Fakhriya Jassim Hasan Sakran 55 years suffocated tear gas tonight – we are still waiting for confirmed news of her martyrdom – she lives in JidAli and is originally from muharraq

…more on this tragedy HERE

Bahraini teen arrested after speaking with human rights group
January 3, 2012 -Lebanon Now

An 18-year-old Bahraini man, Hassan Oun, from the Shia town of Samaheej was arrested for a fifth time on Tuesday after speaking at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, the center’s foreign relations office wrote in an email received by NOW Lebanon.

During Oun’s first detention, he claimed to have been raped with a hose by officer Yousif Mulla Bukhait, the email said.

Following his release, Bukhait telephoned Oun, threatening him with further detention, rape and death if he continued to speak out against the Bahraini government, the rights group added.

Shia-led mass demonstrations that rocked Bahrain early last year were violently crushed by government forces using live ammunition and heavy-handed tactics.

A special commission appointed to probe last year’s crackdown on anti-government protests published a report in November denouncing the “excessive and unjustified use of force” by the authorities.
…source

White House Announces Sale of $30B Worth of F-15s to Saudi Arabia
By Sara Sorcher – 29 December, 2011 – National Journal

The White House announced the sale of almost $30 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, in the latest sign of U.S. concern about Iran’s nuclear program.

In recent days, Washington and its Persian Gulf ally signed a formal agreement to send 84 new Boeing F-15 jets to Saudi Arabia, and upgrades for 70 more already in the Saudi fleet, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest said in a statement. The deal, valued at $29.4 billion, will also include munitions, spare parts, training, maintenance and logistical support.

Earnest said the deal would support more than 50,000 American jobs, engage 600 suppliers in 44 states, and provide $3.5 billion in annual economic impact to the U.S. economy. “This agreement reinforces the strong and enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security,” he said.

The Obama administration announced its plans last October to sell the aircraft and military hardware as part of a $60 billion deal over 10 years.

Egypt, Bahrain, London, Spain?– Tahrir Square as a meme
21 May, 2011 – Deterritorial Support Group

As in the early days and weeks of what have become known as “The Arab Spring”– a series of insurrections against long-established regimes across North Africa– the British mainstream media seem to have missed the boat on the current “May 15th” movement currently filling the streets and squares of cities and towns across Spain. The basis of the Spanish protests bear more similarities with those insurrections- anger at soaring youth unemployment, political corruption and, like much of Europe, huge social and financial restructuring plans in the name of “austerity”. But there are now interesting examples of how the shared causes of these grievances are having a feedback effect on the tactics of popular protest being used, and how certain tropes of “struggle” are spreading memetically between movements against poverty, corruption and austerity measures. Not least of these is the potent symbol of Tahrir Square, the hub of dissent during the uprisings in Egypt this year, which we are seeing in an entirely new incarnation in Puerta Del Sol in Madrid this week (hashtags- #Acampadelsol #Spanishrevolution #yeswecamp).

The relationship between the North African and Middle-Eastern uprisings and the problems of Europe is highly symbiotic, although rarely flagged up by much of the media on the conservative right and liberal left. Whilst they have tried to diffuse the anger and it’s repercussions by portraying the insurrections as part of a cultural “quest for democracy”, the Arab Spring is, quite plainly, the result of the economic forces of the global downturn and the financial crisis that precipitated it. Faced with already high graduate unemployment and rocketing food prices, the collapse of their export economies were the straw that broke the working-classes back in North Africa– the ensuing crisis of legitimacy, industrial actions and massive street violence (also completely downplayed by the European media) may have then been painted as a political crisis, but they were only the symptoms of a financial crisis with which working people had been lumbered, and could no longer sustain.

It’s perhaps understandable why the west has sought to play down the economic and class nature of the uprisings. It may well seem crass for young westerners to compare, for example, the student and EMA protests of last year with the oppression faced by Egyptian, Bahrainian and Libyan youths and rebels, but the fundamental issues that cause the discontent have similar roots and manifestations– very high graduate unemployment, a rising cost in living (food and, in Europe, rent) and collapsing legitimacy of traditional political structures, both of those in office and opposition- in short, a crisis of trust in the ideology of a social contract. For those involved to start drawing international and class comparisons and links, and for the street protests and direct actions to be generalised across Europe, would not suit the established Western democracies at all well. It’s against this attempt to distance these shared struggles that workers, demonstrators and anti-austerity activists are fighting, because the inevitable realisation would be made, sooner or later, that the problems of each country are not due to, for example, an over bureaucratic welfare state or mismanagement by a particular tyrant, but due to international issues of capital.

These are, indeed, international issues of class vs capital. But what has also been fascinating is the way certain tropes, tactics and symbols of these protests have spread across the continents memetically, not because of any specific tactical or political efficacy relevant to each individual location, but as an only semi-conscious, infectious “linking” of different “struggles”. As an example, the image of Tahrir Square has now become a fundamental core feature linking many of these movements. When tens of thousands of Egyptians headed for the Square on the days following their “day of rage” against the government, they did so for practical reasons relevant to their very specific social and geographic conditions – the need to coalesce for self-defence reasons, to gain a certain communal courage, to keep out in the open and in the eye of the international media, expecting a brutal repression from the Egyptian state security services. But the idea of Tahrir– a central encampment, held for as long as possible, acting as a hub for the worlds media, has since become more than a practical development. It has become a meme of the social movements. …more

Saudi Arabia: Women’s bodies used in ‘war’ to halt reform
4 January, 2012 – Safe World for Women – by Rob L. Wagner

As Saudi women celebrate their progress in gaining voting rights and expanded employment opportunities, conservatives have intensified their campaign to marginalize those achievements in a new round of attacks targeting liberal Saudi writers and thinkers sympathetic to the women’s movement.

Saudi newspaper columnist Saleh Al-Shehi made a vague critical comment on Twitter at the Saudi Intellectual Forum at Riyadh’s Marriott Hotel that men and women were behaving “shamefully” by socializing during breaks. He implied Saudi men are aiding and abetting the corruption of women in the name of progress. One leading woman writer described the tweet as opening “the gates of hell.”

Saudi Arabia’s internal cultural and religious wars over the last decade have focused on women’s rights issues almost to the exclusion of everything else. Voting, running for public office, employment, education and women’s bodies rarely go unmentioned among religious conservatives railing against the perceived corrupting influences of the West. In essence, the female body has become the battleground in an ongoing war to stem reform.

Saudi women activists and Islamic feminists over the past year have aggressively pursued male allies to help advance their cause. And many forum participants offer varying levels of support to better integrate women into society.
Threat to stability of society

Conservatives, however, see the changing role of women a threat to the stability of society, especially considering that gender segregation is ingrained in the daily lives of all Saudis.

Al-Shehi’s Twitter shot heard throughout the kingdom took on a life of its own on Facebook and the online Saudi newspaper Mmlkah (Kingdom), which reported the incident. The coverage gave conservatives ammunition that Saudi Arabia’s liberal writers and intellectuals crossed the line with flagrant immoral behavior.

Saudi authors Abdo Khal and Badriah Al-Bishr confer at the Saudi Intellectual Forum in RiyadhSaudi authors Abdo Khal and Badriah Al-Bishr confer at the Saudi Intellectual Forum in RiyadhThe Saudi Intellectual Forum was the second conference held in eight years to bring together more than 1,000 writers and thinkers. A key speaker was Princess Adela Bint Abdullah, daughter of King Abdullah and the wife of the kingdom’s education minister, Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah Bin Muhammad Al-Saud. Among the attendees were author Abdo Khal, winner of the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his book “She Throws Sparks.” Khal often writes about individuals living on the margins of Saudi society, which led the Saudi government to ban some of his work as un-Islamic. Also participating was Saudi novelist Badriah Al-Bishr. The conference concluded Dec. 29. …more

Lockheed Martin goes to bat for oppressive regime
A top executive for the military contractor worked with lobbyists for Bahrain to publish Op-Ed defending the regime
By Justin Elliott – 4 January, 2012 – Salon

A top executive at Lockheed Martin recently worked with lobbyists for Bahrain to place an Op-Ed defending the nation’s embattled regime in the Washington Times — but the newspaper did not reveal the role of the regime’s lobbyists to its readers. Hence they did not know that the pro-Bahrain opinion column they were reading was published at the behest of … Bahrain, an oil-rich kingdom of 1.2 million people that has been rocked by popular protests since early 2011.

The episode is a glimpse into the usually hidden world of how Washington’s Op-Ed pages, which are prized real estate for those with interests before the U.S. government, are shaped. It also shows how Lockheed gave an assist to a major client — Bahrain has bought hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons from the company over the years – as it faces widespread criticism for human rights abuses against pro-democracy protesters.

As Ken Silverstein reported in Salon last month, the kingdom is stepping up its Washington lobbying efforts. Here’s the latest example, as far as I can piece together from lobbying disclosures filed by Bahrain’s “strategic communications” firm, D.C.-based Sanitas International.

On Nov. 30, the Washington Times published an Op-Ed under the headline “Bahrain, a vital U.S. ally: Backing protesters would betray a friend and harm American security.” It was written by Vice Adm. Charles Moore (retired). Moore was formerly commander of the Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet. From 1998 to 2002, Moore notes in his Op-Ed, he “had the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s leader, as well as many senior officials in his government.” Moore passed through the revolving door and is now regional president for Lockheed Martin for the Middle East and Africa.

Moore argues in the Op-Ed that while protesters in Bahrain have “legitimate grievances,” the U.S. “needs Bahrain now more than ever to preserve regional peace and stability in what remains a dangerous and uncertain world.” He particularly focuses on using the large U.S. Navy presence in Bahrain as a counter to Iran, which Washington sees as a foe and which Bahrain claims is fomenting unrest among the country’s Shia majority. …more

The Feds put Islam on trial
3 January, 2012 – by Jenin Juffri – Socialist Worker

IN THE same week that Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), sending it to Barack Obama to enshrine into law a provision allowing indefinite military detention of U.S. citizens, a federal jury in Boston delivered a guilty verdict against Dr. Tarek Mehanna, a Muslim American pharmacist charged with material support for terrorism.

Coming in the wake of other Muslims around the country who have been arrested, accused of supporting terrorism, and locked up for long sentences, the December 20 guilty verdict against Mehanna on seven counts was a shocking and chilling reminder to his growing number of supporters and advocates that the “war on terror” has been putting Islam on trial for years.

Tarek’s trial lasted nine weeks, but was the culmination of four years of FBI harassment, surveillance and intimidation against Mehanna from his days in pharmacy school.

In 2005, recognizing him as a respected leader within his community and a potential asset for the federal government in its spying and surveillance of Muslims, the FBI approached Tarek to act as an informant within his community. After Tarek refused to betray members of his community, he was subjected to harassment and surveillance of his online activities, including participation in online forums vocalizing his opposition to U.S. wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Mehanna was initially arrested in 2008 on the charge of making a false statement to the FBI, and when no case could be made to keep him in prison or prove he was a danger to the public, he was released with a restrictive bail arrangement.

In October 2009, after Tarek had graduated from pharmacy school and was ready to board a plane for a prestigious job in Saudi Arabia, federal agents arrested him a second time and charged him with providing material support to al-Qaeda.

The government presented nothing but an FBI affidavit to the court as evidence and fed the media with vicious accusations that Tarek had plotted to shoot up a mall–a charge that wasn’t even included in its case. Tarek spent another two years in solitary confinement before the trial even began. He was under 23-hour lockdown with little human contact, which is recognized internationally as a form of torture. …more

Bahrain creates judicial panel to review protest cases
2January, 2012 – CNN

(CNN) — Bahrain’s top court announced Monday that it is creating a judicial panel to review some military court verdicts related to protests last year, the state news agency said.

“A new judicial body comprising a number of judges from the civil courts shall be created in order to review nonappealable verdicts issued in favor of conviction by national safety courts according to international principles of the right to undergo a fair court trial and to access a lawyer for assistance in order to achieve the principles of fair justice,” said Sheikh bin Rashid Al Khalifa, the Supreme Judicial Council’s deputy chairman and president of the Court of Cassation.

He was quoted by the state-run Bahrain News Agency.

The new judicial body will review nonappealable convictions pertaining to the freedom of expression but not those related to incitement of violence, it said.

The judicial body will then submit the cases to the Supreme Judicial Council “in order to take appropriate actions,” it said.

The announcement came a day after witnesses said hundreds of mourners walked the streets of Sitra, south of the capital, behind the coffin carrying a 16-year-old boy who was killed during protests on Saturday. “We will sacrifice our souls and blood for you, martyr,” many of the mourners chanted. Some carried the country’s flag. A few held a red banner that read “Down with Hamad,” a reference to King Hamad al-Khalifa.

Clashes also occurred Sunday in Sitra between protesters and security forces who shot tear gas at them, injuring several people, witnesses said.

On Sunday, the news agency reported that 11 “saboteurs” were arrested after legal proceedings related to an attack Friday on police in Nuwaidrat, a village located a few miles southwest of Sitra. …more

KSA orders arrest of 23 protesters
3 January, 2012 – PressTV

Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry has ordered the arrest of 23 anti-regime Shia protesters in the kingdom’s oil-reach Eastern Province over accusations of sparking an uprising in the Persian Gulf monarchy.

Saudi Interior Ministry declared the arrest order in a statement read on state television on Monday, accusing the 23 men of serving the agenda of a foreign power.

“We do have evidence of a relationship with somebody else abroad,” Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Mansour Turki told a news conference. “Now how much, or what kind of relationship and how strong that relationship, this still has to be investigated and that is what we want these people for,” he added.

He further called on the Saudi people to inform the authorities of any other protesters, offering rewards.

Several villages and towns in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province have been the scene of protest rallies, with demonstrators calling for freedom and equality as well as the release of thousands of political prisoners.

Earlier in November, Saudi forces attacked thousands of demonstrators, killing five people and injured many others in the Eastern Province. The funerals for the victims usually turned to demonstrations, with protesters chanting slogans against the Al Saud regime.

Saudi activists say there are thousands of political prisoners in jails across the kingdom. According to human rights campaigners, most of the detained are being held without trial or legitimate charges and have been arrested on the grounds of mere suspicion. …source