dominated government crushed a pro-democracy movement earlier this year.

Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said Isa al-Taweel, 60, died on Sunday after two weeks in hospital from the effects of tear gas fired by security forces in the town of Sitra. He told Reuters that Taweel, who was buried on Monday, had been inside his home at the time.

An Interior Ministry spokesman was not available for comment.

Around 30 people were killed during the protests and ensuing crackdown, including four policeman and four detainees who were in police custody.

Saudi and United Arab Emirates troops helped Bahrain stamp out protests it says were driven by Shi’ite sectarian motivations and instigated with non-Arab Shi’ite power Iran. Opposition groups deny this.

A commission of international experts has been tasked by the government to investigate the violence and charges of rights abuses during over two months of martial law that ended in May.

The government says torture is not systematic and action will be taken against anyone guilty of abuses.

An Interior Ministry statement carried by the official BNA news agency on Tuesday said some policemen were under investigation for what appeared to be potential rights abuses.

“An officer and a number of general security personnel at Budaya police station have been transferred for questioning for going beyond the authority granted them by the law,” it said. “Security forces adhere to the law and abide by human rights and good behaviour with all citizens.”

Rajab said the announcement arose out of a visit by the rights commission to Budaya police station earlier this week where teenagers were being held in detention.

“It’s not that the government changed its attitude, it’s that they were caught red-handed,” he said. The commission is due to present its findings to King Hamad in October. …source

Russia reaches out to Iran
By M K Bhadrakumar – Asia Times- 4 August, 2011

A recurring feature of the Russian-Iranian relationship is that it mostly languishes on the horizon but can be trusted to move to the center stage whenever there is a criticality in the Middle East situation. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi made a point recently in an interview with the Russian media when he described Iran as the “most significant neighbor” of Russia, which stands in the way of the Western strategy to encircle Russia.

The message was unmistakable: “You need us more than we need you.’ To be sure, Russian-Iranian relationship is tiptoeing to the center stage. The steady erosion of the “reset” in the ties between the United States and Russia provides the big backdrop.

Meanwhile, the US-Iran standoff has aggravated lately, calibrated largely by the Jewish lobby in America, which exploits the overall
drift in the Barack Obama administration. Other templates are also appearing which draw Moscow and Tehran together – the US’s missile defense program, the Turkish question, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Against this backdrop, Moscow has hurriedly scheduled an intensive strategic dialogue with Tehran during the coming fortnight. Russian National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev is heading for Tehran next weekend and immediately thereafter Salehi is paying an official visit to Moscow.

It appears that ignoring the US-Israeli protestations, Tehran and Moscow are finally going ahead with the formal commissioning of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran built by Russia, drawing to a close a 13-year saga dripping with the geopolitics of the Middle East.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the agenda of the consultations with Patrushev will include the Iran nuclear issue. Tehran has lately warmed to the Russian proposal for a “phased” approach to resolve the impasse over the nuclear impasse whereby there could be an easing of sanctions in a staged schedule in lieu of steps by Iran to address the international concerns and the unresolved issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Russians are moving on this front on the basis of prior consultations with Washington.

The expectation seems to be that if positive impulses can be generated during Patrushev’s consultations in Tehran, follow-up talks during Salehi’s visit to Moscow could generate momentum for breaking the deadlock on the nuclear issue. Significantly, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will be attending the United Nations general assembly session in September in New York.

The Israeli propaganda of a schism within the Iranian regime stands exposed. Tehran’s decision to engage Russia on the nuclear issue carries the imprimatur of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (So indeed, Ahmadinejad’s choice of the former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Rostam Qasemi as Iran’s new oil minister.) …more

FBI/CIA Tried to Get American Lawyer to Betray Arab and Muslim Clients
Contributed by blackandred on Mon, 2011/08/01 – 10:50am
By Sherwood Ross; August 01, 2011 – Znet

Federal agents from the FBI and CIA/FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force tried to get a distinguished international lawyer to inform on his Arab and Muslim clients in violation of their Constitutional rights to attorney-client privilege, this reporter has learned. When the lawyer refused, he said the FBI placed him on a “terrorist watch list.”

Law professor Francis Boyle gave a chilling account of how, in the summer of 2004, two agents showed up at his office (at the University of Illinois-Champaign) “unannounced, misrepresented who they were and what they were about to my secretary, gained access to my office, interrogated me for about one hour, and repeatedly tried to get me to become their informant on my Arab and Muslim clients.”

“This would have violated their (clients) Constitutional rights and my ethical obligations as an Attorney,” Boyle explained. “I refused. So they put me on all of the United States government’s ‘terrorist watch’ lists.”

Boyle said his own lawyer found “there are about five or six different terrorist watch lists, and as far as he could determine, I am on all of them.” Despite a legal appeal to get his name removed, Boyle said, “I will remain on all of these terrorist watch lists for the rest of my life or until the two Agencies who put me on their remove my name, which is highly unlikely.”

“Whatever people might think about lawyers, we are the canary-birds of democracy. When the government goes after your lawyer, soon they will be going after you,” Boyle warned. “Indeed,” he added, “the government goes after your lawyer in order to get to you, which is what happened to me. This is what the so-called ‘war against terrorism’ is really all about. It is a war against the United States Constitution.”

Boyle is a leading American professor and practitioner of international law. He holds doctorates in both law (cum laude) and Political Science from Harvard and has more than two decades of experience representing pacifist anti-war resisters, suspects in the so-called “War on Terror” and foreign governments such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is the author of numerous books, including Protesting Power, (Rowman & Littlefield), Biowarfare and Terrorism,(Clarity) and Destroying World Order (Clarity). …more

Bahrain reform proposals fail to win over opposition
28-July, 2011 – World Bulletin

Bahrain published details on Thursday of proposals for the Gulf monarchy’s parliament to have a greater say in decision-making.

Proposals for a stronger lower house of parliament in Bahrain after the suppression of pro-democracy unrest give it more powers of scrutiny but not to pass legislation, preserving the dominance of an upper house appointed by the royal elite.

Bahrain’s National Dialogue, a state body appointed to address grievances after martial law was rescinded in May, published details on Thursday of proposals for the Gulf monarchy’s parliament to have a greater say in decision-making.

But opposition figures voiced dissatisfaction with the results and critics said they would carry little weight because the country’s largest Shi’ite opposition group, Wefaq, walked out of the process last week.

The official BNA news agency said earlier this week that the final session of the dialogue had proposed expanding the powers of the elected parliament but gave no information on greater legislative and monitoring powers sought by the opposition.

The details show agreement on a greater degree of oversight of government by the elected body but no progress towards resolving the key dispute over balance of power.

“They did not agree on whether the Shura Council (upper house) should be granted the same powers as the parliament, and whether the responsibility for lawmaking and oversight should be restricted to the elected chamber,” the summary sent to Reuters by the National Dialogue body said.

“Delegates did not reach consensus on a number of further suggestions, such as limiting the term for ministers and head of government or a fixed quota for women in parliament.”

The appointed upper house has just as many seats as the elected lower house and dominates the legislative process.

“Impasse over upper house’s dominance”

Wefaq spokesman Khalil al-Marzouq said he expected the proposals would be approved by the king later on Thursday amid media fanfare even though they failed to address most Bahrainis desire for a parliament not hamstrung by the upper assembly.

“The reason we pulled out is because of this. The upper house should only be there for consultation,” he said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman, in his post for 40 years, is regarded as a leading hawk within the ruling family who opposes concessions to the opposition.

The summary said the prime minister, appointed by King Hamad bin Isa, would have to secure the approval of parliament for members of his government.

“If MPs disapprove they can vote to reject the entire government. Parliament will also have the power to reject the government’s four-year work plan,” it said. “These reforms guarantee that the government’s composition and work plan will reflect the will of the people.”

It also said cabinet ministers would have to attend some parliament sessions and face questioning in the open chamber rather than within the framework of committees.

“Overall, these decisions reinforce the parliament’s powers of scrutiny over the activities of the government,” it said.

The proposals would create a similar system to Kuwait, where the cabinet is formed by a premier appointed by the emir of the ruling Al Sabah family rather than the elected parliament. Kuwait’s parliament often makes use of its right to call ministers for questioning, frequently paralysing the assembly. Kuwait’s parliament is not hamstrung by an appointed chamber.

The summary said the dialogue had agreed there are problems with Bahrain’s electoral system but did not agree on how to solve it. Opposition groups say constituencies are designed to water down Shi’ite demographic strength.

“The debate centred on equal representation of the population. Critics of the current system argued that the geographical distribution of constituencies did not reflect the demographics of Bahrain,” it said.

“Others defended the current arrangement, noting that smaller constituencies allow MPs better familiarity with their community. They feared that reducing the number of constituencies would create sectarian quotas in parliament, leading to political crisis.”

Bahrain has tried to address international criticism, including from its long-time ally the United States, of a harsh security crackdown that followed the breakup of the protests. …source

Reuters

Proposed Saudi Arabia “Anti-Terror” Law Would Crush Peaceful Dissent and Protest, Says Amnesty International
Human Rights Organization Obtained Copies of Top Secret Draft Law

This link takes you to the draft law (in Arabic): draft law
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, 212-633-4150, strimel@aiusa.org

Human Rights Watch English Summation HERE

(New York) – Amnesty International has obtained copies of a secret draft Saudi Arabian anti-terrorism law that would allow the authorities to prosecute peaceful dissent with harsh penalties as “terrorist crime.” Under the draft law, the definition of terrorist crimes is so broad that legitimate dissent would, in effect, be criminalized.

The organization obtained copies of the “Draft Penal Law for Terrorism Crimes and Financing of Terrorism,” which would also allow extended detention without charge or trial. Questioning the integrity of the King or the Crown Prince would carry a minimum prison sentence of 10 years.

The leak of the draft comes as ongoing peaceful protests across the Middle East and North Africa are being met with government repression.

“This draft law poses a serious threat to freedom of expression in the Kingdom in the name of preventing terrorism,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s deputy director, Middle East and North Africa program. “If passed it would pave the way for even the smallest acts of peaceful dissent to be branded terrorism and risk massive human rights violations.”

“At a time when people throughout the Middle East and North Africa have been exercising their legitimate right to express dissent and call for change, Saudi Arabian authorities have been seeking to squash this right for its citizens,” said Luther.

A Saudi Arabian government security committee reviewed the draft law in June but it is not known when or if it might be adopted.

The definition of “terrorist crimes” in the draft is so broad that it lends itself to wide interpretation and abuse, and would in effect criminalize legitimate dissent.

Under the draft law, terrorist crimes would include such actions as “endangering…national unity”, “halting the basic law or some of its articles”, or “harming the reputation of the state or its position”.

Violations of the law would carry harsh punishments. The death penalty would be applied to cases of taking up arms against the state or for any “terrorist crimes” that result in death.

A number of other key provisions in the draft law run counter to Saudi Arabia’s international legal obligations, including those under the United Nation Convention against Torture.

The draft law allows for suspects to be held in incommunicado detention for up to 120 days, or for longer periods – potentially indefinitely – if authorized by a specialized court.

Incommunicado detention facilitates torture or other ill-treatment and prolonged detention of that nature can itself amount to torture.

Detainees in incommunicado detention are also, by definition, denied access to a lawyer during their investigation.

The draft law allows for arbitrary detention: it denies detainees the right to be promptly brought before a judge, and to be released or tried within a reasonable time. It gives the specialized court the power to detain without charge or trial for up to a year, and to extend such detention indefinitely. Detainees are not given a means to challenge the lawfulness of their detention in front of a court.

It also fails to include a clear prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment.

The draft law gives wide-ranging powers to the Minister of the Interior “to take the necessary actions to protect internal security from any terrorist threat.” It does not allow for judicial authorization or oversight of these actions.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with 3 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied. …more

As Ramadan Begins, Arab Militaries Strike Back
Posted by: Geoffrey Mock, August 1, 2011 at 3:43 PM

“While they were hitting me I told them I’m pregnant, they shouted: who’s the father, then hit my stomach with his stick”
– Egyptian woman in Tahrir Square Aug. 1.

This was a weekend Arab armies struck back. In Syria, tanks attacked protesters in Hama, killing at least 100 according to Amnesty International reports. The military was back in action Monday as well.

In Egypt, reports are coming in from Egypt that the military is clearing out activists from Tahrir Square after more than a week of protests calling for a faster pace of reform. All morning reports from Tahrir Square painted a picture of mobs of people picking out protesters, surrounding them, provoking scuffles and then turning the activists over to soldiers nearby.

Unlike in Syria, the violence doesn’t appear to involve shooting, and no deaths have been reported, but there have been reportedly large number of arrests and social media was reporting eyewitness accounts of several injuries.

“Army took someone’s phone and smashed it. ‘by what law are you taking my phone?’ she asked. ‘by my law’ he screamed,” tweeted one Egyptian woman.

All this occurred on the first day of Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month. And it is extremely depressing.

The “But” here may not seem promising, but it’s worth noting: Nothing that occurred this weekend (including strange news about divisions among Libyan rebels) should undermine hope about the direction of the uprisings throughout the Arab and Middle East world. Progress was never going to be linear or quick, and the overreaching arc of the movement still leans toward justice. The fact that thousands are still bravely putting their lives on the lines in the streets of Egypt and Syria point to the fact that the people are not going home anytime soon.

Which means they need our support. Two new Amnesty International actions are meant to show solidarity with the activists as well as take creative steps toward helping real change.

In Syria, an Amnesty International online petition drive is pressing the rising powers of Brazil, India and South Africa to show they will use their new international influence for human rights by pressing the UN Security Council to take action against the violence of the Assad regime. You can add your voice here.

In Egypt, a new action focuses on the key role Egyptian women played in the uprising and concerns that they are now being marginalized. The action calls for specific and concrete steps to ensure women’s full political participation and their guarantees for their economic, social and political rights. You can take the action here. …more

German Party Sues Government on Saudi Tank Deal
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE – Published: 1 Aug 2011 08:02

BERLIN – Germany’s opposition Green party is taking the government to court over a reported secret deal to sell hundreds of tanks to Saudi Arabia, a party spokeswoman said Aug. 1.

“A suit brought by the members of parliament Christian Stroebele, Claudia Roth and Katja Keul was filed on Friday” with the Constitutional Court, the spokeswoman added.

The Greens, who oppose the reported deal, have asked the court to rule on whether the government is entitled to grant an export license for the tanks without informing parliament.

Press reports recently suggested that Saudi Arabia would be buying 200 Leopard-2s, Germany’s main battle tank, which is also produced under license in Spain, for a multibillion-euro sum.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government have refused to comment on the reports, saying such matters are confidential and decided by the federal security council, a panel that rules on arms exports and is chaired by the chancellor.

“Deliberation and decisions by the federal security council are secret for good reason,” Merkel has told the press.

For decades, Germany has declined to sell such heavy weapons to Saudi Arabia because of concerns over human rights and fears for Israel’s security.

Opposition politicians and even some members of Merkel’s ruling center-right coalition have slammed the reported tank sale, particularly in light of pro-democracy uprisings throughout the Middle East. …source

A Saudi beacon for Iraq’s Sunni militias
27 Juyl, 2011 – By Brian M Downing – Asia Times

Iraq is less violent and more stable than it was at the height of the insurgency, but it is still plagued by bombings and sectarian tensions. In recent weeks, Shi’ite militias have been attacking United States troops – perhaps on the direction of Iran, perhaps simply to take claim for their departure scheduled for the end of this year.

Sunni forces have been at work as well, targeting Shi’ite marketplaces and security personnel. Sunni militancy is no longer the diffuse anti-US insurgency it was after the fall of Baghdad, nor is it held in check any longer by benefits that the US surge once bestowed upon it.

Over the past year or two, the Sunni resistance has demonstrated considerable discipline and control in attacking Shi’ite targets and, most remarkably and puzzlingly, in not attacking US personnel. For an answer to this puzzle one might look next door to Saudi Arabia.

The Sunni insurgency, 2003-2007
In the four years between the fall of Baghdad and the success of the surge, various groups fought the Western forces. The Shi’ite militias were led by a handful of indigenous leaders and supported by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Leadership in the Sunni movement, however, was less concentrated. It was based on a confused array of former army officers, tribal chieftains, Ba’ath party figures, religious authorities, local power holders, and al-Qaeda lieutenants.

The rank and file came from former soldiers angered by the US’s demobilization of the army, Salafist faithful who opposed the Western presence, foreign fighters from across the Middle East, and tribal youth seeking pay and adventure when elders lost the revenue and patronage system that Saddam Hussein had given them. All found a cause and steady pay.

Most fighters were undisciplined, and the insurgency showed it. Attacks demonstrated little knowledge of small-unit tactics and US troops often described Sunni fighters as no more than armed gangs. Coordination among rival Sunni groups was limited to sharing bomb-making skills and some supplies, though some tactical coordination emerged.

The Sunni insurgency was funded by Ba’ath party caches secreted about the country, wealthy contractors who had benefited from the old regime, and foreign sources in the Sunni Arab world. The money of the Ba’ath party and the contractors are thought to be long gone.

The Sunni opposition today
Most of the conditions that brought the old insurgency are still in existence. The Sunnis endure loss of privilege and status as the regimes they dominated since the 1920s are gone. Salafism remains strong and indeed it has strengthened as Sunnis turn to austere religion to explain their defeats and offer answers.

Perhaps most significantly, young men from the tribes have lost the jobs that Saddam’s state and later the US surge had given them. The Shi’ite state ended these support systems and many young men are once again available – or they are supported through clandestine revenues from abroad. …more

Germany Arms Saudis Against Iran
July 26, 2011 |Julio Godoy

HAVANA TIMES, July 26 (IPS) — Germany’s delivery of armored tanks to Saudi Arabia is not aimed at repressing local or regional popular uprisings, but to improve Saudi military capabilities in a likely war against Iran, diplomatic and military experts say.

The German government’s decision to deliver 200 state-of-the-art Leopard 2 armored tanks to the Saudi monarchy – a deal estimated at 1.8 billion Euros – has triggered a wave of criticism by opposition leaders, commentators, the church and human rights groups.

Despite this criticism, the German government has defended the delivery of the tanks to Saudi Arabia, arguing that the Saudi monarchy, albeit a despotic regime, is “a pillar of stability” in the Middle East.

The German government also cites lack of U.S. or Israeli opposition, as justification for the deal with Saudi Arabia.

Contrary to the apprehension expressed by opposition leaders, commentators, and human rights groups, diplomatic and military experts believe that the Saudi regime will not use the German tanks to repress local popular uprisings demanding democratic reforms, but to eventually wage a war against Iran.

“To repress domestic enemies, the Saudis can use better suited equipment, including some 2,000 armored troops transport vehicles,” said Josef Joffe, publisher of the weekly newspaper ‘Die Zeit’.

Joffe is considered one of the most outspoken defenders among German media of the U.S.-Western European military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He also has links to the U.S. and to the Israeli governments.

By delivering the Leopard 2 tanks to Saudi Arabia, Joffe added, “Germany, together with the U.S.A. and Israel, is sending a message to the region, specifically to Iran: Here is more [military] deterrence. This argument should not be sneezed at.”

Joffe recalled that Germany recently delivered similar military equipment to other Arab governments. “In 2009, Germany delivered 36 Leopard 2 tanks to Qatar,” he said.

Additionally, the German army, the Bundeswehr, has admitted to carrying out military exercises in the United Arab Emirates to test the Leopard 2 tanks capabilities in the desert. The tests were apparently satisfactory.

Other Western governments – especially the U.S., Britain, and France – have for decades helped the Saudis to improve their arsenals.

Avi Primor, former Israeli ambassador to Berlin, and current president of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Association, agreed with Joffe. “Saudi Arabia uses other military equipment better suited to combat domestic popular uprisings,” Primor said.

In their recent intervention in Bahrain to help the repress the popular protests against the al-Khalifa family regime, the Saudis used light AMX armored tanks and not the heavier M1A2 Abrams tanks, of U.S. manufacture, Primor explained.

The Leopard 2 tanks are addressed to Iran specifically, Primor said.

Primor recalled that officially, Saudi Arabia is still at war with Israel. “But Israel and Saudi Arabia have a common enemy, Iran,” he said. “The Saudis consider Iran the most dangerous threat.”

Similarly, he added, “Israel has an urgent interest to strengthen the Saudi military capabilities, as a fortification against the Iranian danger, and as a stable power in the now unsecure Arab world.”

However, Primor said that the critique of human rights groups against the delivery of military equipment to Saudi Arabia is “understandable”. “The Saudi regime is quite archaic,” he said.

Despite such arguments, criticism of the tank exports is not going to end soon. Reinhold Robbe, until last year parliamentary commissioner for the German army, said that Saudi Arabia “is surely not a country that can stand up to the western standards of democracy and human rights.”

Such standards should be the guideline of German foreign policy, including military aid, Robbe said.

The Catholic Church also criticized the deal. “Germany should not deliver weapons in regions in military crisis, or to regimes that violate human rights,” said Bishop Stephan Ackerman, head of the church commission ‘Justitia et Pax’.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called the Saudi human rights record “dismal”, and emphasized that the regime is one of very few countries in the Arab region whose government has offered no human rights reforms in the wake of the popular uprisings spreading through neighboring countries since the beginning of the year.

“The sight of Saudi tanks rolling into Bahrain signaled the start of Bahrain’s crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protesters there,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Saudi Arabia researcher at HRW. “Saudi reformers may well interpret selling tanks to Saudi Arabia at this time as German support for repressive regimes.”

But the German government is turning a deaf ear to such criticism. Instead, it has been offering military equipment to other regimes with similar human rights records.

During a recent trip to Angola in mid-July, German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered the government of Jose Eduardo Dos Santos patrol boats and other military equipment.

It is not clear as yet, whether the boats will be delivered to Angola, but commentators are aghast that Merkel ignored the wave of criticism caused by the delivery of the Leopard 2 tanks to Saudi Arabia and instead acted as “a sales manager for the military industry”, said Claudia Roth, president of the opposition Green party here.

For Thorsten Denkler, foreign policy analyst for the daily newspaper ‘Die Sueddeutsche Zeitung’, “Merkel’s sensors seem to be failing.” Angola, Denkler added, “is one of the most corrupt regimes of the world, where even the constitution cements the one party system.”

Denkler also recalled that Amnesty International repeatedly condemns the human rights violations in the South West African country.

Denkler complained that Merkel’s appeals for a real political understanding of military exports ignores the basic moral prerequisites of foreign policy. “It is not that Germany should not export weapons,” Denkler said. “But such exports should only occur towards states where democracy and the rule of law are guaranteed.” …source

Fired Bahraini workers demand jobs
shiapost | August 1, 2011

Hundreds of workers in Bahrain have assembled outside the Ministry of Labor, demanding the government reinstate all unlawfully dismissed workers.

The recently-fired workers, who have been sacked for taking part in anti-regime demonstrations, gathered in front of the ministry in the Bahraini capital, Manama, on Monday, Press TV reports.

The Bahraini government and state-linked firms have fired more than two thousand workers since late March, according to Human Rights Watch.

Meanwhile, people in the southern Bahraini city of Sitra held a funeral service for a protester who was killed on Sunday when regime troops fired tear gas to disperse anti-government demonstrators.

On Monday, Saudi-backed security forces in Bahrain abducted a teenager from his home and tortured him for two hours.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed military forces to Bahrain in mid-March to assist the Manama government in its brutal crackdown on the popular protests.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds more arrested in Bahrain since mid-February. Numerous protesters have also been detained and transferred to unknown locations during the brutal onslaught on protesters.

Amnesty International has condemned the brutal crackdown on peaceful protests and detention of Bahraini protesters. …source

Ebrahim Sharif’s account of his arrest, torture, and a visit by the National Institute of Human Rights (translated)
By freeebrahimsharif more on FREE Ebrahim Sharif

The following three articles were written by Ebrahim Sharif (originally in Arabic, translated by his family) from inside Grain Prison, concerning his arrest, torture, and the visit of the National Institute of Human Rights.

The Arrest of Ebrahim Sharif
By Ebrahim Sharif

Arrest:

The arrest took place around 1:45 AM on the morning of Thursday, March 17th, 2011 when the doorbell rang. I went outside with my wife and found a group of masked investigators in addition to armed and masked policemen. They were accompanied by a National Security officer who was unarmed and dressed in civilian clothing. The officer asked me to open the front gate of the garden, and I asked him if he had an arrest warrant. He answered by saying no arrest warrant is required in the case of “National Security”. I opened the door and was arrested and placed in a civilian car where I was handcuffed and blindfolded. My house was not searched. Three people witnessed my arrest: My wife, Farida Ghulam, my neighbour, Mohammed Al Zeera, and his wife, Aisha Ghuloom. The car arrived at a building where I was taken to a room for a medical check up, after which some pictures of me were taken. I was blindfolded during the entire process except during the photographic session.

Next, I was taken out of the building, where my blindfolds were suddenly removed and I found myself surrounded by many masked men that pushed me around and cursed at me with swears such as “Your mother’s pussy”, “bastard”, and other degrading swear words. I was then blindfolded again and put into a van with other people, including Mr. Hassan Mushaima, who I recognized when I heard the security men call his name as they placed him into the van.

We later arrived to “Grein” prison at around 5 AM and were escorted out of the van. We stood in an area blindfolded as authorities and wardens directed threats and profanity at us. I heard them also curse at Mr. Hassan Mushaima, saying phrases such as “To hell with you and your 12 imams”. Afterwards, we were taken to one of the rooms where we were stripped from our clothes and then asked to wear the clothes again after removing our watches, belts, shoes, and eyeglasses. I was then taken to a cell. The treatment was poor and rough the entire time, with no shortage of insults, curses, threats and light beatings.
In prison:

I was put in building No. (4) along with five other prisoners. Sheikh Saeed Al-Nouri was put in cell number (1). Dr. Abdul Jalil Singace was put in cell number (2), Ibrahim Sharif in cell number (3), Sheikh Abdul Hadi Almukhaidher in cell number (4) and Alhurr Youssef Alsumaikh in cell number (5).
After less than an hour I was taken blindfolded to an office where an officer told me that he had met me previously, in the nineties in the State of Kuwait, and asked me if I knew where I was. I told him I do not know, he said, “You are in a place outside Bahrain,” and asked me to cooperate with him and place my hands in the King’s hands and give up my earlier positions. I told him, “My hands are in the king’s hands, but in my own way which is the way of reform,” and I added that the conversation with him could not be sustained without talking face to face by removing my blindfold so that I could explain my point of view and exchange opinions. We did not reach a result and I was taken back to the cell. …more

Obama’s promised new beginning
By Shahid Javed Burki
Published: July 31, 2011

The writer is a former vice-president of the World Bank and a former finance minister of Pakistan

In June 2009, less than six months after being sworn in as America’s president, Barack Obama addressed the citizens of the Islamic world. He chose Cairo’s Al Azhar University, the oldest surviving centre of Islamic learning, as the site for his much anticipated address. This was to be one of the most important and remembered speeches the president gave in the early part of his tenure. In it, he promised a new beginning in America’s relations with the world of Islam.

“I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslim world, one based upon mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition,” he told his large audience. “Instead they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress; tolerance and dignity of all human beings. The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is a God’s vision. Now that must be our work on Earth.”

President Obama thought that defining a new relationship between Islam and America was expected of him. He was a different kind of American president. “I’m a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the azan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.”

That speech was given two years ago. The American president could not have imagined how much would change in the Muslim world since the Cairo address. He must have hoped that democracy, liberty, freedom of expression, respect for the rule of law and rights of all citizens — ideas on which America had built its own society and its own political and social orders — would be adopted by those in the Muslim world where authoritarianism governed. That began to happen in ways that could not have been imagined in June 2009. One single and tragic act of defiance by a frustrated young fruit vendor in a small Tunisian town ignited the Arab world. The Arab street erupted and brought down two long-enduring regimes and threatened several others. The West, including America, surprised by these rapid moving events, stood by and watched as the Arab youth turned out in the streets and in public squares, no longer afraid that they will be mercilessly assaulted by the security forces. They brought down the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt. It was only when the Libyan regime threatened to massacre its own people that the West intervened.

The West began a military operation against the regime of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya that has lasted longer than expected. The Assad family that represents a small non-Sunni minority in a Sunni majority country launched a viscous campaign of repression to beat back those who wanted a more open political system. The opposite happened in Bahrain, where the Sunni establishment and monarch were challenged by the country’s large Shia majority. In Yemen, a society that was still governed by tribalism and tribal loyalties was set on fire, and it rages on even as the country’s long-serving president has gone to Saudi Arabia to recover from the injuries suffered during an attack on his compound by those who had rebelled against his rule. The Arab political revolution is actually work in progress.

There were other developments in the Muslim world. A political party inspired by Islam won the plurality of the vote in a general election and prolonged the rule of the country’s prime minister, Teyyip Erdogan. The Turks demonstrated that Islam was not incompatible with democracy. America and its Nato allies, fearing that they may get stuck in Afghanistan, began the search for a way out of that country that had defied so many other foreign interventions. The Americans found and killed Osama bin Laden in a city deep inside Pakistan’s territory, by carrying out an operation that was deeply resented by many in Pakistan, who considered it an act of aggression committed against a sovereign nation. After relations with Pakistan rapidly deteriorated, Washington indicated that it was holding back part of the aid it had promised the country’s military. A resolution was moved in Congress demanding a cut back in economic aid as well.

The Muslim world’s relations with America, therefore, were moving in directions that were not expected by the country’s new president. To use a favourite Obama expression, it is necessary for Washington to press the reset button. In doing so, it needs to recognise a few things. First, the world of Islam is not homogeneous. The people living in these countries belong to many different cultures and have had different histories. They are making economic, political and social progress at different speeds.

Second, the political systems that are evolving in these countries will be different. This is not surprising since the Christian nations in Europe and America don’t have the same political structures. Third, the strategic interests of countries in the Muslim world will not always be the same as that of America and its European allies. To force countries to follow Washington, Berlin, London and Paris is to generate resentment which is not good for any country inside or outside the Muslim world. Let us take three examples.

A more confident Istanbul has begun to carve out a role for itself in the Middle East, Central and South Asia that may not be in line with what the Americans consider to be their interests. An economically weakened and politically unsettled Islamabad is rightly nervous about what might emerge in its neighbourhood after the United States begins to pull out of Afghanistan. Tehran feels anxious because of the fact that it is the only major Shia country in the middle of a Sunni world. It may be inclined to give up its nuclear ambitions if it feels comfortable about its security situation.

In other words, in resetting the button, President Obama needs to move forward from rhetoric to real politics.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1st, 2011.

….source

The Express Tribune
US announces massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia
By AFP – Published: October 21, 2010

The plan allows for the sale of 84 F-15 fighter jets, 70 Apache attack helicopters, 72 tactical Black Hawk helicopters and 36 light helicopters. PHOTO: AFP

WASHINGTON: In its biggest arms deal ever, the United States announced Wednesday it will sell up to 60 billion dollars worth of warplanes, helicopters and other weapons to Saudi Arabia, partly to help it counter Iran.

The plan allows for the sale of 84 F-15 fighter jets, 70 Apache attack helicopters, 72 tactical Black Hawk helicopters and 36 light helicopters, assistant secretary for political-military affairs Andrew Shapiro said.

The sale, which also includes the upgrade of 70 used F-15s, is “not to exceed 60 billion” dollars, Shapiro told reporters as President Barack Obama’s administration notified Congress of its plans to make the deal.

Congress has the authority to amend or delay the agreement, according to Shapiro, who said he did not expect Israeli opposition to the sale.

The delivery of the weapons to oil-rich Saudi Arabia would be spread over 15 to 20 years.

“It will send a strong message to countries in the region that we are committed to support the security of our key partners and allies in the Arabian Gulf and broader Middle East,” Shapiro said.

Though he said the deal is “not solely about Iran,” Shapiro admitted it is partly intended to help Saudi Arabia counter the perceived threat from the Islamic republic across the Gulf.

US defense officials said the deal had been in the works for months with the Saudis, who have grown increasingly anxious about Iran’s missile arsenal.

A senior defense official told reporters last month that “if you look at the kingdom, the major threat that they face in the region emanates from Iran.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the arms package “gives them a whole host of defensive capabilities to defend the kingdom and deterrence capabilities.”

The defense package also includes thousands of laser-guided smart bombs, including JDAMS, as well as Hellfire and Sidewinder missiles.

Arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the past have triggered concerns from Israel and its supporters in the United States, but US officials said they did not expect opposition.

“Our assessment is that this (sale) would not diminish Israel’s qualitative military edge, and therefore we felt comfortable in going forward with the sale,” Shapiro said.

Vershbow said US officials consulted Israel as the deal took shape.

“There have been high-level discussions, as well as working-level discussions. And I think it’s fair to say that, based on what we’ve heard at the high levels, Israel does not object to this sale,” he said. …source

SOURCE:Flight International
Saudi Arabia requests Sensor Fuzed Weapon buy
By Craig Hoyle – DATE:15/06/11

Textron Defense Systems could be poised to sell its CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW) system to Saudi Arabia, with a deal to be worth a possible $355 million.

Revealed by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) following a 10 June notification to Congress, the potential deal covers the delivery of 404 CBU-105D/B weapons and 28 integration test assets, plus test equipment and personnel training.

The DSCA described Riyadh’s request as being driven by “legitimate security and defence needs”, and said that potential targets for the weapon could include “bunkers, armoured and semi-armoured vehicles, personnel and certain maritime threats”.

Among the terms of a sale would be “an agreement that the cluster munitions and cluster munitions technology will be used only against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians,” it added.

The CBU-105 weapon has a 99.6% reliability rate, according to its manufacturer. In the event of a failure, each of its 40 individual “skeet” warheads is non-hazardous once on the ground.

No indication was given as to which aircraft type would be equipped with the SFW, but this is most likely to be the Royal Saudi Air Force’s Boeing F-15 fleet.

Textron late last year finalised a $257 million contract to provide 512 CBU-105s to the Indian air force, with these believed to be destined for carriage by its Hindustan Aeronautics-built Sepecat Jaguar ground-attack aircraft. …source

The New Bahrain-Pakistan Alliance
Bruce Riedel | August 2, 2011 – 02/08/2011

Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy is hiring hundreds of Baluchi mercenaries in Pakistan to crack down on the Shia majority’s demand for democracy and reform.

Saudi Arabia backs the Khalifa rulers, who are exacerbating sectarian anger and tensions throughout the Gulf. The Arab awakening puts American values and interests in contest with each other throughout the region but especially on this small island in the world’s energy storehouse.

Since the Arab Spring reached Manama, the hard-liners in the Khalifa family have tried to intimidate the Shia majority into accepting something less than their full rights as equal citizens and something less than a constitutional monarchy. The Saudi and Emirati forces that intervened in March back up the Bahraini National Guard, which does the dirty work of smashing demonstrations and arresting the reform leaders. For decades the Khalifas have recruited in Pakistan—especially its western province of Baluchistan—for Sunni soldiers who won’t hesitate to repress Shia.

Now the Khalifa are advertising and hiring by the hundreds in Baluchistan for retired soldiers and police to come urgently to the island and join the National Guard and the Bahrain Defense Force, the regular army. Several thousand have already enlisted. Want ads for more riot police jobs are in Pakistani papers. The ads say “urgent need” for “army and police experience.” Bahrain’s generals and diplomats have been pressing the Pakistani authorities to help them recruit mercenaries on a crash basis. The Saudis have encouraged Islamabad to send troops.

And Pakistan has been more than willing to help. It has been sending soldiers to keep Arab kings on their thrones for a half century. Zia ul Huq, Pakistan’s dictator, who led the anti-Russian jihad in Afghanistan, gained his combat experience in Jordan in the late 1960s fighting the Palestinian fedayeen. The Hashemites still regard him as a key to their survival in Black September 1970 when he helped crush the PLO. The Shia demonstrators in Manama now try to taunt the mercenaries by yelling at them in urdu “the police are crazy” since many speak no Arabic. A Baluchi soldier can get Bahraini citizenship for his duty, a reward that the Shia majority sees as a way to increase their sectarian rivals’ numbers.

The king has promised reform for years. Unrest has been persistent since the British gave the island independence in 1968. I witnessed stone-throwing demonstrations and tear gas in 1994. The Khalifas had many opportunities to open up the system and let them all pass by. Now the Saudis, especially Interior Minister Prince Nayif, who despises Shia, are calling the shots.

The Sauds and the Khalifa are only exacerbating the sectarian hatred on the island, probably sowing seeds that will sprout terror and violence up and down the Gulf. Iran and Iraq have both protested the treatment of the Shia on the island and criticized the royal family for its extreme sectarian policies. The Bahrainis and Saudis have accused Iran of stoking Shia unrest but so far have provided little proof. Bahraini politicians have been accusing Iran of meddling for decades; sooner or later it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For years the United States has pressed the Khalifa to engage in a genuine dialogue to bring about real change and democracy. Now Washington is quietly pushing for more from King Hamad bin Eisa al-Khalifa, but with little to show. The Obama administration thought it was close to a deal when the Saudis intervened. …more

Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) begins investigations, Meanwhile Bahraini regime continues violations
2 Aug 2011 – BCHR

In a move supposedly intended to end the crises in Bahrain, King Hamad Al-Khalifa funded a commission to look into crimes committed against the people of Bahrain since February of 2011. The BICI headed by Mr. Bassiouni has just recently started its work and opened their doors for complaints and testimonies. However, they are welcomed with a mixture of skepticism and fear by the people of Bahraini.

One of the reasons people are not more hopeful about this commission is that while the BICI looks into crimes committed in previous month, more crimes are happening on the streets. The most serious of which is the death of Zainab Jummah, caused by excessive tear gas used by riot police to attack not only peaceful protesters but also homes in the villages where protests take place. On the 16th of July, Mrs Jummah a 42 year old mother, who was already ill, died after her house was attacked by tear gas. There are several videos with disturbing footage showing riot police intentionally shooting tear gas into the homes of unsuspecting civilians. There have been other similar cases of suffocation by tear gas in earlier months, what makes this case unique is that it happened during a time the Bahraini regime was preparing for the commission which they claimed would be a transitional move.

On the 23rd of July, the night before BICI’s opening press conference, an 18 year old protester was beaten severely by riot police in the village of AL-Eker. Five riot police kicked and hit him with their guns mostly on his head which resulted in a head injury, then left him on the street. When the protester was found he had a wound in his head and was covered in blood. Fearing that if police identified him he would get arrested, the victim has asked not to be named in this report. …more

Bahrain/Dublin: Professor Eoin O’Brien writes in todays Irish Examiner on the findings of the recent humanitarian mission to Bahrain
Posted on 2011/08/02 – Front Line Protection for Human Rights Defenders

Professor Eoin O’Brien writes in todays Irish Examiner on the findings of the recent humanitarian mission to Bahrain to offer support to imprisoned Bahraini doctors and their families.Three of the imprisoned doctors, Dr Ali Al Ekri, Dr Basim Daif and Dr Ghassan Daif studied in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.

The delegation was led by Professor Damian McCormac, who was also joined by Ms Averil Power TD (member of the Irish Parliament). Ms Marion Harken MEP, Mr David Andrews former Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Front Line representatives Andrew Anderson and Khalid Ibrahim. The full text of the article is published below.

“I went home from my work as usual following a day of work as an oncologist at the Salymaniya Medical Centre. I was awoken from sleep at 3 a.m. when the door of my apartment was kicked open and I was pulled form my bed by two men who then ransacked the flat, shook and searched my four-year old child, packed my personal papers and computer, and then dragged me from my flat to an a van surrounded by police cars. I protested that my child was alone and young and was told she would be looked after.

I was taken to a room blindfolded and handcuffed with my hands behind my back. After hours of standing against a wall I was verbally insulted and then placed in solitary confinement for 10 days in a small dirty cell, during which time I was tortured, sexually molested by both male and female interrogators and beaten with a hose on the back and neck. I was then moved to a gaol where I could hear other prisoners being tortured and I was interrogated repeatedly. I was filmed signing many papers the content of which no longer mattered to me, but among which was a confession that I had stolen drugs from the Hospital and that I had incited disturbance.

This harrowing account is typical of many similar reports from imprisoned doctors who have been released form prison, and from the spouses and children of doctors who remain in prison that I have heard first-hand during a recent visit to Bahrain as a member of delegation consisting two doctors, Damian McCormack and me; three politicians, Averil Power, Senator of the Irish Parliament, David Andrews, former Minister for Foreign Affairs for Ireland, and Marian Harkin, Member of the European Parliament; two members of Dublin based international human rights organisation Front Line Defenders, the Deputy Director, Andrew Anderson, and Khalid Ibrahim; and a freelance photo journalist, Conor McCabe.

During a two-day visit we met close to 100 people from all sides of Bahraini life. We were brought to the house of a family, which had suffered dearly in the aftermath of the protests, where 27 women and men were gathered representing doctors who had been released from prison to await trial, and the spouses and children of doctors detained in prison. We were brought to a secret suburban location at night to meet ambulance drivers who had been taken from their ambulances, imprisoned and tortured, and medical students, some of whom have been prevented continuing their studies.

At our meeting with the doctors and their relatives their fairness in acknowledging what had been good in the Bahrain health care system, their affection for Salmaniya Hospital where so many of them had served for many years, and their regard for the previous Minister of Health, who had resigned because he had failed to protect doctors, was in contrast to their sense of betrayal by RCSI-Bahrain and the fact that none from the many representatives of both RCSI or RCPI, who had visited the country recently for the conferring of doctors, had made any attempt to contact the families of imprisoned health care workers. …more

Bahraini politician’s wife tells of fear
Amal Matar tells Al Jazeera that arbitrary arrests have made people scared of testifying before investigating panels. – 02 Aug 2011

The government of Bahrain insists human rights experts are being given unrestricted access to investigate allegations of abuse during protests earlier this year. However, hundreds of protestors remain in prison as stories circulate of torture and arbitrary arrests.

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford spoke to Amal Matar, the wife of Matar Ibrahim Matar, a jailed opposition politician.