#Riot: Self-Organized, Hyper-Networked Revolts—Coming to a City Near You
by Bill Wasik – 16 December 2011 – Wired January 2012

2011 A Year of Unrest – From January, when a dictatorship fell in the Middle East, to autumn, when protesters settled into American cities, 2011 was a year of marches, mobs, and omnipresent occupations. — Cameron Bird SEE TIME LINE HERE

Let’s start with the fundamental paradox: Our personal technology in the 21st century—our laptops and smartphones, our browsers and apps—does everything it can to keep us out of crowds.

Why pack into Target when Amazon can speed the essentials of life to your door? Why approach strangers at parties or bars when dating sites like OkCupid (to say nothing of hookup apps like Grindr) can more efficiently shuttle potential mates into your bed? Why sit in a cinema when you can stream? Why cram into arena seats when you can pay per view? We declare the obsolescence of “bricks and mortar,” but let’s be honest: What we usually want to avoid is the flesh and blood, the unpleasant waits and stares and sweat entailed in vying against other bodies in the same place, at the same time, in pursuit of the same resources.

And yet: On those rare occasions when we want to form a crowd, our tech can work a strange, dark magic. Consider this anonymous note, passed around among young residents of greater London on a Sunday in early August:

Everyone in edmonton enfield woodgreen everywhere in north link up at enfield town station 4 o clock sharp!!!!

Bring some bags, the note went on; bring cars and vans, and also hammers. Make sure no snitch boys get dis, it implored. Link up and cause havic, just rob everything. Police can’t stop it. This note, and variants on it, circulated on August 7, the day after a riot had broken out in the London district of Tottenham, protesting the police killing of a 29-year-old man in a botched arrest. So the recipients of this missive, many of them at least, were already primed for violence.

It helped, too, that the medium was BlackBerry Messenger, a private system in which “broadcasting” messages—sending them to one’s entire address book—can be done for free, with a single command. Unlike in the US, where BlackBerrys are seen as strictly a white-collar accessory, teens and twentysomethings in the UK have embraced the platform wholeheartedly, with 37 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds using the devices nationwide; the percentage is probably much higher in urban areas like London. From early on in the rioting, BBM messages were pinging around among the participants and their friends, who were using the service for everything from sharing photos to coordinating locations. Contemplating the corporate-grade security and mass communication of the platform, Mike Butcher, a prominent British blogger who serves as a digital adviser to the London mayor, wryly remarked that BBM had become the “thug’s Gutenberg press.”

Nick de Bois, one of Enfield’s representatives in Parliament, was whiling away that Sunday afternoon at the horse races in Windsor, where a friend’s wife was celebrating her 40th birthday. It was a fine day of racing, to boot: In the third, Toffee Tart bested Marygold by just half a length, paying off at 7:2. “Unusually for me, I hadn’t looked at my handheld in two hours,” de Bois says. But when he did look, he saw something disturbing. Gossip was swirling about more riots that night, with Enfield named as a likely target. De Bois decided he had better cut his race day short. “I never even had a chance to recover my losses,” he deadpans.

By five in the afternoon, he was on the streets of Enfield Town, along with a handful of police. Was there a riot? No—not really, not yet. But there was a gathering crowd, a mixed-race group of mostly young men, just milling around in small bunches. Some were conducting what de Bois describes as “reckys”—reconnaissance missions—around the town center. “They were just having a good look!” he says. …more

Amnesty International: Fresh reports of torture are yet another blow to Bahrain’s promises of reform
06 January, 2012 – BHCR

Fresh reports of the torture of an 18-year old student in detention are yet another blow to Bahrain’s promises of reform, Amnesty International said today.

Police allegedly subjected Hassan ‘Oun to torture, including beatings and threats of rape after his arrest in Manama on 3 January.

“As such horrendous cases of human rights abuse keep piling up, the Bahraini authorities’ promises of change ring ever more hollow,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Hassan’s family has told Amnesty International that he was interrogated about his contact with the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.

The student had told the Centre about being tortured by police during a previous 2011 arrest, following his involvement in anti-government protests.

“We are concerned that Hassan ‘Oun may have been targeted again for arrest because he dared to report police abuses,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

According to family members, Hassan told his lawyer that the police had forced him to stand for about 11 hours, and that he had been beaten on his feet with a hose and threatened with rape.

Hassan’s lawyer and other witnesses have reportedly seen signs of torture on his body, and that one of his legs is swollen from injury.

“These allegations of torture must be investigated immediately,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahroui. “If Hassan is being held solely for his peaceful activities, he should be released immediately.”

After being held in a police station for a day, Hassan was questioned at the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO) on 4 January in the presence of a lawyer.

The PPO extended his detention for 45 days pending investigation, under illegal public gathering charges. Hassan was then transferred to the Dry Dock Prison in Manama.

His family have not been allowed to see him, although yesterday they received permission to visit him next week. …more

Bahrain’s Protesting Footballers
By John Duerden – 6 January, 2012 – The Diplomat

On the face of it, Bahrain’s next few football world months are all about trying to qualify for the 2014 World Cup. But there are bigger issues at stake than the biggest sports tournament in the world.

The team’s chances of reaching Brazil would have been better if some of the team’s best and most experienced players were able to play on the team. But stars such as Mohammed Hubail (joint top scorer at the 2004 Asian Cup and well-known in continental football circles) his brother Alaa, and also Ali Saeed Abdullah and Sayed Mohammed Adnan, spent part of 2011 in jail.

The players, who like the majority of the population are Shia Muslim, were arrested by security forces for participating in pro-democracy protests aimed at the ruling Sunni Muslim elite. It all happened in April, at the height of the Arab Spring.

Not only that, the players – who were arrested along with dozens of other athletes – claim that they were tortured while in prison. The imprisonment of the footballers prompted FIFA to investigate whether the Bahrain government was guilty of interfering in the sport. According to the governing body’s statutes, such an act means that a federation will be suspended from the international game.

The Bahrain FA, whose president is Sheikh Salman Al-Khalifa, a member of the country’s ruling family and a probable candidate in the race to be the next president of the Asian Football Confederation, told the world governing body that no physical punishment had been meted out.

The players were then released and have been banned from their club teams, but are not yet back playing for their country (although whether they would want to do such a thing is anyway highly debatable anyway).

Last summer, I talked to the national team’s English coach, Peter Taylor, and while he denied that the ban extended to playing for Bahrain, he did admit that the club ban made it practically impossible to select them.

“The clubs suspended them, so until they are playing again, they can’t get in the squad as I need to see them play,” he said.

In an ESPN documentary about the arrested athletes that was broadcast in November, Taylor said that he had never heard of the players that were imprisoned. …more

U.S. concerned about Bahrain activist, urges probe
7 January, 2012 – Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States called on its ally Bahrain on Saturday to investigate the case of a prominent Bahraini human rights activist who the opposition says was beaten by security forces.

Opposition activists said several security officers threw Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, to the ground and beat him on the head, neck and back after a protest march on Friday.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry has denied those accounts, saying on its Twitter feed that police found Rajab “lying on the ground” and took him to the hospital for treatment.

The Sunni-led island kingdom, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, last year sought to crush anti-government demonstrations mounted by the country’s Shi’ite Muslim majority. Protest marches have continued in recent months, sometimes turning violent.

Officials from the U.S. embassy in Manama met for about an hour on Saturday with Rajab, who had a cut beneath one eye and bruising on his face, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“The United States is deeply concerned by continuing incidents of violence in Bahrain between police and demonstrators,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a written statement.

“While the facts surrounding the violence that transpired remain in dispute, we strongly urge the Government of Bahrain to undertake a full investigation (of Rajab’s case) to determine if excessive force was employed by police,” she added.

Nuland said embassy officials had raise Rajab’s case with senior Bahraini officials and urged the government to carry out recommendations made by an independent commission that found Bahrain used excessive force in last year’s crackdown. …more

Bahrain: Calls for UN inquiry as regime intensifies human rights abuses
06 January, 2012 – Bahrain Freedom Movement

As the repression continues so does the people’s unrelenting revolution. As more martyrs were killed, thousands others have joined the caravan of dignity and freedom. The latest martyr is Mrs Fakhriyya Al Sakran, 55, who had been gassed heavily causing her to lose her life on Tuesday 2nd January 2012.

The excessiv use of chemical gases has led to at least twelve fatalities in the past four months. Many more have become incapacitated as result. This is in addition to thousands injured and at least sixty people who have lost one or two eyes. The Al Khalifa hereditary dictatorship is becoming more vicious as it is cornered by the revolutionaries. It is a regime on the verge of collapse and it seeks to exact revenge on those who have defeated it. The regime’s own investigation commission had found it guilty of systematic torture and extra judicial killings. When it appointed another committee to oversee the “implementation” of the recommendations of the investigation commission, some people, mainly foreign regimes friendly to the Al Khalifa, thought they would see a new chapter of relative justice. But their hopes were dashed this week when the chairman of the supervisory committee submitted his resignation.

Ali Saleh Al Saleh, a life-long servant of the regime realized that he was being used as a scapegoat by the regime, that he would not be allowed a free hand in the implementation, and that he would yet be required to issue false statements to whitewash the senior members of the Al Khalifa. His resignation that he handed to the dictator has ended the Bissiouni bitter legacy; both in terms of the findings of his commission and the implementation of its recommendations. This has now paved the way for a more objective and comprehensive international investigation into the crimes committed by the Al Khalifa against the Bahrainis.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has been urged to take a pro-active stand and send a team of investigators. Last month she had sent a team to undertake an “assessment” in the hope that the implementation of the recommendations would go some distance to address the grievances of the people. Now that the situation has become worse in terms of killings, torture, arbitrary detention and refusal to adopt any of the recommendations, the time has come for a more serious approach to this protracted crisis in a country that has been under occupation for more than nine months. Failure to do so is tantamount to abandonment of human duty which is also a crime against humanity. …more

As Iran Rattles Its Saber, Should the U.S. Still Ally Itself with Saudi Arabia?
By Ishaan Tharoor – 3 January 3, 2012 – Global Spin

The White House’s Dec. 29 announcement of a $30 billion sale of 84 F-15SA fighter jets to Saudi Arabia came with a lot of subtext. The deal, part of an earlier $60 billion arms agreement between Washington and Riyadh, is slated to pan out over the course of a decade, bolstering the Kingdom’s defense forces and creating some 50,000 American jobs at home. It followed a day after regional bogeyman — and longtime Saudi foe — Iran rattled a blunt saber, threatening to close off the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic passage that sees much of the world’s oil exports flow past. On Jan 2., the Iranians raised temperatures further after successfully testing a naval cruise missile during a ten-day exercise in the Strait; the next day, officials in Tehran warned the U.S. to keep an aircraft carrier away from the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia’s enmity and rivalry with Iran is well documented and, in many respects, shapes much of the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape. But the question begs: following a year of uprisings for democracy worldwide, should the U.S. still be so much in bed with the repressive Saudi monarchy?

D.C. hawks answer “of course!” The oil-rich Saudis have long served as moneyed, America-friendly interlocutors in the Middle East, supposed fellow combatants in the war against terror and a bulwark against the Shi’a theocracy in Iran. The cloistered Saudi monarchs are known entities in Washington and the tacit consensus forged between the two sides dictated much of the political status quo in the region until the seismic upheavals of the Arab Spring.

Iran’s behavior, meanwhile, may prove increasingly erratic. Tehran’s isolation has deepened following new rounds of sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear program. A looming power struggle within the regime — most recently, authorities arrested the daughter of reform-friendly former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani for “making propaganda” against the state — may lead to more public displays of chest-thumping bravado such as the recent missile tests. A stronger Saudi Arabia, then, hedges against whatever threat the Islamic Republic may pose. Andrew Shapiro, the U.S. State Department’s assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, said the arms deal “will send a strong message to countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in the gulf and broader Middle East.”

But that commitment to “stability” comes, in effect, with a moral price. The Saudis played a conspicuous role during the democracy uprisings in the Arab world last year: they offered safe haven to ousted Tunisian autocrat Zine el Abidine Ben Ali; attempted to exert pressure on the U.S. and other actors to protect Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, who eventually was forced out; and spearheaded a military intervention into restive Bahrain, helping quash widespread protests against the ruling Sunni monarchy there. The country’s draconian religious laws are among the world’s most stifling and its rulers have occasionally curious ideas about human rights. And, in some respects, Saudi Arabia is part of the strategic dilemma — not solution — facing policy planners in Washington. After all, private Saudi donations and funds from other pliant Gulf states are at the heart of the fundamentalist radicalization seen in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
…more

Despite government’s promises, journalists continue to be harassed and attacked
7 January 2012. – Reporter without Borders

Reporters Without Borders deplores the way the Bahraini security forces continue to intimidate and attack journalists despite the undertakings that the government gave after an independent commission of enquiry released its report on the crackdown on anti-government protests during the first half of 2011.

The international community must not be taken in by the duplicity with which the government expresses a desire to punish those responsible for the abuses while continuing to crack down on dissent.

In one of the latest incidents, DPA photographer Mazen Mahdi was beaten by police in front of the police station in Samaheej, northeast of Manama, on 3 January, despite wearing a vest with the word “Press” on it.

He had gone to cover a protest by a crowd that had gathered outside the police station in response to a youth’s arrest, and was taking photos when the police charged the protesters at around 12:30 pm. Two of the policemen challenged him, although he was clearly identifiable as a journalist, and the officers he was arguing with failed to intervene when he was hit violently on the head. After being taken inside the police station, he was released 20 minutes later, but the police refused to register his complaint, he told Reporters Without Borders.

It was the fourth time Mahdi had been attacked or harassed by the police in the space of three weeks. …more

“The Timoney” makes US a direct partner in al Khalifa regime Human Rights Abuse
07 January, 2012 – Phlipn Pagee – Crooked Bough

Running headlong into disaster, the former police chief of Philadelphia and Miami, John Timoney, has arrived at Bahrain’s Interior Ministry to “advise” the Bahrainis on more effective use of concussion grenades, pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets and baton charges and how to masquerade Human Rights abuse as policing strategies. While the opposition looked to Washington for a constructive intervention, Secretary Clinton delivered ‘The Timoney’.

“The Timoney’s” militarized crowd control methods made him a fascist legend in his own mind and apparently that of the al Khalifas, who have “choosen” him from Seceratray Clinton’s “short list” of one. He brings with him a record of miserable failure in the pubic relations with disaster, after disaster and a trail of blood and brutality. He is sure to be in good company with the al Khalifas. Perhaps this time he is deployed far enough away from home to kept the ugly shit out of the US press.

Bahrain’s keystone cops will now be aided by a Bahrain’s military unit, recently trained in the US on the latest tips and tricks of ‘crowd control’, during a police training exercise called “Urban Shield 2011”. The Israeli Border Police thugs were there along with the Human Rights Champions from the US Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, who recently brutalized the US Occupy Oakland protesters.

This strategy apparently hatched through collaboration between the State Department and the al Khalifas, has put a direct ‘command and control’ apparatus in Secretary Clinton’s hands. It’s the “riot control” equivalent of flying a drone and “killing terrorists” en-remote. All quite sanitary, augmented with a cadre of Public relation experts to manage Obama’s reelection image and do damage control. If it goes bad, Clinton can blame “the contractors” and stay clear of the real ugly shit, while she spins success as necessary, to boost the US economy and create jobs at home, through weapons and security service sales, to another “vertically integrated US trading partner” called “friends”.

It’s way past time to hold President Obama accountable for killing and brutalizing innocents en-remote control. This “ain’t no video game” Mr. President, your in a serious need of a reality check – layoff the “joy stick” because it isn’t one.

Miami crowd control would do tyrant proud
30 November 30, 2003 – By ROBYN E. BLUMNER – St. Petersburg Times

Miami police Chief John Timoney must be mighty proud of the social order he maintained during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit a couple of weeks ago in Miami – sort of the way Saddam Hussein was proud of quieting dissension in his country.

Timoney has a well-deserved reputation for using paramilitary tactics to turn any city where large protests are planned into a place where the Constitution has taken a holiday. During the FTAA meeting on Nov. 20, Timoney dispatched 2,500 police officers in full riot gear against a crowd estimated at 8,000 people, mostly union members and retirees.

The result was a show of force that would have made a Latin American dictator blush.

Slavish public officials such as Miami Mayor Manny Diaz touted Timoney’s handiwork as “a model for homeland defense,” and the Miami Police Department has responded to complaints by saying that officers demonstrated “a tremendous amount of restraint.”

But this is hardly the way eyewitnesses described it. The scene was a “massive police state,” according to the president of the United Steelworkers of America, who has demanded a congressional investigation. Congress gave Miami $8.5-million for security during the FTAA meetings – funds slipped inside the $87-billion measure for Iraq. The steelworkers called it money for “homeland repression.”

The National Lawyers Guild, a liberal legal organization, said the day was punctuated by “indiscriminate, excessive force against hundreds of nonviolent protesters with weapons including pepper spray, tear gas, and concussion grenades and rubber bullets.”

Observers said the provocation for officers to shoot rubber bullets and paint balls filled with pepper spray at the predominantly peaceable crowd was often one person lobbing an orange in the direction of police or lighting a trash can on fire.

Nikki Hartman, a 28-year-old Pinellas County resident, was shot three times with rubber bullets – once, she said, when a police officer fired point-blank at her behind after she stooped to pick up a bandanna she’d dropped. The officer had kicked it her way before shooting her. She was later shot in the back while retreating from police lines. Her friend Robert Davis was shot seven times while trying to help Hartman to her feet.

In addition to such shootings, police abandoned any legitimate basis for searching and arresting people. Miles Swanson, 25, a legal observer for the lawyers guild, was punched numerous times while being taken in by officers for pointing out undercover police dressed up as protesters. Eight of 60 guild observers were arrested that day; they wore distinctive green hats and were apparently targeted. When Swanson was grabbed off the street by three Broward County sheriff’s deputies – two of whom were in ski masks – he said they told him “this is what you get when you f– with us.” Then, Swanson said, the deputies drove him around while looking for another legal observer to arrest. He ultimately pleaded no contest to one charge of obstructing justice so he could return to law school in Washington, D.C. …more