“The revolution has just begun”
by Gilbert Achcar – IV Online magazine : IV439 – August 2011

The journal Al-Akhbar interviewed Gilbert Achcar on the current stage of the Arab revolutions in June 2011. The translation and introduction we publish here were published in their English-language edition on 24 August 2011.

Gilbert Achcar, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, has no qualms calling the popular protests sweeping the Arab world a revolution. They are, in his view, part of a revolutionary process that is taking the region into uncharted territory. The forces active on the ground have changed, and, while the future is unpredictable, there is no going back to the previous situation.

Dima Charif: Different terms have been used to describe what the Arab world has witnessed since the beginning of the year: revolution, uprising, popular revolt, protests, etc. What do you think is the best description?

Gilbert Achcar: There has been much debate about what to call what has been happening, whether we’re talking about the region as a whole or the countries which have seen successes, namely Tunisia and Egypt. In fact, even in those two countries, there are many who object to the use of the word ‘revolution’, as it gives the impression that the regime was overthrown in accordance with the people’s wishes, when in reality it was not. Only its head and its most despotic and corrupt figures were removed. But the backbone of the regime survives. I think the best description of what is happening today is ‘revolutionary process.’ This term also explains what happened in Egypt and Tunisia. There were indeed revolutions there, with mass action achieving undeniable successes, even though they did not bring about overall regime change. They are important victories nevertheless, and the process is continuing in both countries. The Egyptians were right to name their revolution by the date it began, the ‘Revolution of 25 January.’ That was the date of a mass rally, nothing more, not a major achievement as such. But it was the starting date of a process that is still continuing and whose fate is now being contested.

DC: Who is driving these revolutions in your opinion: the marginalized, the national bourgeoisie, the workers?

GA: The situation differs between countries. In Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere, there is a broad social front that is opposed to two key features: despotism and corruption. All are united against these two aspects. It is noteworthy that in countries where there is corruption but less despotism, the mass movements have not had the same momentum as when they have been united against both despotism and corruption, as in Egypt and Tunisia. This applies to Morocco, for example. There is no overwhelming sense of political oppression there, as the king instituted some democratic changes and eased some restrictions on freedoms, albeit to a limited extent. Right after the start of the protests he announced a number of reform measures. Thus the protests demanding political change and a constitutional monarchy lack the momentum of Egypt and Tunisia.

In Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere, there is a broad social front that is opposed to two key features: despotism and corruption. All are united against these two aspects.The masses suffering from social injustice and poverty took to the streets alongside wealthier social groups more concerned with ending despotism. These social groups are liberal in the political sense. They may favor social reform, and oppose neoliberal economic policies, but their members aspire above all to a degree of democracy and freedom that they believe to be appropriate for our time. They are advocates of modernity.

The bulk of the movement involves a very broad mass of the marginalized, poor, and unemployed who resent the corruption and the social status quo and understand that there is a link between despotism and corruption. Included in this front are the left and the workers’ movements. These were instrumental in Tunisia, as well as in Egypt where the mobilization of the workers’ movements hastened the downfall of Mubarak.

Toppling Mubarak thus brought together a broad spectrum of forces, from far-left to far-right. But once he was ousted, a new alignment of political forces developed, with the Muslim Brothers (MB) and Salafist religious currents supporting the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and differences emerging with the other forces – leftist and liberal – over the future shape of the state.

DC: What does the US want from the Arab revolutions? Is it behind the train, on board, or ahead?

GA: America certainly isn’t ahead of the train. Washington and its ally the Zionist state were and continue to be extremely concerned about the changes in the Arab world. We know from the Israeli press that they are even concerned for the Syrian regime, because at least it provides a measure of stability. But the US wasn’t entirely surprised by what happened. That was clear from the WikiLeaks cables. They know what is going on, especially regarding the corruption of the regimes. They know they are dealing with despotic regimes, but these are their clients. They have no illusions about such regimes lasting forever, and they know there’s popular dissatisfaction.
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Nokia developer forum hacked, still unavailable
Nokia said e-mail addresses of forum members have been accessed
By John Ribeiro, IDG News Service – August 30, 2011 01:48 AM ET

The community section of Nokia’s developer site was hacked, and some member’s e-mail addresses have been accessed, the mobile phone maker said.

The part of the site has been taken down, and instead delivers a statement from the company about the hack.

Nokia said that during its ongoing investigation of the incident, it discovered that a database table containing e-mail addresses of developer forum members was accessed, by exploiting a vulnerability in the bulletin board software that allowed an SQL injection attack.

The community section of Nokia’s developer site was hacked, and some member’s e-mail addresses have been accessed, the mobile phone maker said.

The part of the site has been taken down, and instead delivers a statement from the company about the hack.

Nokia said that during its ongoing investigation of the incident, it discovered that a database table containing e-mail addresses of developer forum members was accessed, by exploiting a vulnerability in the bulletin board software that allowed an SQL injection attack.

“Initially we believed that only a small number of these forum member records had been accessed, but further investigation has identified that the number is significantly larger,” the statement said.

Nokia did not specify when the site was hacked, though it is likely to have happened last week, according to some reports.

The database table records includes members’ e-mail addresses and, for fewer than 7 percent who chose to include them in their public profile, either birth dates, homepage URL (uniform resource locator) or usernames for AIM, ICQ, MSN, Skype or Yahoo services. Sensitive information such as passwords and credit cards details were not compromised, and the potential fallout of the hack is likely to be limited to unsolicited mail, Nokia said.

After addressing the initial vulnerability, Nokia said it took the developer community website offline as a precautionary measure, while it conducts further investigations and security assessments. The developer community section was still down on Tuesday.

Soon after the hack, visitors to the community pages were taken to a third-party web page containing an image of Homer Simpson, the character from the TV series The Simpsons, and a message, warning the company to patch its security holes, according to reports.

The hack of Nokia’s developer site is the latest in a series of hacks of corporate and government web sites. An April hack on Sony’s PlayStation Network and Qriocity online services forced Sony to close both networks while it rebuilt cyber defense systems. In all, it took two and a half months for the full resumption of service. …source

Opinion: Challenging Manama’s narrative
Egregious violations of Bahraini rights have occurred in the wake of the protests.
by Faraz Sanei – August 29, 2011 11:46

NEW YORK — On the afternoon of April 12, plain-clothes security officials arrested Ghazi Farhan, a businessman, in his office parking lot.

They blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to a detention facility, where officers interrogated him, beat him with a hose, and forced him to sign a confession that he had participated in anti-government demonstrations. Authorities kept Farhan in incommunicado detention for 48 days, and prevented him from meeting with his lawyer and his family to prepare his defense.

Today Farhan is having trouble sleeping. Until recently he shared a two-person cell in Jaw prison with a convicted murderer. On Aug. 6, after his family complained, authorities moved him to another cell. But as recently as July 27, Farhan asked his family to cancel a visit because prison guards were beating and harassing him, presumably to stop his wife from talking about conditions inside the prison.

Farhan’s case is typical of the hundreds of Bahrainis caught up in Manama’s campaign of retribution, which began on March 17. That is when security forces began their massive crackdown, targeting nearly everyone associated, however tenuously, with the anti-government protests in February and March.

It is this calculated campaign of arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, serious allegations of abuse in prisons, and show trials before special military courts that is at the heart of the rights crisis in Bahrain today. It is this reprisal campaign that Manama has tried desperately — and some would say successfully — to hide from world attention.

By most accounts, Farhan was not really involved in the protests and was instead busy running his businesses. Perhaps he was arrested because his wife, Ala’a al-Shehabi, was a familiar face at the Pearl Roundabout, the center of anti-government protests and activity for a month. And his father-in-law, Saeed al-Shehabi, is the London-based leader of an opposition group. (On June 21, the special military court sentenced Saeed al-Shehabi, in abstentia, to life in prison, along with seven other prominent opposition leaders and activists.)

On May 30, two days before King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa declared an end to martial law, a military prosecutor brought Farhan before a special military court and charged him with two counts of participating in illegal gatherings and one count of spreading false information. Both his wife and his lawyer met with him for the first time since his detention after the two-minute court session ended. On June 9, Farhan had his second court session. The court did not permit Farhan’s lawyer to meet with him to prepare his defense, but the judges did allow him to present three witnesses on Farhan’s behalf.

Twelve days later, on June 21, the court sentenced Farhan to three years in prison. His wife, who reviewed his case file, said the court convicted Farhan based on a two-line forced confession regarding his participation in protests, a Facebook printout with a highlight around the words “the people are demanding their freedom from the government,” and four messages he had sent from his private email to his work account that included YouTube links and pictures of anti-government protests.

Since mid-March, Bahraini authorities have mounted an aggressive public relations campaign aimed at advancing a narrative that focuses exclusively on what allegedly happened during the protest period between Feb. 14 and March 16 — and ignores everything that has happened since.

“Debt Throes” suggested:

How about a story on the world’s biggest soveriegn defaults. What can we learn from them to put the current turmoil in perspective?

Last week’s winner looks to history for lessons on Europe’s debt crisis. Check the membership site in mid-September for a link to completed piece.

Officials obsessively harp on what they claim protesters did, the “human rights” they violated, and the crimes they allegedly perpetrated. Yet the majority of those sentenced by the special military courts were essentially convicted for speaking out against the government. This despite the fact that the crown prince had publicly stated at the time, on several occasions, that the demonstrations at the roundabout were not against the law.

Some protesters may have committed crimes of violence, and those who did should face justice. But most of those arrested, detained and put on trial were, like Farhan, denied a fair trial and are now sitting in prison, awaiting trial or convicted on politically motivated charges. Authorities say they will continue to try some of the detainees in special military courts after King Hamad issued a decree on Aug. 18 allowing these courts to retain jurisdiction over certain criminal cases.

The new decree seems to override an earlier one, issued by King Hamad in late June, which seemingly transferred all cases pending before the special military courts to civilian courts. Human Rights Watch opposes prosecution of civilians in these special military courts and believes that civilians charged with genuine criminal offenses should be tried in an independent civilian court that meets fair trial standards.

The Bahraini government has made some positive steps. An independent international commission of inquiry is looking into human rights violations associated with the period of unrest. Al-Wefaq, the largest legal opposition group, has held several large rallies without interference. And authorities have released a few hundred detainees during the past several weeks, though most are merely out on bail and charges have not been dropped.

But even the positive steps will count for little as long as people like Farhan remain unjustly imprisoned, abused, and deprived of their rights with impunity.

Except for the clearly excessive use of lethal force against peaceful protesters prior to March 17 that left seven protesters and bystanders dead and hundreds of others injured, the most egregious and systematic rights violations occurred in Bahrain after security forces violently suppressed the public protests.

To lose sight of this is to miss the mark on the rights crisis that is unfolding in Bahrain today. And squander the opportunity to provide real justice and accountability for the victims of this campaign of retribution.

Faraz Sanei is a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch. …source

Special Reports
U.N. still worried about rights in Bahrain
Published: Aug. 30, 2011 at 12:24 PM

GENEVA, Switzerland, Aug. 30 (UPI) — Hundreds of people face military trials and thousands more lost their jobs because of their opposition to Bahrain’s monarchy, the U.N. human rights office said.

Bahrain in early July started a dialogue process meant to examine possible improvements in the political structure. The government earlier received praise for transferring some trials from a military tribunal to civilian courts. Under a series of political reforms announced last month, the prime minister of Bahrain is granted more power over the state’s affairs.

Human rights groups, however, have accused the ruling Sunni minority of using state hospitals as torture chambers and other abuses.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in its latest update on the situation in Bahrain said there were at least 264 cases pending before what amounts to a military court. Thousands more are jobless because they were accused of taking part in anti-government protests early this year, the OHCHR adds.

“We are concerned that most of the defendants in these cases may be prisoners of conscience, detained only for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association,” OHCHR spokesman Rupert Colville said in a statement.
PHOTOS: Protesters in Bahrain clash with police

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain in a customary gesture marking the end of Ramadan said he was pardoning an unknown number of political prisoners and called for the reinstatement of some employees.

“There are those who were charged with abusing us and senior officials in Bahrain, and we today announce that we forgive them as we hope that they understand that abusing us and others in fact offends everyone and achieves nothing,” he said in a statement. …source

Bahrain’s authorities strive to muzzle and intimidate the independent channels that cover the violations in Bahrain

Bahrain is involved in jamming and pressuring on the satellite channels covering human rights condition in Bahrain, such as Al-Jazeera English and Lulu channel.
14 August, 2011 – BCHR

Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses its concern about the permanent campaigns by the government of Bahrain that muzzle, blur the facts and restrict publishing the information and freedom of media, which have increased in the last years and worsen since the beginning of the brutal repression campaign against the protesters last February and after imposing the state of emergency, that ended in the beginning of June 2011. The latest jamming was on lulu channel, Bahraini opposition channel broadcasting from London, also, pressuring on Al-Jazeera English to prevent re- broadcasting “Bahrain shouting in the dark”, that shows the repression campaign against pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain.

Bahrain Center for Human Rights demands the government of Bahrain represented in the media the following:

• Stop all forms of harassment by the government on the independent media and their crews and allow them to operate and broadcast news about Bahrain.
• Cancel all procedures that would restrict flowing of information and freedom of speech and opinion.
• Release all those who were arrested because they exercise freedom of speech and to deal with the media.
• Bahrain’s government has to restrict with its international obligations and respect for all forms of freedom of expression and publication as provided in the international covenants and treaties.
• Punish all those who are responsible in spreading lies and inciting sectarian and removed them from their offices in the Information Affairs Authority and Bahrain Tv .
• Oblige to codes of ethics on the media and all the international treaties and conventions, especially the International Covenants on Civil and Political, Social and Cultural Rights.
• Give all spectrums of the society the same amount of freedom to express their views about various issues without excluding any category based on the basis of sectarian or ideological or political.

…more

Dr.Ghassan Dhaif wife Letter to all

The situation of detained doctors is very critical.the military courts are back and doctors are still facing serious charges infront of military court despite the royal decree no 62 which diverted all military courts to civil courts.

The health condition of the doctors inside jail is very bad.my husband Dr Ghassan Dhaif is having severe depression,suicidal thoughts,on several antidepressants,now on hunger strike so he is not taking his medications.dr Basim Dhaif is having compartmental syndrome from torture and may be having DVT (deep venous thrombosis).nurse ebrahim demestani is having fracture coccycs(lower back bone)he is in severe pain.dr samaheeji was diagnosed with cerebral aneurysm.dr tooblani is having severe depression.dr deewani is having uncontrolled diabetes.

All are on hunger strike and we ask the medical organizations to interfere immediately to release them and save them .

Thanks for your support
Dr.Ghasan Dhaif Wife
30 August 2011
BAHRAINDOCTOR
…source

BCHR Letter to the High Representative Catherine Ashton re Spy Gear Abuses

30 August 2011

Dear Ms. Catherine Ashton,
High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

Greetings

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) is writing to you to express its serious concern about the report published by the American magazine (Bloomberg)[1] showing that European companies sold surveillances technologies known as Spy Gear which have been used in countries that practice human rights abuses against activists and politicians; tracing their calls and messages and then torturing them in violation of human rights laws and treaties signed by these countries. The Kingdom of Bahrain is one of those countries, and as stated in the Bloomberg report, the Bahraini rights activist, Mr. Abdul Ghani Al Khanjar[2] said that he was subjected to systematic torture while in detention from August 2010 until February 2011; his jailers showed him records of mobile phone calls and text messages while he was interrogated with cruel and degrading treatment.

BCHR stands against human rights violations that occur against any person in the Kingdom of Bahrain. We send you this letter urging you to start immediate and impartial investigations on the sales of such equipment and technology to countries that have records of mass human rights violations against activists and politicians, such as Bahrain. We understand that five European MPs have also requested an investigation [3] into the sale of surveillance systems to the government of Bahrain. We support their calls for an investigation into whether this technology has been used in the commission of offences.

BCHR welcomed your condemnation of the violations and brutal repression committed by the Bahrain authorities in dealing with peaceful protesters and their legitimate demands since February. We would like to call on the EU to take further part in preventing violations of human rights in our country. Therefore, we recommend the following steps:

– An investigation into the issues raised by the Bloomberg report.

– Urging those countries and companies developing such technology to stop supplying it to states that do not comply with international human rights norms and practices.

– Sending a letter urging the government of Bahrain to achieve neutral investigations in these cases of torture and the illegal use of technology to track and monitor human rights activists and politicians.

Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Nabeel Rajab
President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Manama – Bahrain …source