Two weeks in Bahrain’s military courts
Reporter in Bahrain- 20 Oct 2011 – AlJazeera

The families of six of the hundreds of people given long jail sentences speak out about the “abuse of justice”.

Teachers, professors, politicians, doctors, athletes, students and others have all appeared in Bahrain’s military courts. In just two weeks, 208 people were sentenced or lost appeals, leading to a cumulative total of just less than 2,500 years in prison.

Many of those imprisoned took part in massive pro-democracy protests earlier this year. Others, families say, were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were targeted by virtue of their religious sect.

One lawyer, who represents dozens of the convicted and who asked not to be named, told Al Jazeera the total number of how many have stood in front of military courts is not clear – but he estimates at least 600. “Well over 1,000 people have been arrested since the crackdown began,” he said.

In an attempt to quell the uprising, the island’s rulers invited Saudi and other Gulf troops to Bahrain in March and called for a three-month state of emergency, or what it called the “National Safety Law”.

With the emergency law, came the military trials of hundreds of people in “National Safety Courts”. According to the lawyer, the courts were basically military courts, since both judge and general prosecutor were drawn from the military judicial system.
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Death sentences were given out from trials that lasted less than two weeks. Many hearings lasted only a matter of minutes before verdicts were handed out. According to lawyers and defendants’ families, the main form of evidence in most cases were the confessions of the accused.

“This is not necessarily wrong,” said the lawyer. “But if there were claims of torture then these confessions should be obliterated and should not be accepted in a court of law.”

“They intentionally bring them in front of the court after a period of time once the wounds are healed, so they won’t appear in court,” the lawyer said. “If [the court agrees to a] request [for the defendant] to be examined by a forensic doctor, [the court] delays the test until the scars are healed.” Despite numerous claims of torture, no forensic doctor hired by the government has confirmed a defendant’s claims.

A handful of defendants who are found innocent in the military courts are so just to make it seem somewhat fair, he continued. “It’s pure luck.”

October 6 was the final day of the military court hearings, when cases and appeals were to be transferred to regular civilian courts. However, prisoners’ families and their legal teams are far from optimistic that the change of venue will allow for a fairer trial.

“There is no difference between military and civilian courts, [in both] the verdicts are political,” the lawyer said. “There is someone upstairs who is telling them to do this.”

The lawyer pointed out that, during the protests in February, the king pardoned dozens of people in the middle of their trial. However, the powers granted to the king only allow him to issue pardons once a case is complete.

“These courts are nothing but political tools,” the lawyer said.

Below are brief testimonies made to Al Jazeera by family members (some of whom asked to remain anonymous) of people who have either been sentenced or lost appeals in the final weeks of Bahrain’s military courts. All of the family members who spoke to Al Jazeera claimed their loved ones were tortured soon after their arrest and were held incommunicado for months.

The methods described by families (and by the imprisoned themselves) are consistent and signify systematic abuse and torture against the prisoners that has also been documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups. …more

West confronts double standards in Arab response
by Sophie Douez – swissinfo.ch – Oct 19, 2011 – 13:46

A senior Swiss diplomat, Peter Maurer, has admitted being frustrated at double standards present in the international community’s response to the Arab Spring.

Speaking at the Foreign Ministry’s annual human security conference in Bern on Tuesday, Maurer, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, said it was fair to question the “unequal response” of the international community to events in different countries.

“I am often very frustrated by how the international community reacts in a double standard way,” Maurer told the more than 800 people who attended the conference titled “Uprisings in the Arab world: between hope and fears”.

“And in response I can only say that the effort is guided by other interests. If I could speculate, I would say that oil plays an important role in how the international community reacts to certain situations.”

Maurer was named president of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Wednesday and will take up the position in July 2012. He was responding to a question posed by Maryam Al Khawaja, a 24-year-old democracy activist from Bahrain. She asked why the international community chose to impose sanctions on Syria but not on Yemen or Bahrain.

Al Khawaja told the conference that young people in Bahrain felt “completely abandoned by the west”.

“The situation in Bahrain is not going away, if anything it is getting worse,” she said.

Maurer said finding a political consensus in the international community was often difficult. He pointed out that while there was strong support from Arab countries to “get rid of” Moammar Gaddafi in Libya for example, the inverse was true for Assad’s regime in Syria.

Christian Berger, Director for the Middle East at the European External Action Service of the European Union, said such decisions often came down to the avenues of engagement available in particular situations.

“For Bahrain and Yemen, there is still a way of addressing issues through normal diplomatic channels,” he said.

Transformation

With the discussion focused on the response of the west to the so-called Arab Spring, it was clear that both Switzerland and the EU have been scrambling in recent months to determine the best way to engage with the new political realities in North Africa and the Middle East.

“We see a transformation of the relationship between individuals and regimes in the Arab world,” Berger said, adding that the transformation “is focused on values like dignity and justice”.

Maurer said a new political approach was needed to overcome political “fault lines” in the region. He said that Swiss foreign policy had previously viewed the Arab world as “almost one world” – whereas in fact it is highly fragmented.

“We have to rethink, and actors in the region also have to rethink how they will position themselves in the global world,” Maurer said. “We are very cautiously trying to find our way in those countries and identifying where and who are the legitimate partners.” …more

[cb editor: While it is good news to see some of the Senate and Congress climb on board the Peace Train Train for bound for Bahrain. Obama’s so called “Silent pressure” from every stretch of the imagination has only been silence no one can say when and if Obama ever pressured. All the while Obama is dumping $60B in weapons to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain’s true master of treachery and Obama’s master through oil and weapons profiteering. Aside from Obama weapons greed and oil dependency there remains the US-Saudi-Israel belligerent posture toward Iran as a far more likely reason for the silence – lets be clear there is no silent or any other kind of diplomacy to move the al Kalifa’s to Democratic rule in Bahrain. The US motives for silence have been a military strategy against Iran that does not want to upset the 5th fleet’s “apple cart” in Bahrain. Their silence has been exactly that, silence couple with a few ataboys. And the few times the US has been verbally assertive the al Khalifa’s have responded with increased crushing blows to the opposition in Bahrain.

In the meantime Obama’s true diplomatic skills will soon come to play as the BICI report is presented with “low bar” recommendations and a “enough blame to go around” conclusion masquerading as “fair in balanced”… it will go something like this; since “both” sides are equally to blame for the situation in Bahrain both sides must come together in a new dialogue and negotiation of “one sided” reform with the al Khalifa’s; i.e, the old model that got everyone here in the first place will play-out yet again. If the opposition rejects the new “reform dialogue” then Obama will put the blame on the opposition and precede with business as usual. If it accepts negotiations, the Obama administration will pat it’s self on the back and proceed with business as usual.

Finally if the Obama had any interest in an independent report from the get go, the US and the West would have insisted on a mediated panel of investigators for Bahrain to begin with, not one wholly at the employee, design and selection of the al Khalifa’s. The whole injection of the BICI report as part of the the weapons deal is a ruse. I hope I’m wrong but logic and past US behaviors say otherwise. ]

U.S. delays arms sale to Bahrain amid ‘Arab Spring’ crackdown
October 19, 2011 -LA Times

REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has agreed to delay a $53-million arms sale to Bahrain, a victory for lawmakers and human rights groups opposing the transfer because of the kingdom’s continuing crackdown on its opposition.

The administration said it would postpone the deal while it weighed whether the monarchy was doing enough to investigate alleged human rights abuses and carry out political reforms.

David Adams, the assistant secretary of State for legislative affairs, wrote Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that the State Department would “assess the government of Bahrain’s effort to implement the recommendations and make needed reforms.”

The weapons included more than 40 armored Humvee military vehicles and 300 missiles.

The Obama administration has been quietly pressing the kingdom to share more power with its Shiite majority, while trying to avoid any damage to the vital U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. Riyadh strongly supports the Bahraini monarchy and wants to preserve the status quo threatened by the protests that broke out this spring.

U.S. officials have publicly put their faith in the kingdom’s promises of a political dialogue, and an independent commission organized in July to look into alleged human rights abuses. But human rights advocates and some lawmakers have seen little progress from the political discussions and are skeptical that the investigative commission will find much fault with the government.

They say that Bahrain would take a U.S. arms sale as a sign that Washington approves of its handling of the confrontation with activists.

“As long as the Bahraini government and its security forces are using violence, unjust military trials and alleged torture against peaceful protesters, the U.S. government should not be sending more weapons there,” said Sanjeev Bery of Amnesty International.[