Posts from — September 2011

Detained blogger Abduljalil Al-Singace on hunger strike
Published on Tuesday 6 September 2011. Reporters without Borders

Several detainees in Gurayn military prison, including the blogger Adbuljalil Al-Singace, have begun a hunger strike and have issued a joint letter denouncing their imprisonment and the frequency of arbitrary detention and unfair trials in Bahrain.

Singace, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court on 22 June, is suffering from various ailments affecting his mobility. Reporters Without Borders is very worried about his physical condition and urges the authorities to free him and all the other prisoners of conscience.

The Bahraini authorities lifted a state of emergency in 1 June and began a national dialogue on 1 July. They also announced that cases of civilians pended trial by court martial would transferred to civilian courts. But the convictions of civilians already handed down by military courts were never reviewed.

Bahrain was ranked 144th out of 178 countries in the press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders published in October 2010. It was also included in the “countries under surveillance” in the latest Reporters Without Borders list of “Enemies of the Internet.”

One blogger sentenced to life imprisonment, another to 15 years in jail
22.06.2011

Reporters Without Borders is shocked by the long jail sentences that a military court passed today on 21 activists accused of belonging to terrorist organizations and trying to overthrow the government. Eight of them, including human rights activist and blogger Abduljalil Al-Singace, got life sentences. Thirteen others received sentences ranging from two to 15 years in prison. Ali Abdulemam, a blogger who was tried in absentia, was given 15 years.

“The only crime committed by Abdulemam and Al-Singace was freely expressing opinions contrary to those of the government,” Reporters Without Borders said. “These sentences, handed down at the end of trail that flouted defence rights, are typical of the intransigence that the authorities have been showing towards those identified as government opponents, who have borne the full brunt of their repression. The international community must call the government to account on its strategy of stifling all dissent.”

The head of the pro-democracy and civil liberties movement Al Haq, Singace was rearrested on 16 March after being held from September to February. He was previously arrested in 2009 for allegedly trying to destabilize the government because he used his blog (http://alsingace.katib.org) to denounce the deplorable state of civil liberties and discrimination against Bahrain’s Shiite population.

Abdulemam is regarded by fellow Bahrainis as one of his country’s Internet pioneers and is an active member of Bahrain Online, a pro-democracy forum that gets more than 100,000 visitors a day despite being blocked within Bahrain. A contributor to the international bloggers network Global Voices, he has taken part in many international conferences at which he has denounced human rights violations in Bahrain. He was also detained from September to February but avoided being rearrested and has been in hiding for several months.

Human rights activists reported many irregularities during this trial and have been calling for an end to trials before special military courts now that the state of emergency has been lifted. According to the defendants themselves or their families, some of the defendants were tortured or mistreated while in detention. …source

Front Line Defenders welcomes news that the 12 health professionals who have been on hunger strike in Bahrain for almost two weeks will be released tonight.
Posted on 2011/09/07

Front Line Defenders welcomes news that the 12 health professionals who have been on hunger strike in Bahrain for almost two weeks will be released tonight. “Not before Time” says Front Line Executive Director Mary Lawlor.
Further Information

NEWS FLASH FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DUBLIN -O7- 09- 2011

Welcoming the release of the doctors Front Line Executive Director Mary Lawlor said “ Not before time – It is a travesty of justice that health professionals who had simply honoured their hippocratic oath by providing emergency medical treatment to injured demonstrators should be arrested, tortured and tried before a military court. Their release offers some hope that the Government of Bahrain may at last be willing to address the many legitimate concerns raised by human rights defenders in Bahrain”

As the hunger strike entered its second week concern had mounted that the health of several of the doctors had reached a critical stage.

Three of the 12, Dr Ali Al Ekri, Dr Ghassan Daif and Dr Basim Daif studied at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin

The doctors launched a hunger strike last week in protest at their conditions of detention and the outrageous charges against them. All three were arbitrarily detained, held in incommunicado detention, reportedly tortured, denied access to their families for 2 months and forced to confess under duress. These “confessions” were videotaped while they were blindfolded and are being used in evidence against them. Additionally, Dr Ghassan’s wife Dr Zahra Alsammak, who also studied in Dublin, was detained for 25 days and is also facing charges.

The arrests of the medics took place as part of the violent government response to the demonstrations for political reform which took place in February and March and during which health professionals who had provided medical care to injured demonstrators were arrested and charged with attempts to undermine the authority of the King and the government.

Despite this good news Front Line Defenders remains concerned that the charges against them still stand and that the trials will continue before a military court in which the defendants are denied the opportunity to present witnesses for the defence or to question witnesses for the prosecution. The organisation is continuing to press for the release of all human rights defenders currently in detention, including Front Line’s former Protection Coordinator for the Middle East Abdulhadi Al Khawaja who was sentenced to life imprisonment. Front Line is also calling for all charges to be dropped against blogger Ali Abduleman who was sentened to 15 years imprisonment in absentia. …source

Dark clouds over Bahrain
Posted By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen Tuesday, September 6, 2011 – Foreign Policy Mag.

The killing of a 14-year-old boy by police on the island of Sitra on Aug. 31 has reignited simmering tensions in Bahrain. Ali Jawad Ahmad died while attending an Eid al-Fitr demonstration, one of numerous flashpoints in the daily confrontations between anti-government protesters and the security services. His death triggered widespread protests that rapidly spread to most Shiite villages on the Bahraini archipelago. Some 10,000 people attended his funeral and repeated calls for the overthrow of the ruling Al-Khalifa family. Groups of demonstrators also returned to central Manama where they attempted to reclaim the site of Pearl Roundabout — now a traffic junction after it was bulldozed by the regime in March. Riot police beat them back with tear gas, but the symbolism of the attempted return to the heart of the pro-democracy movement that threatened to topple the Al-Khalifa in March was clear.

Ali’s death and the reactions to it underline once more how Bahraini society remains polarised as never before. Following the lifting of martial law on June 1, King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa convened a National Dialogue and created an ostensibly independent investigation into the springtime unrest. Through these initiatives, the government hoped to begin a process of reconciliation and reach a consensual settlement with the opposition. However, their flawed implementation widened the chasm between the Al-Khalifa and their opponents by casting serious doubt on the credibility of the commitment to political reform. The impasse undercuts goodwill and moderate opinion on both sides while entrenching hard-line attitudes and mutual distrust.
[Read more →]

unconfirmed but reliable tweet – Military court orders release of all the doctors and medical staff on hunger strike in Bahrain and case postponed until the 26th September

cb editor: while good and welcome news, the victory will be in dismissal of charges and release of all opposition leadership and other prisoners of conscience. The question remains can the al Khalifa regime repent, cede absolute power, make genuine concessions toward democratic rule and actually advert a revolution where all sides can leave Bahrain reasonably in tact? The world is wating on you to “do the right thing” King Hamad.

The Democratization of Repression
By Joseph Marks and Aliya Sternstein – 09/06/11 05:46 pm ET – Tech Insider nextgov

Stanford University’s Evgeny Morozov published an interesting New York Times Op Ed Thursday about Western companies’ sales of Internet surveillance technology to the Libyan and Egyptian governments and to other repressive regimes.

Morozov charges that the U.S. and other Western governments are complicit in these sales because many of the surveillance tools were initially developed for sale to Western intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Here’s his prescription:

“What we need is a recognition that our reliance on surveillance technology domestically — even if it is checked by the legal system — is inadvertently undermining freedom in places where the legal system provides little if any protection. That recognition should, in turn, fuel tighter restrictions on the domestic surveillance-technology sector, including a reconsideration of the extent to which it actually needs such technology in our increasingly privacy-free world.”

He continues:

“As countries like Belarus, Iran and Myanmar digest the lessons of the Arab Spring, their demand for monitoring technology will grow. Left uncontrolled, Western surveillance tools could undermine the “Internet freedom” agenda in the same way arms exports undermine Western-led peace initiatives. How many activists, finding themselves confronted with information collected using Western technology, would trust the pronouncements of Western governments again?”

That conundrum put us in mind of the Cold War debates about selling advanced war planes and arms to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Greece, Turkey, India, Pakistan and, yes, Egypt too.

The argument then was between doves, who charged that the supposedly peace-promoting U.S. had become the world’s chief supplier of deadly arms and often — as in the case of India and Pakistan — was supplying both sides in a bloody conflict, and hawks, who said if the U.S. didn’t sell arms to those countries then the Soviet Union surely would and would gain a strategic advantage in the process.

With spying technology now as with traditional weapons technology then, it seems, the U.S. is fated to arm both sides. The State Department and other government agencies have devoted substantial sums to promoting anonymity software that allows activists and others to surf online without being tracked by their governments.

Global power over new technology has democratized since the Cold War era, though.

An implicit — and accurate — presumption by both sides during the 1970s and 1980s was that developing advanced aircraft, such as the F-15 fighter jet, was beyond the capacity of any nations save the two global superpowers and a few European allies. In other words, if Western nations had abandoned their advanced weapons or refused to share them, the genie might have been, for a few years at least, put back in the bottle.

But Internet surveillance technology is no F-15. Nor, for that matter, is it even an iPad 2. Hacking groups have proved fully adept not just at busting into government’s surveillance technology but also at deploying their own.

At the same time, the civil liberties groups Witness.org and The Guardian Project have collaborated on a camera app for distributing evidence of human rights abuses that will automatically blur protesters’ faces, strip internal data identifying who owns the device and trigger other anonymizing mechanisms to protect dissidents.

Even opponents of stateside domestic surveillance realize that policy cannot keep up with the evolution of tracking-technologies.

As Michael German, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, says in an Al-Jazeera report: “We have a perfect storm where technology has outpaced how the law protects individual privacy. The law hasn’t been updated, even though much of our lives are spent in an electronic world.”

Leaving aside the morality of domestic surveillance in the West — and of Western companies’ complicity in repressive states’ surveillance — it’s not at all clear that a Western commitment to forswear new surveillance technology could do much more than delay its development elsewhere.

If the conflict between spying states and their citizens is inevitable, the United States may have better luck developing new anonymity tools for citizens of repressive states than denying surveillance technology to their oppressors. …source

Bahrain : Fears that National Safety Appeal Court proceedings violate international human rights standards
7 September 2011 – fidh

On September 6, 2011 the 21 political leaders and human rights activists sentenced on June 22nd to harsh prison sentences appeared before the National Safety Appeal Court.
At the close of this first and penultimate hearing, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) expresses its utmost concern with regard to proceedings, which once again disregard fair trial guarantees, and reiterates its call for the immediate and unconditional release of these activists, and for the end of the proceedings against them, due to the arbitrary nature of these charges and of the entire proceedings.

« According to the information received, this last hearing demonstrates that the Bahraini judiciary cares nothing for the international human rights obligations and commitments of the government of Bahrain. While the judge of the National Safety Appeal Court (NSAC) has rejected all requests of the defence lawyers and, among others, those pertaining to impartial investigation into reports of torture and ill-treatment made by several defendants, he tarnishes once more the credibility of the judiciary » stated Souhayr Belhassen, President of FIDH [1]. FIDH is concerned that lawyers were given only one week to prepare and submit their appeal defense. Such a short notice comes in contradiction with the right to adequate time to prepare defense. In addition, the right to full access to the case file should be granted to the defendants lawyers. The publicity of debates has not been fully guaranteed, as visas have been denied by the Bahraini authorities to FIDH delegates who were given a mandate to monitor and assess the conformity of the trial with relevant international standards. The final verdict will be pronounced on September 28.

This hearing was the first in the appeal launched by 21 political leaders and human rights activists who were given harsh sentences (including life imprisonment) on June 22, 2011. They have been brought to trial before an exceptional court, the National Safety Court of First Instance (NSC), under charges of ”organising and managing a terrorist organisation”, “attempt to overthrow the government by force and in liaison with a terrorist organisation working for a foreign country,” and the “collection of money for a terrorist group” [2]. FIDH and other international human rights organisations have repeatedly denounced what they consider to be politically motivated charges. Moreover, violations of fair trial guarantees have been documented throughout the proceedings before the NSC, which was established to try people accused of crimes committed under the state of emergency.

“In addition to failing to guarantee the most basics of fair trial, the Judiciary dodges today the issue of deciding on the legality and even constitutionality of the Royal Decree (decree no. “28” 2011), which has reversed a previous decision and allows again the prosecution of these defendants before an exceptional court.” added Souhayr Belhassen.

Consequent to the lifting of the State of Emergency on July 1, the King of Bahrain issued a Royal Order that stated that all cases tried before the NSC would be transferred to ordinary courts, putting an end to prosecuting civilians before exceptional courts, a practice which contravenes international standards. However, this decision has been reversed with the adoption of Decree no. “28” 2011. According to this, it has been announced that several cases, including the present case, will be retransferred before the National Safety Courts. The defendants’ lawyers in this case, as well as those in charge of the defence of 20 medics also arbitrary prosecuted as it seems that charges against them mainly aimed at sanctioning them for exercing their professional duty or expressing opinion [3] have challenged the constitutionality of this decree. While the judge of the NSAC has rejected today the request of the lawyers on this issue, the judge of the NSC should determine on it on September 7, after he decided on August 28 to adjourn the hearing as a consequence of a memorandum presented by the defendants’ lawyers on the unconstitutionality of Decree 28. …source

Imprisoned opposition activists on hunger strike in Bahrain
Guardian.uk.co – Sept 6, 2011 – AP

International commission statement says 84 opposition supporters are on hunger strike in prison, and another 17 have been taken to hospital

Investigators say 101 imprisoned activists are on hunger strike in Bahrain after months of anti-government protests and crackdowns.

A statement by the international Bahrain Commission of Inquiry said 84 opposition supporters were on hunger strike in prison. In addition, 17 detained activists have been sent to hospitals by the interior ministry because of their refusal to eat.

The statement said an international expert on hunger strikes would join a panel to visit the striking detainees and evaluate their condition.

Hundreds of activists have been imprisoned in Bahrain since February, when Shia-led demonstrations for greater rights began.

Qabalan calls for “rescuing” Bahraini people
September 7, 2011 – NOW Lebanon

Vice President of the Higher Shia Islamic Council Sheikh Abdel Amir Qabalan on Wednesday called on the Arab people to take action “to rescue the people of Bahrain from the genocides” committed by their government.

“The Gulf Cooperation Council must also resolve the situation [in Bahrain] in a way that satisfies the people without resorting [to violence],” Qabalan added in a reference to the Shia-led pro-democracy protest movement that was crushed earlier this year.

He also questioned “the silence of Arab and Islamic states toward the oppression and killings” of the Bahraini people, the National News Agency reported.

“The people of Bahrain are peaceful and we must protect them.”

Protests calling for political reform broke out on February 14 in the Sunni-ruled, Shia-majority Gulf state. Saudi-led Gulf forces entered the country in late March, freeing up Bahraini troops to crush the uprising. ….more

CIA-NYPD Alliance = Systematic Racial Profiling
By Kanya D’Almeida

WASHINGTON, Aug 25, 2011 (IPS) – While some Muslim Americans might have been hoping for a relaxation of the decade-long counterterrorism onslaught on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a report published by the Associated Press – unearthing new and shocking realities on the extent of intelligence-gathering operations in New York City – suggests that the offensive on “terror” is only just beginning.

Following months of investigations, including numerous interviews with current and former employees and agents of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the AP presented evidence Wednesday that “the NYPD (currently) operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government… and it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.”

The report’s authors claim that neither the New York City Council – NYPD’s sole financier – nor the federal government, which doles out hundreds of millions of dollars each year, have been told exactly what is going on.

By law, the CIA is specifically prohibited from collecting foreign intelligence concerning the domestic activities of U.S. citizens; however David Cohen, a CIA veteran who jumped on board with the NYPD while the ashes of the twin towers were still smouldering, has successfully married the CIA’s intelligence architecture with the police department’s legal loopholes to create a human mapping system for identifying “potential terrorist threats” in the fearful aftermath of 9/11.

According to information from ex-police and -intelligence officers, the NYPD has dispatched teams of undercover agents, or “rakers”, into minority neighbourhoods to monitor daily life in bookstores, hookah bars and even cafes.

Police are also said to have used “mosque crawlers”, infiltrators who monitor sermons and spy on imams even with no evidence of wrongdoing. NYPD officials have even gone so far as to ‘rake’ information on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often held by members of the Muslim community.

Historically, the CIA’s largely white American employee base has been a barrier to unfettered infiltration. But with the NYPD’s ethnically diverse employment pool, the agencies have been able to plant Palestinian rakers in internet cafes to study browsing histories of ‘suspects’ or send Pakistani spies into bookstores to keep tabs on customers reading or purchasing ‘radical literature’.

Restaurants too have been under close watch – if patrons applaud news reports on the death of U.S. troops, the restaurant could be labelled a ‘hot spot’.

Rights Groups, Lawyers Cry ‘Foul’

“This is the kind of information that must not be allowed to be buried under other news reports,” James Yee, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said at a press conference in New York City Wednesday. “What is happening (to the Muslim community) is an earthquake of a different magnitude, such that even those in New Jersey are feeling the shock- waves of the NYPD-CIA mapping programme in New York.”

Drawing members from virtually every sector of the Muslim community and its deep pool of allies – from the youth advocacy group Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) to the National Lawyers Guild – CAIR today called on the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the allegations put forward in AP’s report.

“Intelligence and law enforcement agencies need to stop preying on ethnic minorities and be transparent in their actions – they are supposed to be preventing crime, but their own covert and potentially illegal operations only corrode trust between minorities and law enforcers, despite massive publicity stunts and PR campaigns to the contrary,” CAIR-NY civil rights manager Cyrus McGoldrick told IPS.

“Such operations have real, lasting and damaging effects on the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities,” he added.

“I personally have handled people’s complaints and fears of being scrutinised, being approached by police to become informants themselves or having their immigration status threatened if they did not comply,” McGoldrick said. “This has led to a terrible breakdown in the very fabric of community life – people are afraid to worship, to commune with their neighbours, to exercise freely their religious and cultural practices, especially when actions as innocuous as quitting smoking or going to bookstores are deemed a ‘terrorist threat’.”

Spokespeople for the NYPD and the CIA have vehemently denied claims that they used census data to match undercover officers to ethnic communities in a unit that became known inside the department as the Demographic Unit.

“It’s not a question of profiling. It’s a question of going where the problem could arise,” said Mordecai Dzikansky, a retired NYPD intelligence officer. “And thank God we (now) have the language capability and the ethnic officers (to do that) – that’s our hidden weapon.”

Legal experts claim that the report’s evidence offers the possibility of a strong case against both agencies for being in violation of civil and constitutional rights.

“There are (various) avenues through which one could potentially challenge these intelligence operations in court,” Faiza Patel, co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told IPS.

“The first is obviously through challenges based on violations of the first amendment, since these intelligence gathering practices potentially impinge upon protected speech. There is also the possibility of challenging them based on provisions in New York City’s administrative code, which prohibits profiling on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity etc,” she added.

“The City Council, which already has oversight of NYPD, should actually start shouldering these responsibilities. To date, they have not had a hearing to discuss intelligence-gathering activities and it’s high time they did,” Patel stressed.

However, the prospect of the CIA and NYPD being hauled into the spotlight, even for a slap on the wrist, is slim.

The AP report reminds us that, “the NYPD has faced little scrutiny over the past decade as it has taken on broad new intelligence missions, targeted ethnic neighbourhoods and partnered with the CIA in extraordinary ways.”

It continues, “Though NYPD has been mentioned as a model for policing in the post-9/11 era, it’s a model that seems custom-made for New York – no other city has the Big Apple’s combination of a low crime rate, a 4.5 billion dollar police budget and a diverse 34,000-person police force.” …source

Democratic Opening in Bahrain Needs Release of All Prisoners of Conscience
9/6/11 06:13 PM ET – by Jean-François Julliard – Secretary general, Reporters Without Borders

That Bahrain released 137 people on August 9th is good news, but it also shows the scale of arrests, done in full view with little criticism. Five weeks ago, President Barack Obama hailed the launch of a national dialogue by the Bahraini government as an “important moment of promise for the people of Bahrain.” The government lifted the state of emergency on June 1st and started the national dialogue a month later, but continued to arbitrarily hound bloggers, the media and journalists. Clearly the regime is saying one thing, but doing another.

Earlier in the year, President Obama pointed out that “mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain’s citizens” and recalled the necessary constitutional separation of powers — particularly between the executive and judicial. Reporters Without Borders urges the United States to renew its pressure on Bahrain, a leading U.S. ally in the Gulf, and to secure the support of Saudi Arabia, whose has strong influence over Bahrain. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia must work together to pressure the Bahraini authorities to cease violating their citizens’ rights to free expression and assembly by arbitrary arrest and prosecution, to release prisoners of conscience, and to continue the national dialogue in good faith.

On June 22nd, a military court imposed long jail sentences on 21 activists and civilians supposedly on charges of belonging to terrorist organizations and trying to overthrow the government. These actions violate international human rights standards. But this is not the sole irregularity observed in the trial. According to some of the defendants and their families, the suspects were tortured or mistreated while in detention.

Eight of them, including the human rights activist and blogger Abduljalil Al-Singace, were given life sentences. The head of the pro-democracy and civil liberties movement Al Haq, Singace has been in jail since March 16th, for allegedly trying to destabilize the government because he used his blog to denounce the deplorable state of civil liberties and discrimination against Bahrain’s Shiite population. He had been arrested several times since 2009 for the same reasons.

The other 13 suspects got sentences ranging from two to 15 years in prison. The blogger Ali Abdulemam, tried in absentia, got 15 years. Abdulemam is regarded by fellow Bahrainis as one of his country’s Internet pioneers and is an active member of Bahrain Online, a pro-democracy forum that gets more than 100,000 visitors a day despite being blocked within Bahrain. A contributor to the international bloggers network Global Voices, he has taken part in many international conferences at which he has denounced human rights violations in Bahrain. He was arrested in 2005 for criticizing the regime in his blog and was detained again from September to February 2011, but he avoided re-arrest and has been in hiding for several months.

And of course, none of them were amongst these 137 released prisoners.

There are limits to the regime’s leniency. Two royal decrees signed on June 29th were an attempt to silence international criticism. The first makes it possible for civilians to be tried in civilian court instead of the martial ones when they are accused of destabilizing the government. It also makes it possible for them to appeal to the highest civilian appeal court to fight against the rulings of the national security appeal court. The other, Decree No. 28, created a commission of enquiry into the incidents that took place in the kingdom during February and March. …source

Justice Department won’t release full memos on George W. Bush’s warrantless surveillance
By Associated Press – Wahsington Post – August 29, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is refusing to release legal memos the George W. Bush administration used to justify his warrantless surveillance program, one of the most contentious civil liberties issues during the Republican president’s time in office.

In responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the department is withholding two legal analyses by then-government lawyer John Yoo, and is revealing just eight sentences from a third Yoo memo dated Nov. 2, 2001. That memo is at least 21 pages long.

Each of the three memos was summarized in a public report more than two years ago by five inspectors general. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel says Yoo memos from Feb. 8, 2002, and Oct. 11, 2002, were classified and protected from public disclosure by the deliberative process privilege. The Nov. 2 memo was withheld almost in its entirety for an additional reason, that it was covered by non-disclosure provisions in federal laws.

Yoo’s work at the Justice Department during the Bush administration long has been intensely controversial, especially his authorship of memos defending the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorist suspects.

The department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where Yoo worked, is in charge of providing controlling legal opinions to the president and all executive branch agencies.

Yoo’s memos on interrogation and warrantless surveillance were long ago withdrawn and replaced by his successors at the department. Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008 spelled out the role of the courts in the surveillance process.

Key Justice Department memos by Yoo and others at the Justice Department in support of harsh interrogation techniques have been publicly released — some by the Bush administration, others during Barack Obama’s presidency.

Two years ago, Matthew Aid, a private researcher, asked the Justice Department to release three Yoo memos on warrantless surveillance. The Office of Legal Counsel responded three weeks ago.

The eight sentences released from the Nov. 2, 2001, memo closely track the 2009 inspectors general summary. In that memo, Yoo wrote that FISA “cannot restrict the president’s ability to engage in warrantless searches that protect the national security.” According to the IGs’ report, the Feb. 8, 2002, memo said that Congress had not included a clear statement in FISA that it sought to restrict presidential authority to conduct warrantless surveillance activities. The Oct. 11, 2002, opinion reiterates the same basic analysis contained in Yoo’s Nov. 2, 2001, memo in support of the legality of the president’s warrantless surveillance program, according to the IGs’ report.

Among the reasons Yoo’s memo has been controversial is that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enacted in 1978, set up a secret court — before which only government lawyers appear — with power to grant, or reject, government applications for warrants to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ communications in this country. It stated that the act was the exclusive means by which this could be done.

The Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists first reported on the Justice Department’s decision on the FOIA request. …source

CIA Sponsors Domestic Spying Activities By The NYPD?
By SOP newswire2

A coalition of a dozen civil rights and advocacy organizations is calling on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Department of Justice to take action in response to revelations that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is engaged in widespread religious and ethnic profiling and monitoring of Muslim communities and houses of worship in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The revelations are contained in documents obtained by the Associated Press (AP) showing that undercover NYPD officers in a so-called “Demographics Unit” targeted the Muslim communities with the assistance of individuals linked to the CIA. NYPD officials denied the Demographics Unit ever existed, despite the AP`s publication of an NYPD presentation that described the mission and makeup of the unit.

AP: Inside the Spy Unit That NYPD Says Doesn`t Exist
AP: NYPD Demographics Unit Presentation
Editorial: The CIA and the NYPD are worrisome bedfellows (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

A coalition letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee requests that the committee conduct “an immediate investigation into this affair and hold formal hearings on the civil rights implications of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsoring domestic spying activities by the NYPD and its legality.”

The coalition letter to the U.S. Marshals Service requests that the organization “withdraw its deputization of those special unit police officers involved in the above mentioned NYPD intelligence gathering activities, taking into account their safety and liability, the legality of such activities, and the civil rights implications of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsoring domestic spying activities by the NYPD.”

A similar coalition letter to the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section requests “an immediate investigation into this apparent pattern of profiling by the New York City Police Department.”

Coalition members include:

* Afghans for Peace
* Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
* Asian Law Caucus
* Bill of Rights Defense Committee
* Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
* Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR)
* Demand Progress
* Defending Dissent Foundation
* DownsizeDC.org
* Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM)
* Jews Against Islamophobia
* South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)

When the revelations of NYPD profiling were first published, CAIR`s New York chapter joined a coalition of civil rights and advocacy organizations in calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the initial AP allegations.

At the news conference, more than a dozen concerned leaders — including a state senator, Christian and Muslim religious leaders, and representatives of rights organizations — expressed outrage at the potentially illegal program.

Earlier this week, CAIR called on the New York City Council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to enforce the law that prohibits the use of racial or ethnic profiling by law enforcement officers.

CAIR is America`s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. …source

The NYPD’s ‘astounding’ domestic spying program
The AP reports that New York City police, with the help of the CIA, skirt domestic surveillance laws to snoop on Americans in minority neighborhoods
August 25, 2011 – The Week

A mosque in Astoria, Queens: Undercover NYPD officers called “mosque crawlers” are reportedly spying on muslim communities, even if no crimes are suspected.

A mosque in Astoria, Queens: Undercover NYPD officers called “mosque crawlers” are reportedly spying on muslim communities, even if no crimes are suspected. Photo: Emily Anne Epstein/Corbis SEE ALL 62 PHOTOS

It is no secret that the New York Police Department launched its own global intelligence unit after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But it’s news to almost everyone that the NYPD, in close and “extraordinary” collaboration with the CIA, might have bent domestic surveillance and civil rights laws by sending undercover agents to monitor Muslim enclaves and mosque services, according to a months-long investigation by the Associated Press. Here’s a look at the “astounding” NYPD “domestic CIA” operation:

What does the NYPD spy unit do?
Its goal is to gather and analyze intelligence about terrorist threats to New York. The unit has officers stationed in 11 foreign cities, and its operatives have been caught operating in New Jersey and Boston. Its most controversial initiatives, according to the AP, include the use of undercover officers (dubbed “rakers”) to troll New York’s Muslim neighborhoods looking for suspicious people and shops, and “mosque crawler” informants who report on what clerics are saying to their followers.

Where does the CIA fit in?
The unit was set up, and is still headed, by David Cohen, a retired CIA officer. Cohen brought aboard CIA agent Larry Sanchez, who stayed on the agency payroll while training police agents from his NYPD office — an unusual arrangement that appears to have breached “the wall that’s supposed to keep the CIA out of the domestic intelligence business,” the AP says. Also “blurring the lines between police work and spying,” the NYPD sent an officer to the CIA training farm to learn the agency’s tradecraft, and a senior CIA operative is currently working undercover in the top ranks of the NYPD unit.

Did any of this raise eyebrows?
NYPD lawyers raised concerns about the “raking” operations, and the intelligence unit got embroiled in an ongoing civil-liberties lawsuit after Cohen’s undercover agents infiltrated anti-war groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. The FBI also has turf issues with Cohen’s unit, and thinks it might be illegal. In fact, “senior FBI officials in New York ordered their own agents not to accept any reports from the NYPD’s mosque crawlers,” the AP says. But the authorities with oversight — the New York City Council and the federal government, which gives the unit millions in aid — have asked few questions.

Is any of this illegal?
Let’s put it this way, says John Cook at Gawker: “When the FBI’s lawyers are so concerned about your ethnic profiling that they won’t rely on your reports, you know you’re in trouble.” Throw in CIA dabbling in domestic spying, and these operations are “probably illegal.” The NYPD is evidently worried enough that it routinely shreds documents, says Adam Serwer at The American Prospect. But most of the unit’s work doesn’t “appear to violate the letter of the law,” says Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. Still, “ethnic harassment” and spying on mosques and anti-war protesters is “not what the NYPD is supposed to be about.”
…source

Op-Ed Contributor
Political Repression 2.0
By EVGENY MOROZOV – September 1, 2011

AGENTS of the East German Stasi could only have dreamed of the sophisticated electronic equipment that powered Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s extensive spying apparatus, which the Libyan transitional government uncovered earlier this week. The monitoring of text messages, e-mails and online chats — no communications seemed beyond the reach of the eccentric colonel.

What is even more surprising is where Colonel Qaddafi got his spying gear: software and technology companies from France, South Africa and other countries. Narus, an American company owned by Boeing, met with Colonel Qaddafi’s people just as the protests were getting under way, but shied away from striking a deal. As Narus had previously supplied similar technology to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, it was probably a matter of public relations, not business ethics.

Amid the cheerleading over recent events in the Middle East, it’s easy to forget the more repressive uses of technology. In addition to the rosy narrative celebrating how Facebook and Twitter have enabled freedom movements around the world, we need to confront a more sinister tale: how greedy companies, fostered by Western governments for domestic surveillance needs, have helped suppress them.

Libya is only the latest place where Western surveillance technology has turned up. Human rights activists arrested and later released in Bahrain report being presented with transcripts of their own text messages — a capacity their government acquired through equipment from Siemens, the German industrial giant, and maintained by Nokia Siemens Networks, based in Finland, and Trovicor, another German company.

Earlier this year, after storming the secret police headquarters, Egyptian activists discovered that the Mubarak government had been using a trial version of a tool — developed by Britain’s Gamma International — that allowed them to eavesdrop on Skype conversations, widely believed to be safe from wiretapping.

And it’s not just off-the-shelf technology; some Western companies supply dictators with customized solutions to block offensive Web sites. A March report by OpenNet Initiative, an academic group that monitors Internet censorship, revealed that Netsweeper, based in Canada, together with the American companies Websense and McAfee (now owned by Intel), have developed programs to meet most of the censorship needs of governments in the Middle East and North Africa — in Websense’s case, despite promises not to supply its technology to repressive governments.

Unfortunately, the American government, the world’s most vociferous defender of “Internet freedom,” has little to say about such complicity. Though Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton often speaks publicly on the subject, she has yet to address how companies from her country undermine her stated goal. To add insult to injury, in December the State Department gave Cisco — which supplied parts for China’s so-called Great Firewall — an award in recognition of its “good corporate citizenship.” ….more

from twitter – Sept 6, 2001 – Appeal of 21 prominent #bahrain figures postponed until 28th of September

Bahrain court hears appeals on protest sentences
msnbc.com

AP – MANAMA, Bahrain — A Bahrain security court on Tuesday heard appeals on behalf two prominent opposition figures who are on hunger strike and 19 other activists sentenced in the crackdown on anti-government protests, rights activists said.

Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said the hearing took place before the special security court with military prosecutors and civilian and military judges set up after the Gulf kingdom’s Sunni rulers imposed martial law to deal with a wave of Shiite-led protests for greater rights.

Of the 21 activists, the court in June sentenced eight prominent opposition figures to life imprisonment while 13 others received shorter prison terms. Seven activists were sentenced in absentia.

The sentences were among the most severe punishments against the demonstrations for greater rights by the Gulf kingdom’s Shiite majority. Anti-government protests in the tiny, Sunni-ruled island nation started in February, inspired by other Arab uprisings.

Jalila al-Sayed, a Bahraini lawyer for one of the defendants said the court adjourned until Sept. 28. She did not elaborate on the proceedings further except saying that 14 defendants attended Tuesday’s hearing.

Among the eight defendants who received life sentences are Bahrain’s Shiite leaders Hassan Mushaima and Abdul Jalil al-Singace.

The two are said to have joined a hunger strike last week in support of jailed doctors who treated injured protesters and who face charges of trying to overthrow Bahrain’s 200-year-old monarchy.

Shiites account for 70 percent of Bahrain’s population of some 525,000, but claim they face systematic discrimination such as being barred from top government and political posts.

More than 30 people died during months of demonstrations and harsh crackdowns in Bahrain, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Dozens of protesters, human rights activists and Shiite professional like doctors and lawyers have been tried in the special tribunal. Two protesters were sentenced to death.

Bahrain lifted emergency rule in June. The king Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa ordered all protest-related cases moved to civilian courts. In August, the monarch issued another decree that reversed the decision. It was not clear how many defendants will remain with the security court.

Bahrain’s use of the security court has been strongly criticized by rights groups. Souhayr Belhassen, the president of the International Federation for Human Rights said the reversal to the special court is a “great concern” for the Paris-based group.

“Trying civilians before a military and special courts doesn’t comply with international standards,” Belhassen said in a statement Tuesday. …source

A special report on the torture and human rights violations against the detainees in the case of “Alliance for the Republic” BCHR

The military court in Bahrain issued harsh sentences against 21 opposition leaders and figures, including Abdul Hadi Al Khawajah, the prominent human rights activist.

The lack of international standards for trials and having civilians tried before a military court are blatant violations of their rights and a sign of the invalidity of the sentences issued.

Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) considers the detainees prisoners of conscience with no material evidence of their involvement in violence or the incitement of violence. The BCHR condemns their torture during interrogation and trial.

5 June, 2011

Introduction

On the dawn of 16th March 2011, Bahrain security forces backed by the military crushed the popular pro-democracy movement in Bahrain by clearing the Pearl Roundabout in the capital Manama from protesters after declaring the state of “National Safety” (Martial Law) and the intervention of GCC security and military forces in Bahrain under the cover of the “Peninsula Shield”. Saudi troops formed the majority among those forces which was led by Major General Mutlaq Bin Salem – the head of the Peninsula Shield forces. Local authorities launched a wide campaign of arbitrary detentions against all those involved in or supported – in any way – the pro-democracy movement during the period from 14th February until 17th March 2011. According to initial estimates, the number of detainees exceeded 2000 including 21 opposition leaders and human rights activists – 7 of whom were tried in absentia for not being able to arrest them. They were tried before a military court known as “The Court of National Safety” which was held at the Military Courts headquarters of the Bahrain Defense Force (the army). The following report presents a summary of the abuses they were subjected to before and after the trials which ended on 22nd June 2011 (case No. 124/2011). The sentences ranged from two years to life imprisonment [1] (attached a list of names and sentences).

In the aforementioned sentence, the court relied on reports and testimonies of the National Security Apparatus (the intelligence services) which claimed that members of this group (21 in total, 7 of whom were considered escaped) had formed an organization calling for a democratic republic instead of the current monarchy and that they had participated in managing the popular protest movement, inciting hatred against the regime and its symbols, planning for the overthrow of the regime by force, calling for civil disobedience, spreading false news about the situation in Bahrain and collaborating with a foreign power. These charges were denied by all the defendants and their lawyers who have considered them malicious as a punishment to these activists, who were annoying the authorities with their peaceful activities in the previous period, by imposing the most severe penalties under the two laws of “Terrorism” and the “State Security” law in the penal code which is condemned internationally.

All the defendants insisted that what they have done was only practicing their legitimate right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly calling for civil, political, economic and social rights to all the people. Moreover, all their activities did not go beyond the frame of peaceful actions.

This brief report outlines some of what these activists have suffered with torture and human rights violations since their arrest until the time of writing of this report. It includes the following:

I. Violations during the arrest and detention.
II. Torture at the National Security Apparatus (Al Qal’ah).
III. Physical and psychological torture at the military prison (Al Grain).
IV. Violations related to the interrogations done by the National Security Apparatus and the Military Prosecution.
V. Violations related to trials before the Military Court.
VI. Vengeance on relatives of the detainees.
I. Violations during the arrest and detention:

All fourteen detainees in this case said that their arrests took place by raiding their houses or houses of their relatives after midnight. They had not been summoned or informed that they are wanted by any authority. No documents of a judicial warrant for their arrest or search were presented. The following are some examples of detainees’ testimonies about the detention process: HERE

Visit Bahrain Martyr’s Page HERE

Jailed Native American activist Leonard Peltier wins rights prize
By Agence France-Presse – Monday, September 5th, 2011 — 8:21 pm

MONTEVIDEO — Leonard Peltier, an indigenous rights activist jailed in the United States for decades, has received the first Mario Benedetti Foundation international human rights prize, the group said Monday.

The group called Peltier, a Native American activist convicted in 1977 for the murder of two US FBI agents, the longest serving political prisoner in the Americas. The case stemmed from a shootout at a reservation in the US state of South Dakota.

“Leonard Peltier, who on September 12, 2011 will turn 67, has spent more than half his life in prison. He is a symbol of resistance to repressive state policies by the United States, where there are people in jail for ethnic, racial, ideological and religious reasons,” a foundation statement said.

Ricardo Elena, a member of the foundation’s honorary board, said Peltier’s case “is one that is repeated over and over: violation (of rights); persecution, eviction, invasion and expropriation of the indigenous people from the time it was ‘discovered’ until now.

“It did not just happen in the United States; it is happening in southern South America with the (indigenous) Mapuche people, and with indigenous people in North America,” he stressed.

Peltier, whose family is indigenous Chippewa and Lakota, fled to Canada after the shooting and was later extradited. He was convicted in part based on the testimony of a woman, Myrtle Poor Bear, who claimed she was his girlfriend and witnessed the shootings. Poor Bear however admitted later she was pressured to make the testimony, but a judge blocked her testimony.

Elena took a swipe at the United States saying it “likes to think it is the seat of democracy, but it has political prisoners just like a dictatorship might have.”

The Mario Benedetti Foundation was set up to support human rights and cultural causes in synch with the work of the Uruguayan writer who died in 2009. …more

Bahrain king’s visit to Turkey sparks protests
Denver Post Wire Report – Posted: 09/05/2011

ANKARA, Turkey — A Turkish rights group protested the visit by the king of Bahrain, accusing his Sunni dynasty of carrying out a brutal crackdown on demonstrations for greater rights by the gulf nation’s Shiite majority. The state-run Anatolia news agency says dozens of members of the pro-Islamic advocacy group Mazlumder gathered outside Bahrain’s embassy in Ankara and burned posters of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who is paying a private visit to Turkey. …source

Bahrain Government Makes U—Turn on Military Courts
For Immediate Release: August 22, 2011

Washington, DC – Human Rights First today criticized the Bahrain government’s sudden decision to bring back military courts to try pro-democracy activists. The group called the development as shocking as it is duplicitous.

“The world needs to take notice that the government of Bahrain has brought back its discredited military courts, which is further evidence that meaningful reform in that country is an illusion,” said Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley. “I met with many people in Bahrain last month who had been told their cases would now be heard in civilian instead of military courts. They were lied to.”

More than a dozen doctors and other medical professionals have been summoned to appear before the military court on Sunday August 28, even though the Bahraini authorities announced on June 26 that they were transferring all cases from military courts to civilian courts.

Among those waiting to have their cases heard are medics like Roula Al-Saffar, the head of the Bahrain Nursing Society, who was released from detention yesterday after four months in custody. Roula studied at Widener University in Pennsylvania and at the University of North Texas. She also worked for many years as a nurse at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. Though she has been released, the charges against her have not been dropped and she has now been summoned with her colleagues to appear before the military court on Sunday.

“The U.S. government has been publicly silent on Bahrain for some time now. It has not disassociated itself from the discredited National Dialogue nor spoken out against the police attacks on peaceful protests over the last few weeks. In light of this latest development, it should say clearly and publicly that any step back to military courts will have consequences for the relationship between the United States and Bahrain,” Dooley concluded. …more

More detainees join Bahrain hunger strike
Protest aimed at ongoing trials from the crackdown on demonstrations by the Gulf nation’s Shia majority.
Last Modified: 03 Sep 2011 18:07

A rights group in Bahrain says more detainees are joining a hunger strike to protest ongoing trials from the crackdown on demonstrations for greater rights by the Gulf nation’s Shia majority.

A statement on Saturday by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said the strike now includes nearly 20 doctors who are jailed and face anti-state charges linked to the protests against Bahrain’s ruling Sunni dynasty.
The rights group said at least two other prominent activists, Abdul Jalil al-Singace and Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, have also begun hunger strikes in solidarity. The activists were sentenced to life in prison in June.
Nabeel Rajab, a spokesman for the group, told Al Jazeera the detainees are insisting that a trial, if any, should take place in a civil court not a military tribunal.

The trials are scheduled to resume on Wednesday.
Rajab said because little change has come into effect despite promises of reform from the government, there are now renewed protests in the prisons and in the streets.

Zainab al-Khawaja says her father, Abdulhadi, and al-Singace, opposition Haq movement member, stopped eating on Tuesday in solidarity with detainees held at Bahrain’s Dry Dock prison.

She said the detainees, who were arrested as part of a March crackdown on pro-democracy protests, went on hunger strike against the government’s failure to honour promises to release them.

“I am concerned about my father’s health,” al-Khawaja said. “He was beaten when detained and his jaw was broken.

“He has already lost too much weight in prison and yesterday he called me and said his blood sugar level has dropped,” she added.

Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who also holds Danish citizenship, was jailed for life along with Singace and six other opposition activists in June.

Bahrain’s interior ministry says 24 people, including four policemen, were killed in the month-long protests that erupted in mid-February.

Security forces backed by troops from Bahrain’s Gulf neighbours crushed the protest movement.

The opposition says that scores of people were arrested, and many of them tortured. Hundreds more were dismissed from their jobs.

Four people have been sentenced to death and three to life imprisonment after being convicted of the killing of two policemen during the protests.

Nine others were jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of abducting a policeman. …more

Youth protest of Jordanian Forces ‘presence’ in Bahrain
Posted on September 5, 2011 by mat – Signal Fire

AMMONNEWS – near 50 of Jordanian youth staged a protest on Sunday in front of the Bahraini embassy in Amman to protest what they said Jordanian Gendarmerie Forces ‘presence’ in Bahrain.

The protest was held amidst heavy security presence, with various police, and gendarmerie forces surrounding the area, and closed the roads around.

Several media outlets reported that hundreds of Jordanian security forces were sent to Bahrain to help the Bahraini security forces to handle the protesters.

The protesters expressed solidarity with Bahraini peaceful demonstrations, and denounced the use of force to disperse the protesters by Bahraini Forces, and the destruction of “ Loaloa” circle where the Bahraini protesters staged their sit-ins.

Earlier many youth Movements canceled their participation in the protest. …more

recent tweet from @Free AlKhawaja – lawyers from the international federation for human rights banned from entering Bahrain tonight to monitor the doctors and activists trial

200 Bahrain detainees on hunger strike
September 05, 2011 08:37 PM – Agence France Presse – The Daily Star

DUBAI: More than 200 Shiite Bahrainis jailed for their role in a month of pro-democracy protests in the Sunni-ruled kingdom have joined a hunger strike, a rights and opposition activist said on Monday.

The strike was started last week ago by 12 doctors arrested in the wake of a mid-March deadly crackdown on the Shiite-led protests, said Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.

He said the number of prisoners on strike has climbed to more than 200, adding that some of the medics have been hospitalised.

The report could not be verified through independent sources.

The 12 doctors were among 47 doctors and nurses from Salmaniya central hospital accused of incitement to overthrow the regime of the Al-Khalifa ruling family. The others were freed on bail, and their trial resumes Wednesday.

Human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and opposition Haq movement member Abduljalil al-Singace, both jailed for life, joined the strike a week ago, Khawaja’s daughter Zainab told AFP on Saturday.

She said they stopped eating on July 26 in solidarity with other detainees.

Despite the heavy-handed clampdown by security forces in March, which was followed by mass arrests and dismissals from jobs for thousands of Shiites, the majority community has taken to the streets again.

Candle-lit processions and vigils are being held on a daily basis, according to images posted on the Facebook page of Al-Wefaq, the main Shiite opposition formation.

Al-Wefaq led the political front of youth protests which broke out in February, inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. The opposition has demanded major political reforms.

Bahraini security forces backed by Saudi-led Gulf troops in mid-March drove protesters out of central Manama’s Pearl Square, where they had camped out for a month. Authorities shortly after razed the roundabout.

Authorities say 24 people were killed in the unrest, including four policemen. The opposition puts the toll at 30. …source

“I wouldn’t stay here at the Center and wait for the wounded to come here dead. I’m going where they are. I wouldn’t wait for dead bodies to come”. She went to one of the paramedics. “I couldn’t bear that, take me now, take me there immediately”. The paramedic was smoking his cigarette nervously, he took a deep breath, looked at her insisting eyes, and said “Get in”.

Bahraini Doctors: A Thorn to the Regime- part 6- Sitra’s Long Day
Bahrain Mirror

“We were at the Health Center. We were treating the wounded who were brought in hundreds. We heard terrible screams coming from outside the Health Center. We got ready for something important. A young man came in carrying one of the injured. His steps were heavy. His face was bloodless. His countenance could not fully express the shock on his face. As he entered, screams exploded in the center. I was standing away from the entrance, I only noticed trail of blood that was spilling on his walking line. When the man passed by anyone, that one would cry, slap their chest, curse, beat their head with their hands or against a wall. Still, he was far from me. I got a glimpse of a piece of something dangling behind the injured’s head. I didn’t figure out what it was. The young man got closer to me. I approached him to treat the injured. He looked at me momentarily in despair. He continued his way to the other door toward the ambulance. The place got hysteric. No one was able to believe what they saw, neither able to contain themselves. The victim’s head was then directly in front of me. I saw the horrible view. I hadn’t imagined I would see such a view for my entire life, a head was burst open by bullets. His brain was spilt out. Only skin remained. I totally collapsed”A female doctor remembered.

This scene took place in Sitra, and specifically in Sitra Health Center. It was March 15, 2011. The first day of the martial law (National Security Law). The particular event which preceded the scenes at the Health Center was the besieging of Sitra and attacking it by the security forces. To be more specific, the event was the incursion of Peninsula Shield troops into Bahrain. The martyr was Ahmed Farhan (30 years) whose brain spattered. He was shot directly in the head. The young man who carried his body was Monem Mansoor. Monem would be sentenced for three years in prison because he carried Farhan’s body.

The ambulance arrived at Salmaniya Hospital with Farhan’s body at around 3:00 PM(1). The receiving of the body was not different from that at Sitra Health Center. The same shock, self-beating and bewilderment. A female doctor recalled: “We were in a state of mourning. Even the male doctors collapsed and cried loudly. Some women fainted. Nobody dared to see the horrific and ugly scene. Dr. Ali AlEkri shouted hysterically: Treat him, why are you just looking at him? Another replied: Oh, doctor, how can we treat him while he’s without a brain”.

Appreciation of Another Sort
The medical staff were no longer outside the event. They became part of it. It was not because the killed and the wounded passed through them, but because they became subjected to dangers in the same way as the peaceful protesters. In the previous part of this report we saw what the medical staff were subjected to; beating and threats for exercising their humanitarian and professional role in treating the wounded and injured. In this part we will see more of punishment, harassment and torture.

Jailed nurse Rulla Al-Saffar hugs Dr.Haneen Al-Bosta

Haneen Albosta was a young female doctor. She loved here profession. During her university study she scored the third among young scientists(2) in a competition that was held by the University of Medicine in Ukraine. That is how the international community acclaimed her talents while she was still a student. However, on March 15, 2011, and as a full-fledged doctor, she was waiting for a prize of another sort. The prize was from her own country.

Haneen recounted what she had gone through to the Bahraini daily “Al-Wasat”, which published her testimony the following day(9). She documented it on the police records when she would be interrogated later. “Bahrain Mirror” got more details from one of Dr. Haneen’s relatives.

Haneen was at home, she had just come from the medical tent at the Pearl Roundabout. She slept for only few hours. It was 10:30 in the morning. A paramedic phoned her: “Come now, they have attacked Sitra Area”. She got up immediately, put on her dress. Her mother tried to stop her, her brother tried too. They yelled at her not to go. She did not care. She prepared her things to leave. The last she heard was her mother’s voice calling her. She would know later that her mother lost her conscious after she left. In Salmaniya Hospital she stood waiting for an ambulance to take her to Sitra. A minibus with a wounded entered the hospital. Haneen helped in removing the wounded from the minibus. She got on the minibus, closed the door, and headed to Sitra.

When the minibus approached Sitra, she saw that garbage containers and rocks were scattered on the road at the entrance of the area. Those acted a deterrent for security forces when trying to enter. At the Health Center, she saw the wounded lying on the ground, some of them suffering from tear gas suffocation, and some were wounded by gunshots(3). Haneen quickly set to work treating the gunshot cases and moving the ones with larger wounds to the nursing section. A large crowd(4) of people gathered at the entrance of the Center, orming a human chain to organize and facilitate the entry of the cases being received. At the entrance, there was a doctor who quickly triaged the incoming injuries and directed them to the appropriate section of the Center(5).

I wouldn’t wait for dead bodies to come
“It was about noon time, the number of wounded was increasing quickly, we started to smell blood and see more of it. We felt that things started to warm up. We expected the worst” A member of the medical said. It was not long after the mid-day, before the devastating arrival of Farhan’s body, that shook the Center and the people who witnessed that arrival. The ambulance left to Salmaniya Hospital with Farhan’s body to issue a Death Certificate . For fifteen minutes after that the medical staff were still in a state of bewilderment. Screams prevailed over talk. The shock shrouded the place.

Farhan’s body kept Haneen shocked for a while. She was silent. Then she screamed: “I wouldn’t stay here at the Center and wait for the wounded to come here dead. I’m going where they are. I wouldn’t wait for dead bodies to come”. She went to one of the paramedics. “I couldn’t bear that, take me now, take me there immediately”. The paramedic was smoking his cigarette nervously, he took a deep breath, looked at her insisting eyes, and said “Get in”.

They proceeded toward where the clashes were raging. They were behind the first row of the bare-handed protesters who were face-to-face with the anti-riot police. They started showering rubber bullets. Some of the bullets hit the garbage containers. frightening sounds were heard. The youths kept on shouting: “God is Great”. They were increasing in numbers, not decreasing, while advancing closer to the police. The tear gas became denser. Fainting cases increased. The youths dragged the injured toward Haneen. The shooting became more violent and the police aimed their rubber bullets and birds gunshots directly at the protesters(8). With each round of attack the youths jumped into the houses, but then kept returning. “Those young men didn’t break, they didn’t get tired, attack and retreat” An eyewitness said. …more