Media reports on Bahrain’s ‘Arab Spring’ come last in line
by Corinna Mullin and Azadeh Shahshahani – Womens News Network

(WNN) BAHRAIN: Despite the recent flurry of news coverage of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report’s release last week, the story of the Bahraini pro-democracy uprising has been one of the least reported amongst those of the ‘Arab spring’. This goes for the regional Arab media, whose cheerleading and persistent coverage of uprisings elsewhere in the region contributed to whatever successes have been achieved, as well as for the majority of western press. This despite the fact that the violence and repression the Bahraini protesters met has matched, if not exceeded in some instances, those elsewhere in the region.

The stunted Bahraini revolution has also garnered much less rhetorical and material support from western governments. In Tunisia and Egypt, western governments supported, albeit belatedly, the expression of ‘people power’ against the repression and corruption of their former allies. In Syria, they have publicly called for regime change, and in Libya they actively engaged in ending Gaddafi’s 42 year rule. By contrast, there have only been muted calls for political reform and an end to the violence of the repressive Khalifa regime. This is perhaps not surprising considering all that is at stake for western governments in Bahrain.

First and foremost is the fact that Bahrain is home to the US Fifth Fleet, whose controversial stationing in the country’s port was the source of another pivotal anti-democratic moment in the island nation’s history. In August 1975, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s father, Emir Isa bin Salman Al Kahlifa, formally dissolved the national assembly after it failed to ratify the extension of the lease for the US naval units, essentially putting an end to the country’s short-lived experiment with a parliamentary monarchical system. …more

The demonization of Iran
Voltaire Network – 6 December 2011 – by Patrick Cockburn

The demonization campaign against Iran has the earmarks of a prelude for a military attack by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. The propaganda is very similar to that heaped upon Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 2002. In both cases, an isolated state with limited resources is portrayed as posing a genuine threat to the region and the world.

Iran has long been denounced in Washington as the source of much of the evil in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies see the hand of Tehran behind protests in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. As the last US forces leave Iraq by the end of the year, there are dire warnings of Iraq becoming an Iranian pawn.

This demonization of Iran at times seems to set the stage for a military attack on Iran by the US and Israel. The propaganda build-up is very similar to that directed against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2002. In both cases, an isolated state with limited resources is presented as a real danger to the region and the world. Unlikely and sometimes comical conspiracy theories are given official credence, such as the supposed plot of an Iranian-American used-car dealer in Texas teaming up with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Iran’s nuclear program is identified as a threat in much the same way as Saddam Hussein’s non-existent WMD.

It therefore came as a shock when the distinguished Egyptian-American lawyer Cherif Bassiouni, who led the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry into this year’s unrest, said flatly in his 500-page report last week that there is no evidence of Iranian involvement in events in Bahrain. This had been a core belief of Bahrain’s royal family and the monarchs of the Gulf. Fear of Iranian armed intervention was Bahrain’s justification for calling in a 1,500-strong Saudi-led military force on March 14 of this year before it drove demonstrators from the streets. Bahrain even got Kuwaiti naval vessels to patrol the coast of the island in case Iran should try to deliver weapons to the Shia pro-democracy protesters.

No doubt the kings and emirs of the Gulf sincerely believe their own conspiracy theories. Many of those tortured during the brutal repression in Bahrain have since given evidence that their torturers repeatedly asked them about their links to Iran. Middle-aged hospital consultants were forced to sign confessions admitting that they were members of an Iranian revolutionary plot. After accepting the Bassiouni report, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa said that, though his government could not produce clear evidence, Tehran’s role was evident to “all who have eyes and ears”. …more

54 Killed in Rare Attacks on Afghan Shiites
December 06, 2011 – Associated Pres – by Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez -military.com

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber struck a crowd of Shiite worshippers at a mosque in Kabul on Tuesday, killing at least 54 people in the deadliest of two attacks on a Shiite holy day – the first major sectarian assaults since the fall of the Taliban a decade ago.

Four other Shiites were killed in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif when a bomb strapped to a bicycle exploded as a convoy of Afghan Shiites was driving down the road, shouting slogans for the festival known as Ashoura. Health Ministry spokesman Sakhi Kargar gave the death toll and said 21 people also were wounded in that attack.

The Kabul bomber blew himself up in the midst of a crowd of men, women and children gathered outside the Abul Fazl shrine to commemorate the seventh century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein. Some men were beating themselves in mourning and food was being distributed.

The shrine, which is near the presidential palace, was packed with worshippers and dozens more were crammed into the courtyard. One witness said the bomber was at the end of a line and detonated his explosives near one of the gates to the shrine.

Sayed Kabir Amiri, who is in charge of Kabul hospitals said 54 were killed and more than 160 wounded in the blast. He said casualties were taken to several hospitals and the toll could rise.

Religiously motivated attacks on Shiites are rare in Afghanistan although they are common in neighboring Pakistan. No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s blasts, reminiscent of the wave of sectarian attacks that shook Iraq during the height of the war there. …more

POMED Notes: “The Price of Freedom and Democracy: Defiant Bahrainis and the Arab Spring”
02 Dec 2011 – BCHR

On Thursday, the Woodrow Wilson Center hosted an event entitled “The Price of Freedom and Democracy: Defiant Bahrainis and the Arab Spring.” The event honored Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, with the Ion Ratiu Democracy Award. The panel featured Mr. Rajab, Wafa Ali, a Bahraini journalist and public policy scholar at the Wilson Center, Carl Gershman, the president of the National Endowment for Democracy, and Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch. Jane Harman, the president of the Wilson Center, gave opening remarks, and Christian Ostermann, the Wilson Center’s European Studies director, moderated the event.

After brief remarks from Harman congratulating Rajab for his efforts, Rajab addressed the audience. He praised the efforts of Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First to draw attention to Bahrain’s ongoing calls for democratic reform, noting that Bahrain’s revolution was “not a revolution of elites, but of youth.” Rajab called the BICI report “not perfect, but good,” and criticized the report for not holding royal family members accountable for the human rights violations. He supports the BICI recommendations, calling them a “starting point for reform,” but said the recommendations will not solve Bahrain’s political crisis. Additionally, he was also highly critical of the many Western nations’ silence when Bahrainis called for help, and he asserted that Al Jazeera’s Arabic station did not give legitimate coverage to the events in Bahrain. “How long will families rule whole countries?” he asked. “We don’t want to kill our killers,” Rajab added, implying that he and his allies seek reconciliation rather than revenge.

Wafa Ali continued the discussion, stating there is a “crisis of trust” between the al-Khalifa regime and the public. Additionally, Bahrain’s allowing the GCC to intervene in the uprising was a signal to the West that a constitutional monarchy was not an option, she contended. Bahrain is currently in a state of confusion, Ali said, and different views of the country’s future have made compromise difficult between opposing sides. She stressed that Bahrain is in need of reconciliation in order to address the fears of all sides involved. …more

Muharram Ashra commemoration activities of Bahraini Shia’s attacked by Wahabi Regime forces
December 4, 2011 – Jafria News

JNN 03 December 2011 Manama : Many people were wounded as security forces used fissionable bullets and tear gas bombs to disperse people taking part in Ashra ceremonies in Muharraq and Arad, east of the capital.

Security forces also attacked consolation gatherings for women causing panic for children and mothers.

For its part, prominent opposition figure, al-Wefaq, said the authorities were responsible for the attack, saying it was deliberately targeting Ashra rituals.

The party also assured that these circumstances “are enough to say that the government isn’t able to continue”.

On the other hand, High Cleric Shiekh Issa Qasem said that Persian Gulf States exclude themselves when they call for the fall of other regimes.

During Friday speech, Shiekh Qasem rejected any committee “under any glittering name”, in reference to the investigation committee which was formed by the regime to probe the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters last mid-March.

He also considered the forming of this committee “doesn’t mean anything but crisis’ postponement and complicating”. …more

Welcome to the War
by: Tom Parker, December 5, 2011 – Amnesty USA

The passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) through the Senate last Thursday saw the culmination of a ten-year crusade by Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) to make the law of war apply on US soil.

In many ways Senator Graham is simply following the logic of the Global War on Terror frame to its inevitable conclusion: If we are at war with Al Qaeda all around the world then there is no good reason why US soil should be excluded.

Senator Graham’s avowed objective is to allow for the military detention of suspected Al Qaeda, Taliban or otherwise affiliated terrorists captured on US soil, but of course detention is not the only arrow in the military quiver.

Logic is a harsh taskmaster. If the war on terror is being fought on US soil the military would also now have the authority to do what it does best – engage the enemy with kinetic force. In other words, for those of you who don’t like euphemisms, to kill people.

As if on cue, CIA general counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson popped up at a conference last week to confirm that US citizens do not have immunity when they are at war with the United States.

In summary, once the NDAA becomes law a US citizen on US soil can lawfully be killed by the US military if the military believes that citizen to be a terrorist affiliated with Al Qaeda or its allies.

The key word in that last sentence was “believes.” In the past ten years our intelligence hasn’t been that good. You may we recall we invaded Iraq because our intelligence indicated that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. He didn’t. No small mistake that. …more

Israel May Be as Threatened by a Rational Iran as an Irrational Iran
By Russ Wellen – December 6, 2011 – FPIP

Apparently the rationale that Israeli war hawks and the Americans who enable them have long harbored for attacking Iran is mutating. They’re cassus belli-flopping, as it were. At Media Matters’ Political Correction, M.J. Rosenberg reports that this process was

… kicked off this week when Danielle Pletka, head of the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) foreign policy shop and one of the most prominent neoconservatives in Washington, explained what the current obsession with Iran’s nuclear program is all about.

The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power.”

Say what? Rosenberg, too, was baffled at first.

The “biggest problem” with Iran getting a nuclear weapon is not that Iranians will use it but that they won’t use it and that they might behave like a “responsible power”? But what about the hysteria about a second Holocaust? … What about all of these pronouncements that … the apocalyptic mullahs would happily commit national suicide in order to destroy Israel?

What, he wonders, became of the “‘existential threat’ that Iran poses to Israel?” Rosenberg quotes the AEI’s director of the Center for Defense Studies, Thomas Donelly.

We’re fixated on the Iranian nuclear program while the Tehran regime has its eyes on the real prize: the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East.

In other words, Rosenberg writes

… preserving the regional balance of power … means ensuring that Israel remains the region’s military powerhouse, with Saudi Arabia playing a supporting role. That requires overthrowing the Iranian regime and replacing it with one that will do our bidding (like the Shah) and will not, in any way, prevent Israel from operating with a free reign throughout the region.

Which means war, since U.S. policymakers no longer see diplomacy possible before the presidential election of 2012 lest it leave President Obama vulnerable to charges that he’s soft on Iran. Rosenberg writes that

Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a longtime journalist and author who specializes on Iran, noted that the Obama administration has spent a grand total of 45 minutes in direct engagement with the Iranians. …more

Maltreated children show same pattern of brain activity as combat soldiers
by University College of London

Children exposed to family violence show the same pattern of activity in their brains as soldiers exposed to combat, new research has shown.
In the first functional MRI brain scan study to investigate the impact of physical abuse and domestic violence on children, scientists at UCL in collaboration with the Anna Freud Centre, found that exposure to family violence was associated with increased brain activity in two specific brain areas (the anterior insula and the amygdala) when children viewed pictures of angry faces.

Previous fMRI studies that scanned the brains of soldiers exposed to violent combat situations have shown the same pattern of heightened activation in these two areas of the brain, which are associated with threat detection. The authors suggest that both maltreated children and soldiers may have adapted to be ‘hyper-aware’ of danger in their environment.

However, the anterior insula and amygdala are also areas of the brain implicated in anxiety disorders. Neural adaptation in these regions may help explain why children exposed to family violence are at greater risk of developing anxiety problems later in life.

Dr Eamon McCrory, lead author from the UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences and the Anna Freud Centre, said: “We are only now beginning to understand how child abuse influences functioning of the brain’s emotional systems. This research is important because it provides our first clues as to how regions in the child’s brain may adapt to early experiences of abuse in the home”.

Dr McCrory added: “All the children studied were healthy and none were suffering from a mental health problem. What we have shown is that exposure to family violence is associated with altered brain functioning in the absence of psychiatric symptoms and that these alterations may represent an underlying neural risk factor. We suggest these changes may be adaptive for the child in the short term but may increase longer term risk”.

In the study, which is published in the journal Current Biology, 43 children had their brains scanned using an fMRI scanner. 20 children who had been exposed to documented violence at home were compared with 23 matched peers who had not experienced family violence. The average age of the maltreated children was 12 years old and they had all been referred to local social services in London.

When the children were in the scanner they were presented with pictures of male and female faces showing sad, calm or angry expressions. The children had only to decide if the face was male or female – processing the emotion on the face was incidental. As described, the children who had been exposed to violence at home showed increased brain activity in the anterior insula and amygdala in response to the angry faces.

Professor Peter Fonagy, Chief Executive of the Anna Freud Centre and professor of psychology at UCL, said: “Dr McCrory’s groundbreaking research has undoubtedly taken us an important step closer to understanding the devastation which exposing children to violence can leave in its wake. His exciting findings confirm the traumatic effects these experiences have on brain development. …more

Iran Shoots down another US Spy Drone over its airspace
December 5, 2011 – Jafria News

JNN 04 Dec 2011 Tehran: Iran’s military has shot down a US reconnaissance drone aircraft in eastern Iran and has threatened to respond to the violation of Iranian airspace, a military source told state television on Sunday.

“Iran’s military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran,” Iran’s Arabic-language Al Alam state television network quoted the unnamed source as saying.

“The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the Iranian armed forces.”

Iran shot down the drone at a time when it is trying to contain foreign reaction to the storming of the British embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, shortly after London announced that it would impose sanctions on Iran’s central bank in connection with Iran’s controversial nuclear enrichment programme.

Britain evacuated its diplomatic staff from Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats in London in retaliation, and several other EU members recalled their ambassadors from Tehran.

The attack dragged Iran’s relations with Europe to a long-time low.

“The Iranian military’s response to the American spy drone’s violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran’s borders,” the military source said, without elaborating.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Iran has dismissed reports of possible US or Israeli plans to strike Iran, warning that it would respond to any such assault by attacking US interests in the Gulf and Israel.

Analysts say Tehran could retaliate by launching hit-and-run strikes in the Gulf and by closing the Strait of Hormuz. About 40 per cent of all traded oil leaves the Gulf region through the strategic waterway.

Iran said in July it had shot down an unmanned US spy plane over the holy city of Qom, near its Fordu nuclear site. …more

Clinton and Ghalyun
by As’ad AbuKhalil – December 06, 2011
I so enjoyed watching the footage of Hillary Clinton while she was lecturing Burhan Ghalyun and his friends from the Ikhwan’s Syrian National Council about women’s rights and democracy. They have turned into little Hamid Karzai’s, no more. She was lecturing on how the new Syria has to respect women’s and minority rights the way solid US ally, Saudi Arabia respects him. Ghalyun and comrades nodded their heads in approval.
…source

Is the U.S. on the wrong side of history in Bahrain?
By Josh Rogin – December 6, 2011 – Foreign Policy

President Barack Obama’s administration has sided with Bahrain’s ruling regime over its domestic protest movement more clearly than in any other country affected by the Arab Spring. But that position is unwise and unsustainable, according to one of Bahrain’s leading human rights activists, who visited Washington last week.

Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, came to Washington to receive the Woodrow Wilson Center’s 2011 Ion Ratiu Democracy Award for his work documenting human rights abuses conducted by the Bahraini ruling family’s security forces since protesters took to the streets in the capital of Manama in February. He was not invited to the State Department for any meetings whatsoever. He did visit the National Security Council, and met with senior director for democracy Gayle Smith, but wasn’t given time by any official who works directly on Bahrain.

Rajab sat down on Dec. 4 for an exclusive interview with The Cable. His main message was that the Obama administration’s defense of the Bahraini government, including a new push to sell it more weapons, is sowing seeds of distrust and resentment of the United States among the Bahraini people. He urged the Obama administration to use its influence in Bahrain to press the regime for improvements on human rights.

Rajab said that the United States was repeating the mistakes of the past by siding with a minority regime that has brutalized its Shiite majority population. Here are some excerpts:

JR: What is your main message to the Washington foreign policy community?

NR: What I have realized is that there’s a difference between the way the American government and the American people look at the Arab uprisings or the Arab revolution. I have received great support from American civil society, human rights groups, etc., in support of the Bahraini revolution. But that is totally different than the position of the United States government, which has disappointed many people in the Gulf region. And they have seen how the U.S. has acted differently and has different responses for different countries. There is full support for revolutions in countries where [the U.S. government] has a problem with their leadership, but when it comes to allied dictators in the Gulf countries, they have a much softer position and that was very upsetting to many people in Bahrain and the Gulf region. This will not serve your long strategic interest, to strengthen and continue your relations with dictators and repressive regimes…. You should have taken a lesson from Tunisia and Egypt, but now you are repeating the same thing by ignoring all those people struggling for democracy and human rights…. Those dictators will not be there forever. Relationships should be maintained with people, not families.

JR: The Obama administration says they are encouraging both sides to work together toward reform. Do you not see that as helpful?

NR: The U.S. is more influential in Bahrain than the United Nations. If they are serious about something, they could do it. They have lots of means to pressure the Bahraini government but so far they are soft. They act as if both sides are equal. You have people fighting for democracy and human rights and struggling for social justice. Then you have a repressive government with an army. You can’t speak as if they can be treated in an equal manner. It’s the government that is killing people. It’s the government that is committing the crimes. The pressure should be put on the government. All of the statements by [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton and [President] Barack Obama have no impact on the ground because the government was not really being forced to listen to it…. This government has to be told that their relationship with the United States is not a green light to commit crimes, because that’s how it is understood by the government. And no one in the United States has told them, no, it’s not like that. …more

The Bahrain ‘Spring’: the revolution that wasn’t televised
by Corinna Mullin and Azadeh Shahshahani – 6 December 2011 – openDemocracy

Bahrain needs to set about the hard work of healing societal cleavages, to build the truly sovereign and democratic country which the majority of its citizens appear so determined to achieve. If their much-touted ‘democracy promotion’ rhetoric is to have any real significance, western governments must help rather than hinder this process.

Despite the recent flurry of news coverage of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report’s release last week, the story of the Bahraini pro-democracy uprising has been one of the least reported amongst those of the ‘Arab spring’. This goes for the regional Arab media, whose cheerleading and persistent coverage of uprisings elsewhere in the region contributed to whatever successes have been achieved, as well as for the majority of western press. This despite the fact that the violence and repression the Bahraini protesters met has matched, if not exceeded in some instances, those elsewhere in the region.

The stunted Bahraini revolution has also garnered much less rhetorical and material support from western governments. In Tunisia and Egypt, western governments supported, albeit belatedly, the expression of ‘people power’ against the repression and corruption of their former allies. In Syria, they have publicly called for regime change, and in Libya they actively engaged in ending Gaddafi’s 42 year rule. By contrast, there have only been muted calls for political reform and an end to the violence of the repressive Khalifa regime. This is perhaps not surprising considering all that is at stake for western governments in Bahrain.

First and foremost is the fact that Bahrain is home to the US Fifth Fleet, whose controversial stationing in the country’s port was the source of another pivotal anti-democratic moment in the island nation’s history. In August 1975, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s father, Emir Isa bin Salman Al Kahlifa, formally dissolved the national assembly after it failed to ratify the extension of the lease for the US naval units, essentially putting an end to the country’s short-lived experiment with a parliamentary monarchical system.

It seems unlikely that Bahrain’s strategic importance to the US will decline in the near future. As former US Fifth Fleet commander vice admiral Charles Moore said recently, quoting the late Middle East force commander and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William Crowe, Bahrain is “pound for pound, man for man, the best ally the United States has anywhere in the world”.

These double standards have not been lost on the Bahraini protestors. As Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights put it: ‘Democracy isn’t only for those countries the United States has a problem with.’
US and UK complicity in Khalifa regime’s crimes

In yet another delayed response, the US government announced in October that it would hold up a $53 million arms sale to Bahrain. Yet as in cases of Egypt and Tunisia, many people in Bahrain viewed this step, as well as those undertaken by the British government to suspend arms exports licences to the repressive Khalifa regime, as ‘too little, too late’. In the months before the protests began in February, the US sold more than $200m in weapons and equipment to Bahrain, including $760,000 in firearms. …more

Bahrain’s US Ambassador Welcomes BICI Findings
POMED – 06 December, 2011

“Bahrain‘s government is committed to reform, and to implementing progressive policies that will help achieve reconciliation for all Bahrainis. We are committed to that path because the future of Bahrain and its people relies on a meaningful unification strategy.”

Houda Nonoo, Bahrain’s Ambassador to the United States, welcomed the findings of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) released at the end of November. In a statement Nonoo said, “Bahrain‘s government is committed to reform, and to implementing progressive policies that will help achieve reconciliation for all Bahrainis. We are committed to that path because the future of Bahrain and its people relies on a meaningful unification strategy.” She added, “The truth of the events that transpired in our country was not easy to hear. But these truths are now Bahrain’s reality, and the government has accepted these truths as the foundation from which our reform process will move ahead.”

Additionally, Nonoo mentioned that a commission established by Bahrain’s king will consist of twenty members representing “a broad cross-section of Bahraini society and will conclude its work by the end of February 2012.”

Meanwhile, according to a press release by Bahrain’s Ministry of Information, John Timoney, a former police chief of Miami, Florida, has been chosen to lead training programs for the Gulf kingdom’s forces, which the Associated Press called “part of reforms after an independent report detailed abuses against pro-reform protesters.” …source

Bahrain: Release People Jailed for Speaking Out
Response to Independent Commission Should Include Investigating Officials
December 6, 2011 – HRW

The independent commission’s report gives Bahraini authorities an opportunity to remedy some of their gross abuses by releasing all persons convicted or held for exercising their rights to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. It is crucial for Bahrain to send a strong message that there will be no impunity for the human rights crimes documented by the Bassiouni commission. Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

(New York) – Bahraini authorities should quickly address the systematic and egregious rights violations documented by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, Human Rights Watch said today. As a first step, the government should immediately release hundreds of people wrongfully detained or convicted following unfair trials. And it should investigate high-level officials responsible for serious human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said.

Authorities should void all verdicts issued by the special military courts and drop all charges brought solely because people exercised their right to freely express political opinions and assemble peacefully. Authorities should only try civilians for legitimate criminal offenses, before a civilian court meeting international fair trial standards. These standards include the right of defendants to examine the evidence and witnesses against them, and the exclusion of all evidence obtained by torture or ill-treatment, Human Rights Watch said.

“The independent commission’s report gives Bahraini authorities an opportunity to remedy some of their gross abuses by releasing all persons convicted or held for exercising their rights to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “It is crucial for Bahrain to send a strong message that there will be no impunity for the human rights crimes documented by the Bassiouni commission.”

The commission, headed by the Egyptian-American jurist Cherif Bassiouni, found a pattern of serious human rights violations that included the use of excessive force against peaceful protesters, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, denial of fair trial guarantees, and a severe lack of accountability for serious rights abuses, creating a “culture of impunity,” particularly within the ranks of the security forces. …more

Caught on camera: top lobbyists boasting how they influence the PM
by Melanie Newman, Oliver Wright – Te Independent – 6 December, 2011

Executives from Bell Pottinger reveal ‘dark arts’ they use to burnish reputations of countries accused of human rights violations

One of Britain’s largest lobbying companies has been secretly recorded boasting about its access to the heart of the Government and how it uses the “dark arts” to bury bad coverage and influence public opinion. An undercover investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, published in The Independent today, has taped senior executives at Bell Pottinger:

* Claiming they have used their access to Downing Street to get David Cameron to speak to the Chinese premier on behalf of one of their business clients within 24 hours of asking him to do so;

* Boasting about Bell Pottinger’s access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, to Mr Cameron’s chief of staff Ed Llewellyn and to Mr Cameron’s old friend and closest No 10 adviser Steve Hilton;

* Suggesting that the company could manipulate Google results to “drown” out negative coverage of human rights violations and child labour;

* Revealing that Bell Pottinger has a team which “sorts” negative Wikipedia coverage of clients;

* Saying it was possible to use MPs known to be critical of investigative programmes to attack their reporting for minor errors.

Reporters from the Bureau posed as agents for the government of Uzbekistan – a brutal dictatorship responsible for killings, human rights violations and child labour – and representatives of its cotton industry in a bid to discover what promises British lobbying and public relations firms were prepared to make when pitching to clients, what techniques they use, and how much of their work is open to public scrutiny. …more