A second Iranian nuclear facility has exploded, as diplomatic tensions rise between the West and Tehran
by: Sheera Frenkel – The Times – November 30, 2011

AN IRANIAN nuclear facility has been hit by a huge explosion, the second such blast in a month, prompting speculation that Tehran’s military and atomic sites are under attack.

Satellite imagery seen by The Times confirmed that a blast that rocked the city of Isfahan on Monday struck the uranium enrichment facility there, despite denials by Tehran.

The images clearly showed billowing smoke and destruction, negating Iranian claims yesterday that no such explosion had taken place. Israeli intelligence officials told The Times that there was “no doubt” that the blast struck the nuclear facilities at Isfahan and that it was “no accident”.

The explosion at Iran’s third-largest city came as satellite images emerged of the damage caused by one at a military base outside Tehran two weeks ago that killed about 30 members of the Revolutionary Guard, including General Hassan Moghaddam, the head of the Iranian missile defence program.

Iran claimed that the Tehran explosion occurred during testing on a new weapons system designed to strike at Israel. But several Israeli officials have confirmed that the blast was intentional and part of an effort to target Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

On Monday, Isfahan residents reported a blast that shook tower blocks in the city at about 2.40pm and seeing a cloud of smoke rising over the nuclear facility on the edge of the city.

“This caused damage to the facilities in Isfahan, particularly to the elements we believe were involved in storage of raw materials,” said one military intelligence source.

He would not confirm or deny Israel’s involvement in the blast, instead saying that there were “many different parties looking to sabotage, stop or coerce Iran into stopping its nuclear weapons program”.

Iran went into frantic denial yesterday as news of the explosion at Isfahan emerged. Alireza Zaker-Isfahani, the city’s governor, claimed that the blast had been caused by a military exercise in the area but state-owned agencies in Tehran soon removed this story and issued a government denial that any explosion had taken place at all.

On Monday, Dan Meridor. the Israeli Intelligence Minister, said: “There are countries who impose economic sanctions and there are countries who act in other ways in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.”

Major-General Giora Eiland, Israel’s former director of national security, told Israel’s army radio that the Isfahan blast was no accident. “There aren’t many coincidences, and when there are so many events there is probably some sort of guiding hand, though perhaps it’s the hand of God,” he said.

A former Israeli intelligence official cited at least two other explosions that have “successfully neutralised” Iranian bases associated with the Shahab-3, the medium-range missile that could be adapted to carry a nuclear warhead. “This is something everyone in the West wanted to see happen,” he added.

Iran has repeatedly denied the existence of a nuclear weapons program, and strongly condemned the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report last month that accused Iran of trying to build a nuclear weapon.
…source

Did Iran Just Shoot Down a U.S. Stealth Drone?
By David Axe – July 20, 2011 – Wired Danger Room

For the third time this year, Iran is claiming it shot down an American robot warplane trying to snoop on Tehran’s nuclear facilities. “An unmanned U.S. spy plane flying over the holy city of Qom near the uranium enrichment Fordu site was shot down by the Revolutionary Guards’ air-defense units,” lawmaker Ali Aghazadeh Dafsari told Iranian state television.

As with all “news” reports coming from Tehran’s official media apparatus, it’s wise to take Dafsari’s claim with a grain of salt. Notably, no one is showing off any fresh wreckage of an American robot — a popular pastime in other countries where drones have gone down.

That said, there’s reason to believe Dafsari — and reason to believe the drone in question is one of a small fleet of radar-evading ‘bots the Pentagon saves for the most important, and difficult, missions. That would make the latest U.S. drone casualty the first stealth robot to be shot down, that we know of.

That’s a lot of “ifs,” to be sure. But in the world of secret aircraft, a little conjecture is sometimes all you’ve got.

Again if true, Dafsari’s tale of a downed U.S. drone is further evidence of America’s escalating global drone campaign. While lethal strikes by U.S. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Afghanistan and Pakistan grab the most headlines, American drones are also busy tracking Somali insurgents and pirates, Yemeni terrorists, Latin American drug runners and the forces of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, among others, in addition to allegedly spying on Iran.
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November 21, 2011 – Democracy Now

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Iran and the I.A.E.A.
by Seymour M. Hersh – November 18, 2011 – The New Yorker

The first question in last Saturday night’s Republican debate on foreign policy dealt with Iran, and a newly published report by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The report, which raised renewed concern about the “possible existence of undeclared nuclear facilities and material in Iran,” struck a darker tone than previous assessments. But it was carefully hedged. On the debate platform, however, any ambiguity was lost. One of the moderators said that the I.A.E.A. report had provided “additional credible evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon” and asked what various candidates, upon winning the Presidency, would do to stop Iran. Herman Cain said he would assist those who are trying to overthrow the government. Newt Gingrich said he would coördinate with the Israeli government and maximize covert operations to block the Iranian weapons program. Mitt Romney called the state of Iran’s nuclear program Obama’s “greatest failing, from a foreign-policy standpoint” and added, “Look, one thing you can know … and that is if we reëlect Barack Obama Iran will have a nuclear weapon.” The Iranian bomb was a sure thing Saturday night.

I’ve been reporting on Iran and the bomb for The New Yorker for the past decade, with a focus on the repeated inability of the best and the brightest of the Joint Special Operations Command to find definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons production program in Iran. The goal of the high-risk American covert operations was to find something physical—a “smoking calutron,” as a knowledgeable official once told me—to show the world that Iran was working on warheads at an undisclosed site, to make the evidence public, and then to attack and destroy the site.

The Times reported, in its lead story the day after the report came out, that I.A.E.A. investigators “have amassed a trove of new evidence that, they say, makes a ‘credible’ case” that Iran may be carrying out nuclear-weapons activities. The newspaper quoted a Western diplomat as declaring that “the level of detail is unbelievable…. The report describes virtually all the steps to make a nuclear warhead and the progress Iran has achieved in each of those steps. It reads likes a menu.” The Times set the tone for much of the coverage. (A second Times story that day on the I.A.E.A. report noted, more cautiously, that “it is true that the basic allegations in the report are not substantially new, and have been discussed by experts for years.”)

But how definitive, or transformative, were the findings? The I.A.E.A. said it had continued in recent years “to receive, collect and evaluate information relevant to possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program” and, as a result, it has been able “to refine its analysis.” The net effect has been to create “more concern.” But Robert Kelley, a retired I.A.E.A. director and nuclear engineer who previously spent more than thirty years with the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons program, told me that he could find very little new information in the I.A.E.A. report. He noted that hundreds of pages of material appears to come from a single source: a laptop computer, allegedly supplied to the I.A.E.A. by a Western intelligence agency, whose provenance could not be established. Those materials, and others, “were old news,” Kelley said, and known to many journalists. “I wonder why this same stuff is now considered ‘new information’ by the same reporters.”
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When Hillary Clinton Stops Making Sense
By Kourosh Ziabari – The Public Record – Nov 16th, 2011

President Barack Obama confers with U.S.Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during the NATO summit in Strasbourg, France. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to Clinton’s right while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen is between Brown and Clinton. White House photo by Pete Souza

U.S. President Barack Obama will be a lame duck next year and the officials in his administration, especially his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are hilariously doing their best to make sure that they haven’t spared any effort to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries and sabotage the stability and security of those whom they call “enemies”, like Iran.

On October 27, Hillary Clinton gave an exclusive interview to the UK’s state-funded, state-run BBC Persian TV and in an attempt aimed at reaching out to the Iranian nation, made bombastic remarks which have certainly infuriated the Iranian nation and demonstrated that the hostile behavior and antagonistic stance of the U.S. government toward the Iranian nation is a manifestation of the idiom “the leopard can’t change its spots.”

At the beginning of the interview, Clinton referred to the sanctions imposed against Iran by the U.S. and its European allies and said that these sanctions are targeted at forcing the Iranian government into abandoning its nuclear program which she called is an effort to construct nuclear weapons and not for civilian purposes. Forgetting the detrimental impacts of economic sanctions against the ordinary people, Clinton talked of the United States as a friend of the Iranian people, and said that she wanted to reaffirm her country’s “very strong support for and friendship toward the people of Iran.” She further added that the behavior of the United States towards the Iranian government is different from its behavior toward the Iranian people, and by saying that, she clearly paraded her diplomatic naiveté and artlessness. How do you justify enmity with a government which is democratically elected by a group of people which you claim of being supportive of? …more

…source and transcript

Indonesian Muslims protest Obama visit
November 18, 2011 – JafriaNews

JNN 18 Nov 2011 Jakarta : Hundreds of Indonesian Muslims have rallied in central Jakarta to protest against this week’s visit by U.S. President Barack Obama.

About 2500 protesters from the radical Muslim group Hizbut Tahrir shouted “Reject Obama” and “America is Terrorist” outside the U.S. embassy on Sunday as they brandished banners with slogans such as “Reject Obama, Reject Capitalism, Reject Imperialism”.

“We strongly oppose America and Obama coming to Indonesia,” the group’s spokesman Mujiyanto told AFP.

“Obama is a murderer of our Muslim brothers in Palestine and Afghanistan, a thief of Indonesia’s natural resources, and an imperialist who seeks to take over the world and will do anything for U.S. interests.”

Similar protests were also held Sunday in other cities, including Surabaya in East Java and Makassar in South Sulawesi.

Obama will be in Indonesia for the 18-nation East Asia Summit at the end of the week.

The 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, with observing nations including the US attending, is also taking place this week.

The delegates are meeting to discuss major regional issues such as territorial clashes in the South China Sea and Burma’s bid to take over Indonesia’s role as ASEAN chair in 2014.

Radical groups like Hizbut Tahrir have little popular support in the archipelago of 240 million people.

Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world, is constitutionally secular and culturally moderate. …source

UAE pardons jailed activists
Emirates pardons five activists convicted previous day for insulting country’s leadership, group’s lawyer says.
28 Nov 2011 – AlJazeera

Five United Arab Emirates political activists received presidential pardons and were released after eight months in prison, just a day after they were convicted of anti-state crimes.

The activists, including a prominent blogger and an economics professor, were convicted on Sunday of insulting the UAE’s top leadership, endangering national security and inciting people to protest at time when uprisings against authoritarian rulers raged across the Middle East.

The UAE has not been hit by the Arab Spring unrest that has spread across much of the rest of the Middle East, including neighbouring Bahrain.

Authorities moved aggressively against any signs of dissent that could pose a challenge to the tight political controls in the country.

Blogger Ahmed Mansoor was sentenced to three years in prison. The other four activists, including a professor who has lectured at Paris’ Sorbonne university in Abu Dhabi, Nasser bin Gaith, received two-year jail terms on Sunday in the Gulf country’s security court in the capital Abu Dhabi.

On Monday, they were pardoned and released.

“I feel happy because I am back with my family, but I also feel ashamed and have deep sorrow for my country,” bin Gaith told The Associated Press news agency in an interview after his release.

“All I can say is that it’s a sad moment for our homeland, a beginning of a police state that has tarnished the image of the UAE forever,” bin Gaith said.

The office of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nayhan, the president, did not offer any immediate comment.

The defendants were arrested after signing an online petition demanding political reforms, including free elections for parliament.

The UAE’s current parliament serves as an advisory body, and its 40 members are either directly appointed by the government or elected by a hand-picked set of voters. …more

New York’s Met Opens New Islamic Art Wing
By Nikola Krastev, Charles Recknagel – November 12, 2011

The New York exhibition includes art from the Arab lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia.

NEW YORK — New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has unveiled its new wing of Islamic works in a major effort to increase Americans’ understanding of Islamic culture.

The new wing, which opened on November 1, includes 15 galleries displaying historic art from across the Islamic world. This includes the art of the Arab lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia.

But the exhibits go well beyond merely displaying priceless objects that dazzle visitors with their beauty and craftsmanship. They also trace the course of Islamic civilization over 13 centuries to show how much it and its contributions are part of the world’s shared cultural heritage.

The museum says its goal is to dramatically widen Americans’ perspective on Islamic culture. The opening of the new galleries comes 10 years after 9/11 defined many Americans’ impressions of the Muslim world in a negative way.

Now, the Met — as the museum is affectionately known — hopes to give people a deeper, objective understanding of Muslim culture and history.

“There is great potential for changing people’s opinions and the reason is that we provide a lot of information that is historical, so people have an opportunity to come to a neutral space where there is no political point of view,” says Sheila Canby, the curator in charge of the Museum’s Department of Islamic Art. “We are trying simply to give context to the objects that we have on view.” …more

Khalil Al Madhoon: A Tortured Artist in the Prisons of the Capital of Culture 2012 – Bahrain
by BCHR

Khalil Ebrahim AlMadhoon

Age: 25 years
Marital Status: Married
Degree: Bachelor of Art Education 2010, Helwan University (Egypt) – GPA: Very good
Job: Director of decoration at a construction company
Art field: Calligrapher and wood art
Awards: Several local and international. List of Awards included at the bottom of the page.

Detention: Detained since 23 March 2011
Sentenced by martial court: 15 years in prison

Khalil AlMadhoon is a Bahraini artist who is one of very few artists in Bahrain who use wood as a medium in their artwork. He also uses Arabic calligraphy in his pieces and has mastered the art of murals. Nowadays however, Khalil is a political detainee who has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by military court for daring to dream of democracy and freedom and manifesting these dreams in his artwork.
Revolution’s dream: an artwork of “I’m a sacrifice for my country”

After 15 March 2011, following the entry of Saudi troops into Bahrain and the fierce attack on Pearl Roundabout, Khalil had one goal. His goal was to complete a piece of artwork which he had drawn in his imagination for weeks and finally had time to work on. He spent several nights working on what he believed represented the dream of every Bahraini. This painting has a background of the revolution’s icon of freedom, the demolished “Lulu Monument” (pearl roundabout) with a man holding the Bahraini flag and Arabic calligraphy stating “Ana Fida Watani – I’m a sacrifice for my country”.

Arrest and torture

Every pro-democracy protester expected to be arrested following the entry of Saudi troops after the declaration of a state of emergency. Many people were being targeted for their political beliefs of opposition to the government. Khalil knew he would most probably get arrested at some point. He slept every night with worries and concerns, but not for long. On the dawn of 23rd March, his house was raided. He was arrested alongside three of his brothers: Hamid (27 years old), Taher (18 years old) and Jihad (15 years old) and several of his cousins. They were all beaten before being taken away. Khalil was first taken to the detention center of Al Qala’ah (Ministry of Interior HQ) next to Al Noaim police station, then to Qudhaibiya police station and finally to the Dry Dock detention center in ward 8 which falls under control of the National Security Apparatus. Khalil was subjected to torture and ill-treatment at every detention center he was sent to. He was admitted to the military hospital in March for about a week, to be then moved to the military prison, Al Qurain prison. Marks of torture are still visible on his nose, chin and hands.

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has dismissed the head of the state’s security apparatus.
29 November, 2011

Tuesday’s announcement to replace Sheikh Khalifa bin Abdullah, a member of the ruling Al Khalifa family, as the head of the National Security Agency comes a week after an inquiry exposed widespread rights abuses during a crackdown on protests led by the kingdom’s Shia Muslim majority.

Adel bin Khalifa Hamad al-Fadhel takes over from Sheikh Khalifa, who was made secretary-general of Bahrain’s Supreme Defence Council and a national security adviser to the king.

Under pressure from its US allies, the Sunni-ruled kingdom has said it will comply with the findings of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI).

A $53m arms deal between the two countries was put on hold last month when the US congress and the state department said they wanted to consider the findings of the BICI report before proceeding with the sale.

The BICI was established by a royal decree in June, and headed by six international rights lawyers, following international criticism of Bahrain’s reaction to the protests that began last February.

This includes the imposition of martial law and calling in Saudi and UAE forces as part of the government’s crackdown on protests.

The security reshuffle follows Hamad’s statements earlier this week that he would hold to account and replace any officials involved in the abuses cited in the BICI report.

Bahrain has said that the interior ministry is currently engaged in a process of hiring US and British security experts to help Bahraini police forces in maintaining order while still respecting the rights and freedoms of the people.

The government has also announced that a code of conduct will be developed for the nation’s police forces, found by the BICI report guilty of using excessive force on protesters between February and March this year.

After announcing a national commission to “follow up and implement” the BICI report published last week, Hamad used the occasion of the security chief’s removal to name the head of the national commission entrusted with responding to the BICI report.

Ali bin Saleh al-Saleh will lead the national commission that will examine the inquiry’s recommendations.

Two members of the opposition Wefaq party, the nation’s biggest political group, were asked to take part in the commission but declined because opposition parties were not approached directly or given the chance to choose who represents them.

A government statement said it was “disappointed” at this development.
…source

Saudi police on high alert
Saudi police take precaution and put up checkpoints following violence that took place in east of the country.
26 Nov 2011 – AlJazeera

Saudi police have taken extra precaution and are on high alert following violence that took place in the east of the country.

Saudi police put up checkpoints around the town of Qatif on Friday, after two people were killed and six others were wounded on Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire between security forces and what the Saudi interior ministry called criminals serving a foreign power.

Slogans condemning the royal family have appeared on walls throughout the Qatif.

Wednesday’s deaths brought the toll to four people dead, with nine others wounded, since unrest erupted in in the region last week.

“These casualties have occurred due to the exchange of gunfire with unknown criminal elements who have infiltrated among citizens, and are firing from residential areas and narrow streets,” the interior ministry said on Thursday.

The ministry denied that Shias had been killed by bullets fired by police in Qatif, an administrative unit of the province where a large Shia Muslim community resides.

Echoing language it used after an attack on a police station in the Eastern Province last month, the ministry said: “The goal of those who provoke unrest is to achieve dubious aims dictated to them by their foreign masters.”

The previous references to foreign meddling have been widely interpreted as Shia-dominated Iran, the Sunni-led kingdom’s rival for influence in the Gulf.

Sunni Arab monarchies in the region saw Iran as the force behind unrest earlier this year in majority Shia Bahrain.

Iran has denied repeated accusations that it is trying to destabilise Bahrain.

It has also dismissed an alleged plot that US authorities said last month had implicated Iran’s security agencies in a plan to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington. …more

Saudi security forces withdraw from Shiite villages
(AFP) – 28 November, 2011

RIYADH — Saudi security forces have withdrawn from Shiite villages in Qatif in eastern Saudi Arabia following unrest last week in which four people were killed, witnesses said on Monday.

The move appears aimed at reducing friction with the kingdom’s minority Shiites on the first day of Ashura, a 10-day commemoration of the 7th-century killing of the highly revered Imam Hussein.

Security forces pulled out overnight from Shweika and Awamiya villages in the Eastern Province, scene of intense clashes between protesters and security forces of the Sunni-dominated kingdom, witnesses and rights activists said.

“Armoured vehicles transporting anti-riot forces towards Dammam city have pulled out and checkpoints have been lifted,” said one witness, after those forces were brought in as reinforcements during demonstrations.

Four Shiites were shot dead last week. The interior ministry said security forces had come under fire from gunmen operating on “foreign orders,” hinting at involvement by Saudi’s arch rival Iran.

The ministry said two policemen were wounded in the clashes.

Later on Monday, state news agency SPA reported that the governor of Eastern Province, Prince Mohammed bin Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, against whom graffiti was painted on walls in the streets of Qatif city, had met Shiite dignitaries.

The dignitaries “expressed their rejection and dismay at the situation in Qatif and that they do not approve of such violations by some people,” the statement said.

They also “affirmed their allegiance to their leadership,” it added.

Prince Mohammed, who has vowed that the interior ministry will investigate the deaths, said the kingdom “will not allow people like those, as little as they are in numbers, to disturb security,” the statement said.

A source who attended the meeting, the second of its kind in a week, told AFP that Prince Mohammed “has listened to the demands of the Shiites in the province, especially those concerning the release of prisoners, creating justice for all citizens, and ending sectarian discrimination.”

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP the meeting which lasted more than one and a half hours was “positive.”

Meanwhile, prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr Nimr demanded the “release of all those detained in the protests, and all prisoners of conscience — Sunnis and Shiites.”

In a speech at the funeral of one of the protesters, Nimr said: “We are determined to demand our legitimate rights by peaceful means.”

Eastern Province is home to the majority of the kingdom’s Shiite population of around two million, who represent around 10 percent of Saudis.

In March, Shiites in the oil-rich province demonstrated in sympathy with fellow Shiites in neighbouring Bahrain, after security forces, backed by troops from its Sunni Gulf neighbours, clamped down on pro-democracy protests led by that country’s majority Shiite community.

Another Shiite cleric, Munir al-Khabbaz, called on protesters to use “civilised means while demanding their rights and rejecting violence,” adding that “clashing with security forces is religiously prohibited.”

“The sons of Qatif do not implement foreign agendas but demand their rights,” he said.
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Bahrain postpones protesters’ death penalty appeal
November 29, 2011 – USA Today

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) – A civilian court in Bahrain on Monday postponed a highly anticipated ruling on the appeal of two protesters sentenced to death by a security court during a wave of anti-government protests earlier this year.

Meanwhile, another high-profile case resumed on Monday — the retrial of doctors and other medical professionals who treated protesters injured during the Shiite majority’s campaign for greater rights in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom.

The medics’ trial has been closely watched by rights groups that have criticized Bahrain’s prosecution of civilians by the special tribunal, which included military prosecutors and judges. The tribunal was set up under martial law-style rule that was lifted in June.

In the initial trial at the security court, more than a dozen health professionals were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of up to 15 years on charges of attempting to overthrow the monarchy.

However, faced with rising international criticism, authorities subsequently ordered a retrial of the medics in a civilian court. …more

Bahrain postpones trial of 61 athletes accused of protest links
By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, November 29, 4:41 AM

MANAMA, Bahrain — A Bahrain court has postponed the trial of 61 athletes and sports officials accused of links to anti-government protests.

Defense attorney Mohsen al-Alawi says the hearing was rescheduled for Jan. 4 because most of the defendants did not appear at Tuesday’s proceedings. They include handball, basketball and volleyball players along with referees and administrators for several sports.

The charges include illegal assembly and inciting hatred against Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy.

The defendants are among 150 Shiite sportsmen detained as part of crackdowns on protests by Bahrain’s Shiite majority seeking a greater political voice.

An independent report issued last week accused authorities of widespread abuses including torture. …source

Mark C. Toner
Deputy Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
November 28, 2011
[Bahrain Excerpt]

QUESTION: Yeah. Bahrain?

MR. TONER: Bahrain.

QUESTION: As you well recall, the Independent Commission of Inquiries report was released on Wednesday morning, our time. You have —

MR. TONER: That was a long time ago, but yeah.

QUESTION: Yeah. You had an initial reaction, and, of course, the Secretary had her comment and the White House also issued a statement. So it’s been five days. I realize it’s a long report, but even though it’s a holiday weekend, I imagine your Bahrain experts will have read the report. Two questions: One, does the report, now on reflection, seem to you to have been a fair and genuinely independent-minded and no holds barred sort of report? And then secondly, is what you have seen so far from the Bahraini Government suggestive of their taking genuine steps to try to hold everyone accountable for their actions in the – putting down the protests this year? And is it suggestive to you that – of a sort of rule of law or some other kind of process that may eventually lead to reconciliation with the Shia population?

MR. TONER: Yes, on the fact that we believe it was a credible and transparent report that did come out. Of course, it is, as you said, a very long report, and we have read through it and remain – and – I’m sorry – continue to study various aspects of it, but we certainly believe it was a transparent, credible process carried out with due diligence. We did – we do commend the commission’s work, and we commend the king for allowing it to work in an unfettered environment.

In answer to your second question, I think it’s – we’re still waiting and monitoring. We did, obviously, see that Bahrain has formed a report implementation committee that’s going to implement some of the report’s recommendations. We welcome the formation of that national implementation committee. We think it’s a good first step, and we would just urge the government to meet the high standards of transparency and accountability that were recommended by the report.

QUESTION: And how about reconciliation? I mean, do you think that the government is taking steps towards trying to achieve reconciliation?

MR. TONER: Well, we think that, again, the work of this commission and now the follow-up committee, if it indeed does take the kind of steps that seek to implement the commission’s recommendations, would help move that process of national reconciliation forward.

QUESTION: And should Bahrain have – we just talked a lot about the Egyptian elections. Should Bahrain have a fully fledged democracy?

MR. TONER: Again, what I think is important now for Bahrain is to address the report’s recommendations. It was a very tumultuous period there in the spring. The government there has made an effort, the king has made an effort to address some of the problems that resulted from that period. We need to see a national reconciliation process emerge from this, and then ultimately a political process will emerge from that that leads to – or that addresses, I think, the aspirations of the Bahraini people.

QUESTION: Well, let’s – I mean, there’s been tumult in a lot of countries this spring. In three of the ones we’ve talked about today – well, let’s just stick to two, Tunisia, where it began, and Egypt. You have very warmly praised the movement to elections; you have made clear that you believe that democratically elected governments are in the U.S. national interest. You don’t seem to have any trouble with the notion of dealing with a religiously based government, should one emerge in either of those countries, or as it has in Tunisia.

MR. TONER: So long as their committed to democratic ideals.

QUESTION: Right. So why not answer my question – does Bahrain deserve a fully fledged democracy – with yes? Is that not the U.S. interest in the world?

MR. TONER: Look, we very much want to see the democratic aspirations of the Bahraini people met by the government. Ultimately, that’s the goal here. But I also want to praise – we also want to praise the steps that they’ve taken to address some of the incidents that took place last spring and try to move the country on a better path towards reconciliation.
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Jillian York on MENA, Media, and Freedom
29 November 2011 – Aslan Media

Al Jazeera English’s The Stream co-host Ahmed Shihab Eldin, described Jillian C. York as “[this] generation’s go-to person for Internet neutrality.”As the Director of Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, York has worked passionately on digital activism, Internet privacy, and freedom of expression online in the Middle East and North Africa.

This year’s turmoil in the Mideast and the still burgeoning Arab Spring have kept York busy, and brought new awareness to the power of digital media and online activism. York noted that “it’s hard to generalize” across the region, and pointed out the varying levels of Internet penetration in different MENA countries. For instance, Egypt has about 25% Internet penetration while Libya has about 5%. This makes for quite different populations; and though driven by similar objectives of democracy and political reform, this online cultural variance makes each country’s “spring” experience unique.

Nonetheless, the world witnessed how social media amplified the voices of protesters in Egypt and Tunisia and accelerated the fall of the Mubarak and Ben Ali regimes, respectively. E-activism has evolved dramatically over the course of the past year in both these countries. For instance, in Egypt, a number of protesters who were crucial to the momentum of the critical mass that drove Mubarak out of office have opted for being active solely on the Internet, rather than taking to the streets. This phenomenon is known as slacktivism. In Tunisia, where the first free and fair elections were just held after the ouster of Ben Ali, 30% Internet penetration was enough to organize mass protests. But while these protest movements have been pushed forward by online activism, York notes “there’s not a whole lot of great use of the Internet for political representation.”

Syria’s revolution has yet to come to a resolution. Syria’s Electronic Army—a clique of hackers loyal to the Syrian regime that floods a variety of Facebook pages and defaces and disables various websites—is, says York, “ the biggest [coordinated cell of hackers in a country] I’ve ever seen!” She continued, “ the intention is to attack the website of any organization or agency that has spoken out in favor of the Syrian opposition. Because they’re so distributed, they’re unclear about their targets.”

When asked whether the efforts of companies such as Facebook and Twitter, not to mention that of the U.S. government, to protect Internet freedom of expression and privacy online are up to acceptable standards, specifically in light of a politically volatile Middle East, York remarked, “I have less to be critical of now than say 8 months ago. The Arab spring has taught [social media] companies a lot of lessons.” She went on: “Twitter and Google’s speak2tweet was an interesting instance of trying to adapt to a local need. They’re doing more than they were a year ago…[but] the push to end online anonymity is a huge problem. Facebook and Google+ are not listening at all when it comes to protecting the need for anonymity…I understand that they want to make a certain type of community but they’re not listening to the needs of international and domestic users. It doesn’t feel like they’re thinking internationally yet.” …more

Disappearing Dissent: How Bahrain Buried Its Revolution
Posted by Aryn Baker Tuesday, November 29, 2011 – Time

Every dictator worth his epaulets knows that the best way to nip a revolution in the bud is to have his opponents “disappear.” No body to mourn, no martyrs raised, and of course the ever-useful plausible deniability. But in Bahrain, with its tightly packed population of 230,000 citizens living on a small sandy archipelago in the Persian Gulf, it is difficult to bury the bodies. People notice. So what’s an authoritarian government to do when the people rise up and protest the regime? Bury the evidence and pretend it never happened.

Pearl Roundabout was the locus of Bahrain’s anti-government protests last spring, the Bahraini answer to Egypt’s Tahrir Square. The roundabout, located at the intersection of several major roads leading to the capital’s major business centers, was crowned by a soaring white monument constructed in 1982 on the occasion of the third Gulf Cooperation Council Summit, which was held in Manama that year. The six convex arches, one for each of the council member nations, were topped by a giant pearl, symbol of the region’s maritime heritage. Before oil transformed the coast from sand spit to skyscrapers, the gulf was best known for its pearling industry.

But soon after the protests started on Feb. 14, the monument took on a new symbolism—defiance against a regime that had repeatedly failed to deliver on a decade old promises of reform and political freedoms. As in Tahrir, protestors set up a camp around the monument, and used the hexagonal fountain at its base as a stage for rallies. In the early hours of Feb. 17, security forces broke up the camp with a combination of rubber bullets, tear gas and live ammunition. Six people died and the Bahraini revolution was born. What started as a unified protest soon devolved into a ugly sectarian split; Bahrain’s Sunni minority rallied in support of the Sunni royal family, and Shias, who make up an estimated 70% of the population, lobbied for rights they said they had long been denied. Protestors started calling their movement the Lulu Revolution after the Arabic word for pearl.
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Boris Kagarlitsky: Reflections on the Arab revolutions
International Journal of Socialist Renewal – November 28, 2011
By Boris Kagarlitsky, translated from Russian by Renfrey Clarke

November 28, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — “Turning-points in the history of humanity,” a contributor to the left-wing Algerian newspaper Le Matin observed in the summer of 2001, “are never simple for contemporaries to understand. Rarely are people able fully to assess the significance of these episodes, or their consequences. The developments concerned do not proceed in the manner, or at the time and place, that people expect. The early years of the twenty-first century have seen this rule reaffirmed. During this time, new and increasingly powerful trends have been mingled with the heritage of the past, dragging us back. History, however, operates through these new forces, which gradually but inevitably will succeed in overcoming the inertia of the past.” (1)

The Arab revolutions of 2011 came as a surprise to many people, including left analysts, who expected and predicted social and political shocks everywhere, from Latin America to Eastern Europe, except in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East. These events, however, were not historical accidents (in history, nothing on this scale happens by chance), but were the logical and natural results of earlier developments. The effect of surprise was due to the fact that the societies of the Middle East had been kept under heavy pressure by authoritarian regimes that did not allow any serious mass protests; in outside observers, this created an impression of graveyard-like tranquillity. This very stability, however, was the precursor to an explosion of extraordinary force. Tightening the lid of repressive police rule on the boiling cauldron of Arab societies, the ruling classes unknowingly guaranteed that social pressures would blow this lid to pieces.

Another reason for the confusion among the analysts lay in the relatively favourable figures for indices of economic and even social development. Gross domestic product kept growing right up until the outbreak of the world crisis, levels of education were improving, and achievements had also been registered in the areas of housing construction, public transport, and social security. The only problem was that the statistics, while recording certain quantitative improvements, concealed an accumulation of systemic contradictions and even structural decline in the economy.

The crisis of 2008 not only brought a sharp rise in food prices, creating an unprecedented social crisis on what might have seemed a level space. It also revealed numerous problems which along with everything else proved that the development strategies chosen by most of the governments in the region, and considered relatively successful in the 1990s, had finished up in a dead-end.

Liberals and dictators

The neoliberal reconstruction of capitalism that took place in the 1980s and 1990s was accompanied by a shift of production and jobs from Europe to countries where cheap labour power was available. From this angle, the prospects for the countries of North Africa seemed bright. Not only were wages low, but significant numbers of the population spoke European languages. In this situation, the governments of Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt seemed justified in deciding to develop education systems capable of raising the quality of labour power and of making these countries more attractive to foreign capital. Prospects in Libya, where the income from oil sales created additional possibilities for industrialisation, also looked promising.

Geographically these countries were close to Western markets, and many of them possessed their own raw materials and energy bases. Even Egypt, which did not have large oil reserves, was located not far from energy sources, and thanks to the Aswan Dam which had been built with Soviet help, had an abundance of cheap hydroelectric power. The infrastructure of all the countries in the region was in reasonable condition. For investors, the dictatorial regimes were an attraction, guaranteeing stability and preventing problems from arising with public criticism, environmental bans, trade unions and strikes. The only more or less obvious risk factor was the Islamist movement, whose influence was gradually increasing. This movement, however, was the target of systematic repression by the apparatus of the various states. …read the rest of article HERE

US praises Bahrain probe as ‘transparent, credible’
(AFP) – November 27, 2011

WASHINGTON — The United States on Monday praised Bahrain’s King Hamad for allowing an “unfettered” probe into a government crackdown on protests, and called its work “transparent” and “credible.”

It amounted to further US reaction to the publication last Wednesday of a special independent commission report in Bahrain that found police used “excessive force” and tortured detainees in a crackdown on the Shiite-led democracy protests in March.

“We certainly believe it was a transparent, credible process, carried out with due diligence,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters, adding US officials were still studying the probe’s findings.

“We do commend the commission’s work, and we commend the king for allowing it to work in an unfettered environment,” Toner said.

But he said “we’re still waiting and monitoring” when asked if he saw signs that the Bahraini government would hold accountable those responsible for the deadly crackdown.

Toner described Bahrain’s decision to set up a national committee to implement the report’s recommendations a “good first step.”

But “we would just urge the government to meet the high standards of transparency and accountability that were recommended by the report,” he said.

The White House last Wednesday called on Bahrain to punish those guilty of human rights abuses in anti-government violence this year, and said it would closely follow its ally’s actions.

White House spokesman Jay Carney welcomed King Hamad’s commitments to pursue reform following the report, which he commissioned to probe allegations of government misconduct and human rights abuses against protesters. …more