The Familiar Sound (Excerpt Amnesty International – 31 August 2011) A 14-year-old boy was killed during a peaceful demonstration in Bahrain’s central town of Sitra today, where dozens of demonstrators took part in anti-government protests marking the feast of ‘Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Ali Jawad Ahmad al-Shaikh died from a head injury after being hit by a tear gas canister thrown by riot police, a local human rights group said.

Occupy Oakland Protester Severely Injured in Police Clash ID’ed as Iraq War Veteran
26 October, 2011 – ABC News

The group Iraq Veterans Against the War has identified the demonstrator who endured a skull fracture after Occupy Oakland protesters clashed with police Tuesday night. According to the organization’s statement, Scott Olsen, also a member of Veterans for Peace, was “shot in the head with a police projectile while peacefully participating in the Occupy Oakland march.”

A news release from Mike Ferner, Occupy Oakland’s interim director, said that Olsen’s condition was stable but serious. Olsen, 24, a former Marine, did two tours of duty in Iraq before leaving the military in 2010. Formerly of Wisconsin, he now lives and works in Daly, Calif.

On Tuesday, a number of clashes erupted between police as a group of nearly 500 protesters who’d marched from the main branch of the Oakland Public Library to City Hall to reclaim the camp they’d been evicted from earlier in the day. According to Ferner, a video with slow-motion footage showed police tossing a flash-bang into a group of people standing around someone in the street, though it was not clear whether Olsen was the person on the ground.

Authorities have denied reports that they used flash-bang canisters to help break up the crowds, saying the loud noises came from large firecrackers.

During a late-night news conference, Oakland Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan told reporters that authorities had no other choice then to use the tear gas, saying the protesters were throwing rocks and bottles at officers. According to Ferner’s statement, a Veterans for Peace member, Josh Sheperd, who’d witnessed Olsen’s injury, said that after police fired tear gas, bean bags and flash-bangs and warned demonstrators to leave, “people in the rear of the crowd threw eggs at the police.”

Carlos Villarreal, a spokesman for the National Lawyers Guild, which represents the protesters, told ABC News station KGO-TV that two protesters suffered broken hands when they were arrested, and that one protester had been taken to a hospital with head injuries.

The statement from the Iraq Veterans Against the War said that Olsen was sedated at a local hospital and would be examined by a neurosurgeon. …source

Canadian jailed for protesting in Bahrain
Oct 25 2011 – The Star

Canadian Naser al-Raas will begin a five-year sentence in a Bahraini prison on Wednesday. He is one of 13 people sentenced Tuesday to jail terms related to the uprising in the country. Canadian Naser al-Raas will begin a five-year sentence in a Bahraini prison on Wednesday. He is one of 13 people sentenced Tuesday to jail terms related to the uprising in the country.

Canadian Naser al-Raas will begin a five-year sentence in a Bahraini prison on Wednesday. He is one of 13 people sentenced Tuesday to jail terms related to the uprising in the country.

Naser al-Raas remembers the cramped office, the beatings, and the small gun pointed at his head. He remembers the cables used to tie his hands behind a chair and the blindfold fastened around his face.

He remembers the ambush at Bahrain International Airport on March 20, just as he was preparing to present his Canadian passport to customs and fly to Kuwait, where he was born.

He remembers three mock executions held under the desert sun. And he remembers the dingy cell in the notorious Al Qala prison, where he said he spent more than a month in solitary confinement, beaten and electrocuted daily, the screams of other tortured prisoners echoing through the halls.

Now on Wednesday, nearly six months after he was inexplicably released from that cell, authorities are set to enter his in-laws’ home in Bahrain — where he is staying with his Bahraini fiancée Zainab — and steer him to prison, for a five-year term for participating in antiregime demonstrations that swept the country beginning in February. At least 30 people have been reported killed in the crackdown.

Al-Raas was sentenced by a civilian court Tuesday for violating Bahrain’s illegal-assembly laws. A defence lawyer in Bahrain said he was one of 13 people sentenced to jail terms for links to anti-government protests and unrest in the Gulf kingdom.

The 28-year-old lived in Ottawa from 1996 to 2000, and his mother and brother are still there. He now works as an IT specialist in Kuwait.

Al-Raas had arrived in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain on March 6 amid a countrywide crackdown on Shiites protesting against the Sunni monarchy.

“I didn’t chant against the government; it’s not my business,” he told the Star. “The country was in chaos.”

But when he tried to return to Kuwait two weeks later, he said, he was whisked away by men from Bahrain’s National Security Agency, an intelligence wing of the Ministry of the Interior.

Over the course of his imprisonment, al-Raas said he was beaten daily with a rubber hose. He also suffered excruciating chest pain. Al-Raas has pulmonary hypertension, a heart and lung condition.

His torture in Bahrain is recorded in a medical report filed by Doctors Without Borders obtained by the Star.

When he was released on April 28, al-Raas stripped off his prisoners’ garb and put on the Ottawa Senators T-shirt he’d worn to the airport. He said he made a forced on-camera confession to spying for the Iranian government. Then he was dumped in the street outside the prison, given back his glasses and wallet and told to take a taxi home. ..more

US labor team probes job purges in Bahrain
By BRIAN MURPHY – Oct. 26, 2011 – The Sacramento Bee

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A U.S. fact-finding team in Bahrain wrapped up talks Wednesday to investigate workplace purges that have spurred calls to suspend a key trade pact over the Gulf nation’s crackdown on protesters.

The firsthand inquest by the Department of Labor is in response to efforts by America’s biggest labor group to force a stinging U.S. rebuke of Bahrain’s rulers, who have crushed opposition groups but have avoided serious backlash from Washington because of strategic concerns.

Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and its ruling monarchy is closely backed by another critical U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have dispatched troops to help Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy battle Shiite-led protesters calling for greater rights.

The Labor Department has until December to complete a report on a complaint filed by the AFL-CIO, seeking to block the free-trade pact with Bahrain in retaliation for widespread dismissals of workers and union leaders with suspected ties to protesters.

Bahrain’s majority Shiites began protests in February calling for reforms, including an end to the monarchy’s monopoly on appointing top government officials. At least 35 people have died in the unrest, and hundreds have been purged from jobs or arrested, including some sentenced to life in prison or given death sentences for killing security forces.

The number of people pushed from their jobs is unclear. Bahrain’s biggest labor group, the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions, has put the figure as high as 2,500.

A statement Wednesday by Bahrain’s government said 1,623 cases are pending before disciplinary councils, which were set up to review the dismissals of employees.

In possible reaction to the U.S. investigations, Bahrain’s deputy prime minister, Sheik Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, urged for a “resolution” of the review of workers dismissed from jobs. The statement said the disciplinary councils have so far cleared 156 people for reinstatement and confirmed the dismissals of 174 employees.

In September, more than 100 workers returned to jobs at the state oil company.

Suspending the 5-year-old trade pact would have not have major financial effects – the two-way trade is less than $1.5 billion a year – but it would be seen as a direct blow to Bahrain’s efforts to reassure international companies and investors.

The pact, which waives tariffs on industrial and consumer products, is just one of 17 such bilateral agreements with Washington. Others in the Middle East include Israel, Jordan and Oman.

In Bahrain’s capital Manama, U.S. Embassy spokesman Bradley Niemann said the Labor Department envoys have held talks since last week with government officials, union representatives and workers. The mission was scheduled to end Wednesday.

In Washington, rights groups have urged the U.S. Congress to block a proposed $53 million arms sale to Bahrain.
…source