US Congress delegation hails Bahrain stance on BICI report
by Mahmood Rafique – www.twentyfoursevennews.com

Bahrain reaffirmed keenness to translate the recommendations cited in the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) Report on the ground. The National Commission charged with the BICI recommendations reiterated the stance during a meeting a senior US Congress officials.

The panel said that the recommendations would be implemented in line with best international practices and standards, the constitution and human rights principles.

It cited particularly the recommendations relating to the reinstatement of the sacked public and private employees who have not been indicted in criminal acts of violence.

It singled out the BICI recommendations relating to the reconstruction of worship facilities.

The Government is following up the issue with National Commission president Ali bin Saleh Al-Saleh to ensure their implementation.

The panel has so far received a positive response. National Commission members Jamal Mohammed Fakhro, Abdulla Al-Dirazi, Abdulaziz Abul, Ahmed Al-Saati, Jameela Salman and secretary general Obaid Al-Obaidli attended, in addition to employees from the Bahrain Embassy in the US.

The Beating

The Result

Pillay: Bahrain Government must take immediate confidence-building measures, release political prisoners
21 December, 2011 – UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights

GENEVA (21 December 2011) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Wednesday called on authorities in Bahrain to take immediate steps to address the “deepening mistrust” between the Government and civil society, including by promptly releasing those detained for taking part in peaceful demonstrations.

“The Bahraini authorities need to urgently take confidence-building measures including unconditionally releasing those who were convicted in military tribunals or are still awaiting trial for merely exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly,” Pillay said.

“Thousands of individuals have lost their jobs for participating in demonstrations, many students have had their education derailed – these serious violations of their economic and social rights must be immediately addressed. Those who have been unfairly dismissed should be reinstated to their original functions.”

Pillay also urged the Government to address the prevailing impunity at all levels, including for security forces responsible for excessive use of force on peaceful protestors and officers who perpetrated torture, sometimes with fatal consequences, in detention centres.

“We continue to receive reports of the repression of small protests in Bahrain and although some security officers have reportedly been arrested, we have yet to see any prosecution of security forces for civilian injuries and deaths,” she said. “Such impunity – at all levels – is a serious impediment to national reconciliation.”

At the invitation of the Bahraini Government, a senior-level delegation from the UN Human Rights office visited the country from 13 to 17 December and met with a number of high-level Government officials, including the Deputy Prime Minister and the Ministers of Justice, the Interior, Human Rights and Social Affairs, Labour, the Public Prosecutor and the President of the Consultative Assembly. The delegation also met a broad range of civil society members, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, trade union members, human rights defenders, opposition political parties, as well as victims of violations and their families. The UN Human Rights delegation also visited a number of detainees in the central Jaw prison in Manama.

“My team has come back with the message that there is a profound lack of trust in the Government, and this mistrust has deepened as a result of the violent crackdown on protestors, destruction of mosques, the lack of fair trials and the lack of progress in providing redress for violations,” Pillay said. …more

In July 2011, the international human rights group Amnesty International published a draft version of an anti-terror law proposed by the government of Saudi Arabia. Marked “Secret and Urgent,” the law laid out defined offenses and proposed punishments for activities that Amnesty says would stifle peaceful dissent within the Kingdom and could lead to indefinite detention of those found in violation. The government of Saudi Arabia labeled Amnesty’s concerns as being “baseless, mere supposition and without foundation.” The Kingdom then proceeded to block access to Amnesty’s website.

The law, as written, described vague actions such as “endangering national unity” or “harming the reputation of the state” as being terrorist crimes and allowed for arrest and detention of citizens for an indefinite period when convicted by a special court. That court, the Specialized Criminal Court, whose existence was first made public in 2008 and is known to hold trials in secret without affording defendants the right to legal counsel, would have jurisdiction over all terrorist crimes. Among the crimes that could traditionally be thought of as acts of terrorism is questioning the integrity of the King or Crown Prince, which can be punishable by a minimum sentence of years in jail. The Saudi Interior Ministry would be given broad powers to act to protect state security without the need for judicial authority or supervision. No wonder the organization Human Rights Watch described the law as “a setback for human rights.” …more

Human rights: Washington is unsure but UN shows gumption
by BRIJ KHINDARIA, The Moderate – 21 DEcember, 2011

Bahrain, the close American ally with one of the worst recent records of violence against pro-democracy protestors, received a formal a warning on Wednesday from the UN Human Rights chief.

A team from the High Commissioner for Human Rights visited Bahrain from 13 to 17 December and concluded that the repression was unacceptable. It insisted the government should immediately and unconditionally release protestors convicted by military tribunals or still awaiting trial. Failing action, the Human Rights body may try to drum up support for more diplomatic pressure.

The warning is significant because the king in Bahrain is propped up by Salafi Islamic hardliners in Saudi Arabia who fear its Shiite Muslim majority. The Pentagon supports the royal family with huge amounts of military hardware and a large US Navy base.

The situation in Bahrain symbolizes the ambivalence in Washington about the so-called Arab Spring, despite its rhetorical support of freedom and democracy. Heading into 2012, optimism is waning as tensions grow almost unmanageable in Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen among right wing militarists, Islamic forces and the mostly young pro-democracy liberals who have energized the people’s rebellions since January 2011.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonz says that the region is at an inflection point in history. All is changing. The old rules are breaking down and the emerging new order is unknown.

Social media-savvy young people seeking dignity and jobs in Tunisia and Egypt were the unexpected pioneers of rebellions. They did not gain much despite unprecedented democratic elections in their countries but they triggered a wider global phenomenon. Articulate middle class people have risen up in non-violent protest movements against unequal societies and corruption from rich countries like Switzerland and the US through Russia, Brazil and China to poorer ones like India and Kenya. …more

Baby’s death, arrest of al-Khawaja threaten government’s commitment to reform
21 December 2011 – IFEX

The arrest of international cause célèbre “Angry Arabiya” and the death of a five-day-old girl as a result of a tear gas attack have become the latest events threatening to overshadow Bahrain’s promises of reform following a highly critical report into the pro-democracy protests earlier this year, say the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), Index on Censorship and other IFEX members.

Zaynab al-Khawaja, the daughter of jailed rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and widely known by her Twitter name @angryarabiya, was violently arrested after refusing to leave a roundabout in Budaya Highway, a strategic road connecting the suburbs to the capital, after a 15 December sit-in, report BCHR, Index, ANHRI, Freedom House and the Writers in Prison Committee of PEN International. She was released on bail on 20 December pending trial. She faces up to two years in jail, says BCHR.

Hundreds of anti-government protesters had participated in the sit-in before being dispersed by riot police with tear gas and stun grenades, the members say.

Several people were injured because of excessive force, and one protester was allegedly killed when he was hit by a police car, reports BCHR. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry has denied police were responsible for the death, which has set off a string of protests that have been violently put down by police.

Recent protests, small or large, have been dealt with in much the same way. Security forces continue to fire excessive amounts of tear gas in residential areas, says BCHR (see http://yfrog.com/od8xblij and http://yfrog.com/mgpzaphj ). BCHR head Nabeel Rajab’s house was also tear gassed while his children were inside. He was not even in the country. …more

The Bahraini authorities did everything possible to prevent international coverage of the pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital, Manama, denying entry to some foreign reporters, and threatening or attacking other foreign reporters or their local contacts. Bahraini journalists, especially photographers, were detained for periods ranging from several hours to several weeks. Many were tried before military tribunals until the state of emergency imposed on 15 March was lifted. After months of demonstrations, order was finally restored thanks to systematic repression. A blogger jailed by a military court is still in prison and no civilian court ever reviewed his conviction. Bahrain is an example of news censorship that succeeded with the complicity of the international community, which said nothing. A newspaper executive and a netizen paid for this censorship with their lives.

The 10 most dangerous places for journalists
21 December 2011. – Reporters without Borders

2011 in figures:

66 journalists killed (16% more than in 2010)
1,044 journalists arrested
1,959 journalists physically attacked or threatened
499 media censored
71 journalists kidnapped
73 journalists fled their country
5 netizens killed
199 bloggers and netizens arrested
62 bloggers and netizens physically attacked
68 countries subject to Internet censorship

Reporters Without Borders has this year, for the first time, compiled a list of the world’s 10 most dangerous places for the media – the 10 cities, districts, squares, provinces or regions where journalists and netizens were particularly exposed to violence and where freedom of information was flouted.

Overall, 2011 took a heavy toll on media freedom. The Arab Spring was at the centre of the news. Of the total of 66 journalists killed in 2011, 20 were killed in the Middle East (twice as many as in 2010). A similar number were killed in Latin America, which is very exposed to the threat of criminal violence. For the second year running, Pakistan was the single deadliest country with a total of 10 journalists killed, most of them murdered. China, Iran and Eritrea continue to be the world’s biggest prisons for the media.

The Arab Spring, the protest movements it inspired in nearby countries such as Sudan and Azerbaijan, and the street protests in other countries such as Greece, Belarus, Uganda, Chile and the United States were responsible for the dramatic surge in the number of arrests, from 535 in 2010 to 1,044 in 2011. There were many cases of journalists being physically obstructed in the course of their work (by being detained for short periods or being summoned for interrogation), and for the most part they represented attempts by governments to suppress information they found threatening.

The 43 per cent increase in physical attacks on journalists and the 31 per cent increase in arrests of netizens – who are leading targets when they provide information about street demonstrations during media blackouts – were also significant developments in a year of protest. Five netizens were killed in 2011, three of them in Mexico alone.

From Cairo’s Tahrir Square to Khuzdar in southwestern Pakistan, from Mogadishu to the cities of the Philippines, the risks of working as a journalist at times of political instability were highlighted more than ever in 2011. The street was where danger was to be found in 2011, often during demonstrations that led to violent clashes with the security forces or degenerated into open conflict. The 10 places listed by Reporters Without Borders represent extreme cases of censorship of the media and violence against those who tried to provide freely and independently reported news and information.

(Listed by alphabetical order of country)

Manama, Bahrain
The Bahraini authorities did everything possible to prevent international coverage of the pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital, Manama, denying entry to some foreign reporters, and threatening or attacking other foreign reporters or their local contacts. Bahraini journalists, especially photographers, were detained for periods ranging from several hours to several weeks. Many were tried before military tribunals until the state of emergency imposed on 15 March was lifted. After months of demonstrations, order was finally restored thanks to systematic repression. A blogger jailed by a military court is still in prison and no civilian court ever reviewed his conviction. Bahrain is an example of news censorship that succeeded with the complicity of the international community, which said nothing. A newspaper executive and a netizen paid for this censorship with their lives.

…more