Posts from — August 2011

[cd editor: important document about the torture and violent crackdown by Bahrain’s Government]

Amnesty International Report March, 2011

Bloodied but Unbowed: Unwarranted State Violence against Bahraini Protesters, the organization [Amnesty International] documents how security forces used live ammunition and extreme force against protesters in February without warning and impeded and assaulted medical staff trying to help the wounded.

The report, which is based on first hand testimonies given to an Amnesty International team in Bahrain, comes as the country is gripped by further violence, after Saudi Arabian and UAE forces entered the small Gulf state three days ago and Bahrain’s King declared a national state of emergency.

“It is alarming to see the Bahraini authorities now again resorting to the same tactics that they used against protesters in February but on an even more intensive scale,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“It appears that the government has decided that the way to deal with protests is through violent repression, a totally unsustainable position and one which sets an ominous example in a region where other governments are also facing popular calls for change.” download report here

….source

Saudi Arabia: Withdraw Draft Counterterrorism Law
Proposal Would Create Legal Veneer for Unlawful Practices
August 2, 2011

“The draft counterterrorism law is trying to enshrine as legal the Saudi Interior Ministry’s unlawful practices. It lumps peaceful political opposition together with violent acts and ensures that the accused won’t get a fair trial. ” Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch

(Beirut) – Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah should withdraw a draft counterterrorism law from consideration by the cabinet because it would facilitate serious human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the king. Human Rights Watch urged the government to consult with international human rights experts to draft a new counterterrorism law that would protect rather than infringe on basic rights.

“The draft counterterrorism law is trying to enshrine as legal the Saudi Interior Ministry’s unlawful practices,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It lumps peaceful political opposition together with violent acts and ensures that the accused won’t get a fair trial.”

Human Rights Watch received a copy of the draft law, the Penal Law for Crimes of Terrorism and Its Financing, on July 22, 2011, from a source who indicated that it was “in the last stages of discussion.” The Security Committee of Shura Council, Saudi Arabia’s appointed parliament, which exercises limited legislative functions, passed a slightly amended version of the draft law on June 26. Shura Council changes are non-binding recommendations for the Council of Ministers, which drafts, enacts, and enforces the law.

The draft law seriously undermines human rights protections in four key areas, Human Rights Watch said. It contains an extremely vague and overbroad definition of terrorism, places unwarranted restrictions on the rights to free expression and assembly, grants excessive police powers without judicial oversight, and infringes on the rights to due process and a fair trial. …more

End blockade now, says UN group in rare Gaza visit
by: Thalif Deen – The Electronic Intifada – 1 August 2011

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – When the United Nations General Assembly established a three member special committee to investigate Israeli human rights violations back in December 1968, Israel reacted with obvious anger.

And not surprisingly, the committee was barred from entering any of the territories occupied by Israel — forcing the three members to hold sittings in Cairo, Amman and Damascus where Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza were given a hearing twice a year.

But geopolitics in the region has changed the political climate — much to the chagrin of the Israelis.

For the first time in 43 years, members of the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices in Occupied Territories gained entry into Gaza in July, through Egypt which ousted its Israeli-friendly president Hosni Mubarak following massive public protests earlier this year.

The Egyptian authorities facilitated the visit via the crossing at Rafah, bypassing the longstanding Israeli ban.

The visit further reinforced the continued criticism by the committee of the horrible living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza and the devastating impact of the Israeli economic blockade, as chronicled in several of the committee’s previous reports.

Oppressive restrictions

In a critical report, the committee expressed dismay at Israel’s “continuing disregard of its obligations under international law.”

“Unfortunately, what we found [in Gaza] was that the oppressive restrictions imposed on Gaza by Israel have the effect of collectively punishing the population,” it said.

With around 35 percent of Gaza’s land area excluded from agriculture due to Israel’s vague buffer zone along its boundary line with Gaza and its fishing areas limited to only three nautical miles from the coast, the people of Gaza could hardly feed themselves, much less revive a decimated economy through exports, the committee said.

“We were alarmed by allegations that Israel enforces these policies employing live fire, including in some instances against children and the elderly,” said the committee.

The committee — comprising Palitha TB Kohona, ambassador of Sri Lanka to the UN; Hussein Haniff, ambassador of Malaysia; and Fod Seck, ambassador of Senegal to the UN based in Geneva — is expected to submit a more comprehensive report to the 193-member General Assembly in September.

Kohona said the conditions in Gaza, “to say the least, are very unsatisfactory and the blockade is to be blamed for this.”

“The economic, educational, psychological, health and social conditions are affected by the blockade,” he asserted.

The lifting of the blockade will have an immediate and positive impact on the people of Gaza, both economically and psychologically, and will contribute to confidence building, he added.

Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza contravened the human rights of the people of Gaza and international humanitarian law and standards, said Kohona, a former chief of the UN Treaty Section.

“It is oppressive and diminishes the lives of the people of Gaza and must be ended now,” he declared.

Urgent need for water

In its report, the committee said it listened to victims, witnesses and UN officials who underlined the dire impact on human rights of the Israeli blockade.

Homes, schools and other infrastructure that were destroyed by Israeli attacks in December 2008 and January 2009 could not be rebuilt due to restrictions on importing building material.

The economy declined significantly and has been sustained by imports through tunnels.

“It would be the occupying power’s responsibility to assist with the reconstruction of Gaza,” noted the committee.

Beyond the homes, schools and businesses that were destroyed, there is an urgent need for water treatment facilities, roads, sewage treatment and the restoration of power, it said.

For many of Gaza’s children, life was difficult and the future hopeless, the committee pointed out, referring to testimony concerning worrying health, psychological and social problems, increasing school dropout rates, and an increasing incidence of child labor.

“We hope the government of Israel will seriously consider the potential consequences of a generation of Gazan children being raised in an environment of near-total deprivation and a lack of opportunities to lead a productive and hopeful life,” it said.

Children jailed at age seven

The practices of the government of Israel which violate the rights of Palestinian children was a constant theme throughout the hearings in Gaza.

Witnesses and officials reported that Palestinian children’s access to education is being impeded through, among other things, restrictions on freedom of movement, constraints on access due to Israel’s wall in the West Bank, a lack of schools especially in East Jerusalem and Gaza, and threats and actual violence by Israeli settlers.

The committee said its attention was drawn to the large number of children held in detention, and cited a range of practices of serious concern, including harsh interrogation techniques, torture and expulsion from their villages.

The committee also underlined its deep concern regarding reports that Israeli security forces were raiding Palestinian homes in the middle of the night to detain children, allegedly as young as seven years old.

The committee’s nine-day investigative visit to the region also included hearings in the Jordanian capital Amman, where it met victims, witnesses and officials working on human rights in the West Bank and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. …source

Bolivia: WikiLeaks expose US conspiracy
Monday, August 1, 2011 – By Federico Fuentes

Recently released United States embassy cables from Bolivia have provided additional insight to the events leading up to the September 2008 coup attempt against the Andean country’s first indigenous president.

On September 9, 2008, President Evo Morales expelled then-US ambassador Philip Goldberg as evidence emerged that Goldberg and embassy officials had been meeting with several key civilian and military figures involved in an unfolding coup plot.

These meetings took place in the midst of “civic strikes” and roadblocks called by the right-wing opposition prefects (governors) of the eastern states. These actions were denounced by the government as an attempted coup.

The prefects announced their intentions to begin implementing “regional autonomy” statutes, which they claimed had been approved by illegal referendums held in the four eastern states between May and July.

These statutes were aimed at securing regional control over natural resources and state security bodies.

Taking over government buildings and cutting off food supplies, the right-wing insurgents carried out a reign of terror on the streets, mobilising paramilitary forces.

Soldiers and police officers were targets of their violence. The hope was to trigger an armed confrontation, banking on important sections of the military refusing to obey government orders.

The secret US cables released by WikiLeaks show how such a scenario was already envisaged months before by the US embassy.

A December 12, 2007 cable assessed the situation within the military. It said that, faced with conflict, the government could “at best” rely on only “sporadic and half-hearted compliance from a minority of commanders”.

Based on intelligence gathered from military officers, the cable concluded: “Although they can be expected to protect government infrastructure and transportation, most commanders are likely to sit out any violent confrontation with opposition forces.”

Field commanders were “prepared to stand down and confine their troops to barracks”, even if a written order was signed by Morales.

Evidence for this was provided by a source that “was on hand when a high-ranking civil defense officer told the commander in Tarija Department to demand a written order from President Morales if asked to take action against opposition leaders or demonstrators”.

“If they received such an order, the officer advised non-compliance and a post lock down to commanders from Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, and Tarija.”

The cable quoted another military official stationed in Santa Cruz as saying that commanders originally from the west were “unlikely” to unseat the same opposition leaders they were working with.

“As for the large minority of officers from the Media Luna [Bolivia’s eastern states],” the official in question noted “there is ‘no way any of us are going to attack our own people.’ Rather, he said, they would side with the opposition if forced to take sides”.

Opposition figures also told the embassy they did not “believe the ‘divided’ military would repress them”.

Cables from the weeks immediately leading up to the coup attempt have yet to be released, but evidence of ongoing communication between the embassy and military commanders, right up until Goldberg’s expulsion, was provided in a report by former parliamentarian Walter Vasquez Michel published in La Epoca on September 28, 2008.

With coup plans well underway, the article reported that US embassy officials met with four retired generals and a security representative from the Santa Cruz prefecture on September 2.

Three days later, the US embassy’s head of military affairs spoke with high ranking active military officials based in Santa Cruz to “plan the handing over of military units to paramilitary groups”.

The aim was to “create the sensation that the government had lost control of the Armed Forces”, a scenario outlined in US embassy cables issued only months prior.

Instead, the plot backfired as government supporters and loyal troops moved into action.

With violence growing in the east, government supporters began marching on Santa Cruz. Residents in poor neighbourhoods of Santa Cruz set up self-defence groups to repel fascist attacks.

After the massacre of dozens of unarmed peasants in the eastern state of Pando on September 11, a wave of revulsion swept through the country. This included middle-class sectors in the east who had, until then, supported the autonomy protests.

This revulsion spread to the armed forces. Soldiers demanded the government send them in to crush the fascist uprising, even if it meant breaking the chain of command.

This allowed the government to overcome internal resistance within the military and to deploy soldiers onto the streets of Pando.

Within 24-hours, the paramilitary forces had been pushed back and calm was restored.

Fearing a similar scenario elsewhere, and with Santa Cruz now encircled by government supporters, the coup plotters were forced to back down.

There may be further evidence to come of US complicity in this violent attempt to bring down the elected Morales government brought to power on the back of an indigenous-led mass movement against neoliberalism.

The cables released so far reveal the US embassy was in communication with forces in the military working against the government. …more

Boycotting fascism?
Policies that have frustrated Palestinians for years are now being applied to middle-class Israelis, too.
Mark LeVine Last Modified: 26 Jul 2011 11:12 – AL Jazeera

During the last week angry young residents of Tel Aviv have been staging a sit-in, or, more accurately, a tent-in, along fashionable Rothschild Boulevard to protest their being priced out of the housing market in Israel’s cultural and economic capital. The protests have drawn the attention of the Israeli and international media, with The Guardian even comparing the protesters to the pro-democracy revolutionaries in Egypt and other Arab countries.

The protests might be new, but the process against which the tent-dwellers are protesting has been going on in Tel Aviv, like other world cities, for at least two decades. But until recently, the main victims of high housing prices weren’t young middle-class Israeli Jews no longer able to afford to live close to the cultural and economic action in Tel Aviv, but poor Palestinian residents of Jaffa who were being pushed out by gentrification and had nowhere else to go.

In the wake of the 1948 war, when Jaffa, like most other Palestinian towns and villages, was emptied of the vast majority of its population, the once-proud city turned poor and decrepit neighbourhood of Tel Aviv underwent a process of Judaisation, with only around 5,000 of the former population of at least 70,000 Palestinians remaining. That population increased several-fold in later decades, but when Jaffa suddenly became a fashionable neighbourhood for Israel’s emerging yuppie Jewish class beginning in the late 1980s, prices began to rise.

By a variety of legal and economic mechanisms the growing Palestinian population was squeezed out of Jaffa’s remaining neighbourhoods like Ajami and Jebaliya, which were quite desirable because of their seaside location. Residents complained of a clear policy of Judaisation through planning and other mechanisms, but were rebuffed when they took their case to the Tel Aviv municipality.

“What can we do; the market is the market,” more than one official would declare. In other words, it wasn’t the explicit policy of the state, but rather natural market forces that were pushing working-class Palestinians, and their Jewish neighbours, out of these neighbourhoods.

Of course, this argument was nonsense. The Israeli state has been deeply involved in the neoliberalisation of the country’s economy, of which Tel Aviv was the natural epicentre. As part of this process it was quite adept at using so-called “market forces” as part of its toolbox for enabling greater Jewish penetration of Palestinian towns and neighbourhoods that were deemed priorities for Judaisation. That Jews were also victims was not relevant, as they were being replaced by even more Jews, and those pushed out always had “somewhere else” to go.

Young Jews could “pioneer” neighbouring towns like Bat Yam – the equivalent of moving from Manhattan to less-desirable but soon-to-be-gentrifying parts of Brooklyn or Queens in the 1980s. Palestinians, however, had literally nowhere to move to except a few Palestinian cities which themselves were experiencing housing shortages.

Resistance was largely futile; more than one Palestinian family set up tents to live in Jaffa’s ill-kept parks after being evicted from their homes, both as a protest against their eviction and because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else. The tents became part of the landscape after a while, and ultimately disappeared.

In the meantime, gentrification continued apace, whether faux-Ottoman-era monstrosities like the Andromeda Hill development or the even more perverse Peres Centre for Peace, built – tellingly – on land expropriated from Jaffan refugees including the neighbourhood’s cemetery, whose remaining gravestones teeter on the hill along the Centre’s southern border.

Meanwhile, late last year the Israeli Supreme Court okayed the construction of a housing development for a religious Zionist group in the heart of Ajami, on refugee land leased to them by the Municipality and Israeli Lands Administration, despite strong protests by local Palestinian residents and Israeli human rights groups.

And while this process plays out, the remaining Arab parts of Ajami suffer from drugs, violence and government neglect (as illustrated in the 2010 film “Ajami”), while activists who press too hard against the situation can be assured of receiving various grades of the “Shabak education” that Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line have always experienced when they challenged the basic premises of Israeli rule.

From markets to boycotts?

As long as this process was confined to Jaffa, most Israelis, including residents of Tel Aviv, didn’t think too much about it. After all, what was happening in Jaffa was the same thing that happened across the country for decades; it was the modus operandi for how the State of Israel was built.

What’s different today? Today it’s middle-class Israelis who are being pushed out and have nowhere to go; at least not anywhere they want to go. Rich Israeli expats and Diaspora Jews who’ve bought up much of Ajami’s housing stock are now also among the most important buyers of apartments in Tel Aviv, while the young Ashkenazi Jews who are currently living in tents are being told that they should move to the “periphery” and pioneer far less desirable parts of the country than Tel Aviv’s satellite towns.

Gay activists complain that they only feel at home in Tel Aviv, while would-be cultural creatives have little desire to move to development towns populated by working-class Mizrahi Jews or recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union or Ethiopia.

This is a fascinating story, you might be saying to yourself. But what does it have to do with a story about “boycotting fascism,” as this column is titled? Quite a lot, as it turns out. The suffering of young Israelis at the hands of the Tel Aviv housing market illustrates a larger phenomenon which is presently affecting the fabric of Israeli society as a whole: Processes and policies which for years or even decades have been deployed on or affected the Palestinian community, on both sides of the Green Line, are now affecting mainstream Jewish Israelis negatively as well. But hardly anyone understands the genesis of the problem, and so the anger is either misdirected or dissipates because, after all, the market is the market: what can you do?

Another example of this process is the debate surrounding the passing last week by the Knesset of the so-called “Anti-Boycott” bill that has now made it illegal for Israelis to call for or engage in boycotting Israel or even the settlements or settlement-made products, allowing the boycott’s targets to sue boycott supporters for damages without having to prove actual harm from the action.

The new law has caused a firestorm of protest in and outside Israel, with left-wing critics claiming it will lead outsiders to wonder if “there is actually a democracy here”, and, even more damaging, to argue that its
passage heralds the arrival of fascism in Israel, whether “quiet” or “purposeful and palpable”.

Among the arguments that this law reflects such a move is that it restricts freedom of expression, reflects a clear tyranny of the majority within Israeli politics, erases the distinction between Israel and the Occupied Territories, will cripple efforts of various peace groups to help resuscitate the moribund peace process, and is part of a larger process to strip the Supreme Court of its independence. More broadly, in the words of
the usually conservative Maariv columnist Ben Caspit, it represents a right wing that “is running amok” and threatening the supposedly democratic fabric of Israel.

But just as with the housing problem in Tel Aviv, these claims hold true only if one is considering Israeli Jewish society. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, and much more so for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, Israel has always been – to use the word presently in play – fascist.

Fascism or nationalism the problem?

The basic formula for fascism, that of a highly militarised, corporatist state that manages relations between labour and capital in the name of a mythically defined “people” to the exclusion of all those deemed outside the collective, well defines the kind of ethnonationalism that has long dominated Zionist ideology.

Moreover, the kind of exclusivism that is at the heart of all nationalist identities is ramped up on ideological steroids in the authoritarian nationalist discourses that underlay fascism, as the Italian and German experiences have tragically shown. Ethnonationalisms, and particularly those that emerge in settler colonial settings such as Israel, South Africa, the United States, Australia and French Algeria, are also based on extreme forms of exclusivism and territorial expansionism that must deny basic rights and even humanity to indigenous populations in order to achieve the goal of securing control and/or sovereignty over the “homeland”.
[Read more →]

ACLU Report Calls for Radical Reforms to Combat Government Secrecy
July 28, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON – In the years since 9/11 the United States government has spent over a trillion dollars on national security measures that have increased government secrecy exponentially. A new report by the American Civil Liberties Union, “Drastic Measures Required,” illustrates the vast and systemic use of secrecy, including secret agencies, secret committees in Congress, a secret court and even secret laws, to keep government activities away from public scrutiny.

“Our government has reached unparalleled levels of secrecy,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Though this administration’s attempts to be transparent are laudable, the reality has been that it is just as secretive as its predecessor. Congress has the tools to curb this excessive secrecy but it must be more aggressive in using them. It’s time to drastically overhaul the way our government classifies information.”

“Drastic Measures Required” highlights the significant powers Congress holds under the Constitution to stem the tide of government secrecy: the authority to regulate the military and national security activities, as well as the tools to investigate executive branch authorities. The report lays out specific recommendations for Congress to help turn the tide of excessive government secrecy –including reforming the misused state secrets privilege, strengthening congressional oversight of national security programs and enacting legislation to limit and regulate the executive branch’s classification power. …more

Palestinians Prepare for Massive Uprising
by Mel Frykberg, July 30, 2011

BEIT UMMAR, West Bank – Leading members of the Palestinian Popular Committees in the West Bank plan massive civil unrest and disobedience against the Israeli occupation authorities come September when the Palestinians take their case for statehood to the UN.

“We plan to take to the streets en masse,” Musa Abu Maria, a leading member of the Popular Committee in Beit Ummar, a town 11 km north of Hebron in the southern West Bank told IPS. “We will block entire highways leading to and from Israel’s illegal settlements. We will march on settlements. But these will be non-violent and the protestors will be peaceful.

“We have worked out creative strategies to bring the occupation increasingly to the attention of the international community and the world media. We will be coordinating with our international supporters in Europe and America to increase international recognition of the Palestinian predicament as the tide turns in our favor,” added Abu Maria.

The Israeli government, intelligence agencies and security forces have been preparing for an outbreak of Palestinian protests in September as they expect the UN General Assembly to overwhelmingly endorse the Palestinian bid for independence.

The country’s security forces have been holding military drills in preparation for massive clashes. Meanwhile, the political leadership has engaged on a lightning tour of Europe trying to win the support of “quality European countries”, as the Israeli government put it, to vote against Palestinian statehood.

The Israeli government is hoping that the economically and politically stronger members of the UN will side with Israel as approximately 140 UN members from “developing and Third World” countries, amongst others, are expected to vote in favor of Palestine.

So concerned is the Israeli government that on Monday it threatened to revoke the 1993 Oslo Accords in response to the September plan of the Palestinian Authority (PA). According to government sources this is merely one of the alternatives the Israeli government is considering as a counter political move.

The Palestinians are steaming ahead with their strategy. …more

Islamic Revolution of Iran spread to all over the World
shiapost August 1, 2011

“The Islamic Revolution of Iran has been spread to all over the world and people by selecting Iran as their paradigm, stand against their tyrannical governments,” Iranian jurisprudent, ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli said.

“These days we observe the expanding of the Islamic Awakening around the world especially, in the Middle East,” said the grand Ayatollah.

Ayatollah Javadi Amoli pointed to the recent uprisings in the region and said;” arrogant countries claim that they support human rights but they are after their own interests and spend a gigantic budget for killing innocent people.”

“There stands no system like the system run in Iran,” said the senior cleric stating that this system tries to save the innocent and oppressed people.

The Qom Seminary instructor went on, “The present generation should get more familiar with the lifestyle of prominent people who spend their lives for progress of the country.”

Ayatollah Amoli urged all youths to spend more times with Quran and use its teachings and instructions.

He said that Iran’s 19th International Qur’an Exhibition provides people a good chance for to spend more time with Quran.

The 19th International Qur’an fair will be held under the title ‘Qur’an, Book of Awakening,’ and includes various sections including children, young adults, Islamic Awakening, visual arts, dramatic arts, Islamic attire, digital media, research, education, translation and conceptual arts. …source

European Tour drops Bahrain tournament for 2012
01 August, 2011 – The Associated Press

LONDON — Golf’s European Tour won’t be returning to Bahrain next year.

The European Tour says the Volvo Golf Champions will not take place at Bahrain’s Royal Golf Club but that the tour’s return to the Gulf kingdom has been “delayed” rather than canceled following political unrest there.

At least 32 people died in Bahrain this year in protests for greater freedoms and rights.

The European Tour says “with work still ongoing to resolve issues in Bahrain and the need to confirm the venue by the end of July 2011, the difficult decision to postpone the event for 2012 was taken.”

Tournament sponsor Volvo and tournament organizer International Management Group will rotate future events between a handful of locations, including Bahrain. …source

Islamophobes Insinuate Their Way Into U.S. Intelligence
By Paul Mutter, August 1, 2011 – FPIP

A barely legible 2009 FBI PowerPoint on “Islam” has come down the FOIA line at a very unfortunate time following the July 2011 right-wing terrorist attacks in Norway. But it is very much part of that tragedy. The 62-slide PowerPoint presentation, which the FBI states that it is no longer in use, is for training interrogators to interview Muslim suspects. A few slides in, and one shudders what to think it has been replaced by, though – an email sent to intelligence officials linking to the anti-Islamic blogs Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs and The Gates of Vienna (which asks if there is to be “Surrender, Genocide . . . or What?” regarding Islam in Europe)?

It wouldn’t be much of a leap, given the content of the “intelligence” in the presentation – and the way that such outlets, and other opportunistic “Islam” experts, have ingratiated themselves in the U.S. political establishment and our ostensibly objective intelligence agencies, from the FBI to the U.S. Army.

Intelligence is what this report lacks most. “Muslims,” the report notes midway through, after dispensing with a great deal of basic statistics, “are fundamentally and inalienably spiritual while the West is purely materialistic” (not that this stops politicians or right-wing terrorists from depicting an Islamic-Marxist alliance as a major threat to Western civilization).

Surely, when attempting to understand a real, but specific, threat, American officials should be trained to view over a billion people as inscrutable and medieval time bombs just waiting to overrun the West. (The Gates of Vienna, for instance, actively evokes this scenario – it proclaims that its struggle against “Islamization” is a continuation of an age-old war for civilization.)

But yet, it does just that. A slide titled “Islam 101” presents – as fact – that Islam “transforms country’s culture into 7th century Arabian ways.”

The same slide also acknowledges, without even a hint of irony, that Islam is “hard for Westerners to understand.”

Hard to understand, perhaps, but not hard to make money and fame from by bashing it. The Great Fear, Max Blumenthal notes, geared up during the lead-in to the 2003 Iraq War. The neoconservatives in the White House and Department of Defense had their grand hope of not only settling the score with Saddam and doing good by oil (“60% of the earth’s oil reserves [are] in or near [the] Arabian Peninsula,” notes the PowerPoint) but also bringing a Pax Americana to the Middle East. What better what to achieve consensus on such a controversial project than by demonizing the enemy’s civilization? We’re not at war with Islam, then-President George W. Bush noted, but Islamophobes seemed to either miss or ignore that message. And so the anti-Muslim machine – a very diverse machine – took the jitters and anti-Islamic sentiments resulting from 9/11 and turned them into politically potent forces. …more

US to discuss cooperation in Nuclear deal with Saudis
Written by jafrianews

JNN 31 July 2011 : The Obama administration plans to resume talks with Saudi Arabia about nuclear cooperation, according to senior U.S. officials, in a move aimed at boxing in Iran and keeping an eye on Riyadh’s strategic ambitions.

A team of State Department and Department of Energy officials is expected to visit Riyadh as early as next week to discuss with senior Saudi officials their plans for pursuing nuclear power, according to people briefed on the trip.

The White House’s decision is already facing opposition from members of Congress who worry about sharing nuclear technologies with countries in today’s increasingly unstable Middle East. WSJ

HIGHLIGHTS

Officials from President Barack Obama’s administration plan to head to Riyadh in the coming week for nuclear talks, the sources said. AFP

The U.S. has recently concluded civilian nuclear trade deals — or so-called “123” agreements — with India and the United Arab Emirates and is in advanced discussions with countries including Jordan, Vietnam, and South Korea. CSM

But Saudi Arabia’s interest in such an accord has raised intense suspicions, particularly in the U.S. Congress. WSJ

“I am astonished that the Administration is even considering a nuclear-cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia,” said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on Friday.

“Saudi Arabia is an unstable country in an unstable region, with senior officials openly proclaiming that the country may pursue a nuclear-weapons capability.” WSJ

One House staffer who was informed on the administration’s planned talks, but could speak only on condition of anonymity, said, “It’s an unstable country in an unstable region, and — fairly or unfairly — people think 9/11 when they think of Saudi Arabia. It would be an extremely hard sell,” CSM

A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment Friday. The Saudi government has repeatedly said that it is against the development of nuclear weapons. WSJ

FACTS & FIGURES

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter, with one-fifth of the world’s proven reserves. The kingdom says it wants nuclear power so it does not have to burn lucrative fossil fuels at its power plants. AFP

Saudi Arabia has also been pursuing nuclear-cooperation agreements with South Korea, Japan, France and Russia. Riyadh could move to build nuclear reactors without any U.S. involvement. WSJ

Saudi Arabia signed an agreement with the United States in 2008 during a visit by then president George W. Bush that would give the kingdom access to enriched uranium — meaning, unlike Iran, it would not need to master the nuclear fuel cycle. AFP

President Barack Obama signed such a deal with the United Arab Emirates in 2009 that is now viewed by the White House as a model because the UAE committed not to produce its own nuclear fuel. WSJ …source

North Africa & Middle East
Letter to HM King of Bahrain Regarding the Commission Investigating the events which occurred in Bahrain in February/March 2011
12 July 2011

FIDH welcomes the initiative by His Majesty regarding the opening of an investigation into some of the events and the appointment of a commission of well known and highly respected international human rights experts to lead that investigation; however FIDH would like to highlight some points of concern with regard to the mandate of the commission and in particular to the very limited time frame of the investigation.

Indeed, we understand from the decree Royal Order No. 28 of 2011 that the Commission will investigate and report on the events which occurred in Bahrain in February/March 2011 focusing on but not limited to alleged acts of violence, alleged police brutality, circumstances of arrests and detention, and allegations of torture and disappearance.

In this respect, while recalling that serious human rights violations were committed after March 2011 as reported by reliable sources in Bahrain, by international human rights organizations and by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, FIDH believes that the investigation should also cover the current situation and in particular the continuing mass arrests of human rights activists and political opponents, the military trials conducted in June 2011, extra-judicial killings, the targeting of people, villages and worshiping places due to their support or involvement in the protests and the four deaths at custody due to torture of Ali Issa Saqer, Kareem Fakhrawi, Zakariya Al Ashiri, and Hassan Makki .

Secondly, FIDH would like to highlight the fact that the mandate of the investigation commission does not include inquiry into the mass sackings of employees due to their sectarian background where the numbers have reached 4000 people, noting that only 2300 are registered .

Furthermore, The mandate does not mention the status of the military trials against peaceful demonstrators and human rights activists. FIDH recalls that no civilian should be brought before military courts as military trials for civilians constitute violations of basic fair trial rights. International human rights bodies over the last 15 years have determined that trials of civilians before military tribunals violate the due process guarantees found in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which affirms that everyone has the right to be tried by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal. These bodies have consistently rejected the use of military prosecutors and courts in cases involving abuses against civilians, by stating that the jurisdiction of military courts should be limited to offenses that are strictly military in nature.

FIDH welcomes the prevention of the recurrence of similar events as stated in the mandate; however we are deeply concerned about the lack of accountability processes for those who committed human rights violations. FIDH stresses the importance of fighting against impunity and believes that the recommendations of the investigation commission should encompass this demand.

On June 22nd 2011, 21 prominent Bahraini human rights activists and opponents to the regime were given harsh sentences by the special military court which was set up to prosecute those who have voiced their opinion and demanded their basic human rights. Eight of them were given life sentences while 13 were given two to fifteen years in prison. In this regard, FIDH is asking the Kingdom’s authorities to review the possibility to try again these people before civil ordinary courts if there are serious criminal charges against them or otherwise release them immediately as human rights activism cannot be assimilated to a terrorist activity.

FIDH remains extremely concerned by the reports of torture and ill-treatment of those arrested and detained. Our organizations have documented the case of Abdulhadi Al Khawaja, former Director of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), who was beaten severely and had to undergo major surgery due to his injuries. Despite the brave display of Mr. Al Khawaja during his hearing, the judges refused to acknowledge his claim of having been subjected to torture. These acts of torture and ill-treatment are not limited to detention centers, but have managed to infiltrate hospitals as well. According to the information we received, in Salamiya hospital, many of those wounded were beaten three times a day. FIDH has learned that torture has been practiced in both military and police hospitals as well.

Furthermore, FIDH condemns the ongoing harassment of journalists, doctors, lawyers, human rights defenders and their families, among which FIDH’s Deputy Secretary General Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, who was prevented from leaving the country and remains under threat and harassment by the security forces.

FIDH stresses the need for the investigation to be thorough, independent and impartial as stated in the mandate. We encourage the commission to meet with representatives of all civil society organizations in Bahrain, international human rights organizations who have been documenting abuses of human rights in the past months, as well as with all political parties from the opposition.

Finally, FIDH believes that the investigation conducted by the Commission should not be exclusive of any other independent international investigation by the UN or an international human rights organization.

We encourage the Government of Bahrain to take into account our recommendations as should be seen as a pre-requisite to any sustainable national dialogue between the Bahraini civil society and the authorities.

Sincerely Yours,
Souhayr Belhassen
FIDH President

Statement on the Royal Commission
01/08/2011

London: 30th July, 2011 – The Royal Commission appointed by the King of Bahrain has begun its work in Bahrain with a press conference regarding the aim of its mission. The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights is committed to supporting the work of the Commission and calls on the government of Bahrain to show its commitment to improving human rights in Bahrain by releasing political prisoners and engage with the opposition.

BCHR President Nabeel Rajab met with members of the Commission for one hour earlier this week and reiterated the commitment of BCHR to helping the work of the Commission as an important step toward achieving justice for the victims of human rights abuses and a springboard to political reform.

BCHR has learned that the Commission is awaiting the arrival of some members of an independent investigative team who will be helping the Commission with the everyday tasks of collecting submissions and testimony from those who have suffered abuses during the recent crisis. It is very important, for purposes of transparency and credibility, that the identity and credentials of this team be publicised in order to prove their independence from any political affiliation.

On July 28th, the Bahraini security forces raided an apartment occupied by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Bahrain[1], taking medicine and arresting MSF staff. BCHR calls on the Bahraini government to stop harassing and arresting activists, NGO staff and opposition supporters immediately. This completely undermines the work of the Commission and shows that the government is not serious about abiding by standards of good governance or creating a more open and accountable political climate in Bahrain.

Recommendations:

1) The Commission should be given as much time as it needs to investigate all the claims of human rights violations brought before them.

2) BCHR concurs with FIDH, that “the investigation should also cover the current situation and in particular the continuing mass arrests of human rights activists and political opponents”[2]

3) The Commission’s work should be transparent and independent, and they should make a statement about their investigative team’s background in order to ensure that it is trusted by victims and members of the opposition.

4) The government of Bahrain should release the MSF staff it arrested and immediately cease harassment of NGOs, journalists and opposition politicians in order to ensure a safe and open climate in which the Commission can conduct its investigation.

If the Commission is allowed to do its job unhindered, BCHR is optimistic that it will encourage the government and security forces to reform the way they treat political opponents and move towards a political reconciliation which will create peace in Bahrain. …source