Urgent: Abdulhadi Alkhawaja collapsed last night in prison, and was taken to the hospital where he was given IV treatment without his consent. His lawyer, Mohammed AlJishi, said after meeting him this morning that Alkhawaja had serious signs of fatigue and had difficulty moving and walking. Both his family and colleagues are very concerned about his life and health. Alkhawaja’s daughter, Zainab, continues to be detained and his detained younger brother, Salah Alkhawaja (sentenced to five years), has joined the hunger strike.

read much more HERE

Occupied Bahrain One Year After the Uprising
by Medea Benjamin – Pink Tank – 15 February, 2012 – Voices for Creative nonViolence

There would have been thousands of people today trying to make their way to the forbidden Pearl Roundabout, marking the first anniversary of the uprising. Thousands had tried, unsuccessfully, to get there the day before. They were turned by overwhelming doses of tear gas, birdshot, rubber bullets and concussion grenades.

From early morning on February 14, it was clear that the government had called out all its forces to stop any protests. It was like a state of siege. The police had set up roadblocks and checkpoints everywhere, stopping people from getting near downtown. There were spanking new, armored tanks set up at every major intersection. Police cars were rolling up and down the streets, constantly on the lookout.

In the morning, a group of human rights activists, including a few of us international observers who had managed to slip by the immigration officials to get into the country, were on our way to visit a newly released prisoner. Our vehicles were stopped just three blocks from the house where we were meeting. We were detained for a 30-minutes while our papers were checked.

Then we moved on to visit Hasan Salman, a 28-year-old, extremely gaunt man with a long beard (I was told he shaved it off that evening). Hasan had just been released after three years in prison where he was constantly tortured. He was an articulate, amazingly brave man who, while celebrating his release, was also fearful that he could be picked up again for just talking to us. He had been accused of revealing the names of hundreds of human rights violators in Bahrain. He is the Bradley Manning of Bahrain. We were deeply moved by his conviction and will post the interview soon.

In the afternoon we attempted to make our way to Pearl Roundabout. There was a huge traffic jam because the police had put up roadblocks, and so many people were trying to get downtown. Today there was no permitted march like yesterday. People were simply planning to get as close to the Roundabout as they could. On the highway leading to the center of town, the streets were reverberating with the sounds of Down, Down, Hamad, Down Down, Hamad. Hamad is the King, and it’s illegal to speak against the King, the Prime Minister or the royal family. Some of the cars were just honking their horns to the beat of Down, Down, Hamad. It was a traffic insurrection, an uprising on the highway.

The police didn’t know what to do. One young man in the lane next to us stuck his head out the roof of his car, yelling Down, down, Hamad. The police started running after his car, firing tear gas, as if he were some hardened criminal.

In the car in front of us was the amazing human rights activist/organizer Nabeel Rajab. We saw him and some of his colleague get out of their car and start walking. We were still far away from the roundabout, but we jumped out of our cars to join the group. I put on my sign saying “Observer” and grabbed my gas mask. We, the observers, were declared illegal by the government, who wanted to keep all observers and most journalists out of the country so they wouldn’t see the demonstrations.

We hadn’t walked for more than a few minutes when the police ran towards us. BOOM, BOOM. They started shooting tear gas canisters—not in the air to disperse us, but RIGHT AT US, like bullets. Most of us started running. I ran with Tighe and Billy (two of the other US observers) and others right into the highway, sprinting as fast as we could and hiding behind the cars. BOOM, BOOM. Two of the canisters feel right next to me. People in the cars, perfect strangers, starting opening their car doors and pulling all of us inside. “Get in, get in,” they shouted.

Nabeel did not run. He had stood still, in the middle of the highway, with amazing calm and dignity. His is so famous, and so feared by the regime, that the police didn’t dare shoot at him. Right there, in the middle of the highway, hundreds of people got out of their cars to take photos with him and show support. After about 15 minutes, the police grabbed Nabeel and threw him into the police car. …more

Over 120 hurt in Bahrain clashes, dialogue sought
By Andrew Hammond – MANAMA 15 February, 20120 – Reuters

MANAMA (Reuters) – More than 120 protesters have been wounded in clashes with police in Bahrain this week, activists said on Wednesday, in a crackdown to stop majority Shi’ites breaking out of their neighborhoods to stage protests one year after an uprising.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern about the clashes, while a senior opposition figure said the government had put out feelers on talks to resolve the crisis in the Gulf Arab state.

Police conducted operations into the night in the flashpoint town of Sitra, seizing 15 teenagers in a raid on one building after a police vehicle was damaged by a petrol bomb earlier, residents said.

The streets were deserted with residents staying indoors as dozens of jeeps sped through the streets in apparent search operations. A policeman inside one vehicle fired a tear gas canister over some buildings before hurtling round a corner.

Opposition activists reported similar operations in numerous other Shi’ite areas of the island including Budaiya as well as Musalla and Sanabis which are on the edge of the capital.

Riot police also used armored personnel carriers that have not been seen on Bahrain’s streets since martial law last year. …more

Nicaragua: Washington threatens reprisals as poor make gains
12 February, 2012 – By Felipe Stuart Cournoyer & John Riddell – The GreenLeft

In a fit of petulant anger, the US government lashed out on January 25 against the outcome of Nicaragua’s recent presidential election. The leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front’s (FSLN) Daniel Ortega was easily re-elected president and the FSLN won a majority in the National Assembly.

John Riddell spoke to FSLN member Felipe Stuart Cournoyer, who gave his personal take on the situation. The interview is abridged from JohnRiddel.wordpress.com.

* * *

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that Nicaragua’s November 6 election “marked a setback to democracy in Nicaragua and undermined the ability of Nicaraguans to hold their government accountable”, but offered no particulars. What has roused Washington’s ire?

It’s quite simple. Daniel Ortega won with 62.66% of the vote, more than twice the total of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) candidate favoured by the US embassy.

Washington is not pleased when small, poor countries defy its will.

But Clinton says US concern is based on a report by Organization of American States (OAS) observers.

The OAS report notes that the official results were similar to the readings of pre-election polls, and to their own exit polls on election day.

OAS and European Union observer missions noted some irregularities and technical difficulties, but did not consider that they called into question the FSLN victory.

The main complaint of right-wing opposition parties was that Ortega should not have been permitted to run for re-election. The voters certainly gave a clear verdict on that one.

Clinton says the US will respond by a “review of our assistance” and “aggressive scrutiny” of loans by international bodies to Nicaragua. That sounds like sanctions. What’s this about? Have aid projects gone wrong?

On the contrary, aid projects under Ortega’s presidency have been enormously successful. Illiteracy was 30% when the FSLN was elected in 2006. Thanks to a literacy campaign carried out with help from Cuba and Venezuela, the United Nations has now declared Nicaragua to be free of illiteracy.

The recent projects assisted by Venezuela and other Bolivarian Alliance for the People’s of Our America (ALBA) countries have had an immense effect. Also there have been useful World Bank projects, and the Bank says it is “optimistic” about Nicaragua’s performance.

The Nicaraguan economy has expanded well in recent years, particularly in the countryside. Despite the world recession, exports have doubled since 2006, and the rate of foreign direct investment has increased by about two-thirds.

Among the biggest projects include projects to double electrical generating capacity, along with ongoing projects to bring electricity to tens of thousands of rural families.

Economic expansion in 2010 and 2011 was the highest in Central America. …more

…see the protests of the last couple of days in this Photo Essay HERE

AFL-CIO Backs Bahrain Democracy Movement
15 February, 2012 – AFL-CIO

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center sends us this report.

One year ago today, a peaceful demonstration massed in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, with tens of thousands of men, women and children joining the call for greater social justice in their country. By exercising their rights to free speech and free assembly, the brave protesters provided their government with the chance to address issues of equality and democracy.

Instead, they were met with harsh retaliation. Working people were fired from their jobs, detained or even imprisoned. The independent unions and associations representing workers were and still are under attack. Health care workers were punished for helping those injured during the government crackdown.

The AFL-CIO today marks this sad anniversary by standing in solidarity with Bahraini workers and the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions (GFBTU). Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a letter to the GFBTU:

The hopes of Bahrain’s majority for a more inclusive and democratic Bahrain expressed in those demonstrations unfortunately were met early on with brutal repression, turning what could have been an opportunity for national unity into a painful and dangerous rupture between the government and its people.

Throughout the year, the AFL-CIO has stood in solidarity with the GFBTU in its struggle to protect labor and human rights—and Trumka told the GFBTU the AFL-CIO will continue to do so as Bahraini workers brave ongoing threats to their dignity, economic stability and humanity. …source

Oireachtas committee meets over human rights abuse in Bahrain
15 February, 2012 – theJournal.ie

THE DIRECTOR of the Dublin-based human rights group Front Line Defenders is to address an Oireachtas committee today on the ongoing unrest in Bahrain.

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the pro-reform uprisings.

The Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade chairman Pat Breen said that Front Line director Mary Lawlor would inform the committee of the group’s priorities and the challenges it faces.

The organisation works to protect the defenders of human rights, and has been highlighting the detention and abuse of medical staff and democracy activists in Bahrain.

A number of Irish-trained medics are among those who have been jailed in Bahrain on charges of inciting hatred against Bahrain’s rulers and of stockpiling weapons at medical facilities.

The registrar of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Prof Cathal Kelly will also address the committee tomorrow and is expected to discuss the situation regarding the Irish-trained medics.

Mary Lawlor is expected to give the Oireachtas committee an overview of the group’s operations and to recommend that the OSCE – of which Ireland is currently the chair – should appoint a special representative on human rights defenders.

She is also expected to call on the Irish government to prioritise Abdulhadi Al Khawaja’s case in Bahrain.

Having previously worked with Front Line and Amnesty, Al Khawaja is one of the dozens of activists arrested during the pro-democracy protests last year. He is currently serving a life sentence for organising a terrorist organisation and liaising with a terrorist group working for a foreign country.

Front Line has criticised his trial as being “grossly unfair” and has raised concerns about the conditions of his detention.

The Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade meeting is due to begin at 2.30pm in Committee Room 1. …source

Why Bahrain is not Syria
14 February, 2012 -nsnbc – By Pepe Escobar

How poignant that the first anniversary of a true Arab pro-democracy movement in the Persian Gulf – then ruthlessly crushed – falls on February 14, when Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the West. Talk about a doomed love affair.

And how does Washington honor this tragic love story? By resuming arms sales to the repressive Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty in power in Bahrain.

So just to recap; United States President Barack Obama told Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to “step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately” while King Hamad al-Khalifa gets new toys to crack down on his subversively pro-democratic subjects.

Is this a case of cognitive dissonance? Of course not; after all.

Syria is supported by Russia and China at the United Nations Security Council while Bahrain hosts the US’s Fifth Fleet – the defender of the “free world” against those evil Iranians who want to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.

A year ago, the overwhelming population of Bahrain – most of them poor, neglected Shi’ites treated as third-class citizens, but also educated Sunnis – hit the streets to demand the ruling al-Khalifas allow a minimum of democracy.

Just like Tunisia and Egypt – and unlike Libya and Syria – the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain was indigenous, legitimate, non-violent and uncontaminated by Western or Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) infiltration.

The response was a major crackdown plus a Saudi Arabian invasion over the causeway to Manama. That was the tacit result of a deal struck between the House of Saud and Washington; we give you an Arab resolution allowing you to go to the UN and then launch the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s humanitarian bombing on Libya, you leave us alone to smash this Arab Spring nonsense (see Exposed: the US-Saudi Libya deal Asia Times Online, April 2, 2011.)

The Obama administration took no time to preempt the “celebration” of Bahrain’s crushed democracy push by dispatching a State Department honcho to Bahrain.

As reported by the Gulf Daily News, the so-called “Voice of Bahrain” (more like the voice of the al-Khalifas), US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Jeffrey Feltman widely praised King Hamad’s steps to “diffuse tensions” – such as “the release of political prisoners, a partial cabinet reshuffle and the withdrawal of security forces”. …more

Revolutionary Socialists: The “Brave Kids” of Egypt
By: Bisan Kassab – 15 February, 2012 – Al-Akhbar

Egypt’s Revolutionary Socialists are far from the politically irresponsible group they are now made to be. They started their political activism in support of Egypt’s labor movement over two decades ago and adopted a radical but pragmatic course for change.

Cairo – Some activists used the term “brave kids” when describing the Revolutionary Socialists (RS) last December. Even though they had previously come under fierce criticism from leftists and liberals for working with Islamists, they were also facing a legal complaint by Gamal Taj, a lawyer and prominent member in the Muslim Brotherhood.

The complaint accused the RS of seeking to destroy the state. It cited a statement by RS member Sameh Naguib that the old state must collapse, as should the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), after its soldiers lose trust in their leadership.

But due to widespread condemnation of the Islamists on social networking sites and newspapers, they quickly withdrew the complaint. Brotherhood leaders, including their Supreme Guide Mohammad Badie, also issued a statement disowning Taj’s complaint. The Freedoms Committee in the Bar Association also criticized the Brotherhood for lodging the complaint.

The RS were the first to warn against the SCAF taking power on the very day Hosni Mubarak was ousted and when the Military Council was still viewed as the “protector of the revolution” for remaining neutral. Today their publications openly blame the ruling SCAF for much of the post-revolutionary violence and repression.

The RS are also known for their passionate defense of the working class, particularly when unions were accused of stubbornly refusing to back down on their demands for the sake of economic stability. …more

Starving for freedom: The hunger strike of Khader Adnan
Khader Adnan, currently on hunger strike in an Israeli prison, runs the risk of dying without international help.
14 February, 2012 – Al Jazeera

According to Amnesty International, as of December 31 last year, 307 Palestinians were in Israeli administrative detention, including 21 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council that was elected in January 2006 [EPA]

Amman, Jordan – By the time you read these words, Khader Adnan could be dead. After 58 full days on hunger strike, his body is already well past the stage where his vital organs may cease to function at any moment. But Khader Adnan is dying to live.

The 33-year-old Palestinian baker, husband, father, and graduate student has refused food since December 18, a day after he was arrested in a nighttime raid on his family home by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank. He has lost over 40 kgs and his wife Randa and young daughters have described his appearance as “shocking”.

Adnan, whom Israel says is a member of Islamic Jihad, was given a four month “administrative detention” order by the Israeli military – meaning that he is held without being charged for any crime or trial, a practice continued by Israel that dates back to British colonial days.

Yesterday an Israeli military court rejected Adnan’s appeal against the arbitrary detention. Having vowed to maintain his hunger strike until he is released or charged, the judge – an Israeli military officer – might as well have sentenced Khader Adnan to death, unless there is urgent international intervention.

Though the life in his body hangs on by a thread, his spirit is unbroken.
Hundreds of Palestinians join hunger strike

“The Israeli occupation has gone to extremes against our people, especially prisoners,” Adnan wrote in a letter published through his lawyer, “I have been humiliated, beaten, and harassed by interrogators for no reason, and thus I swore to God I would fight the policy of administrative detention to which I and hundreds of my fellow prisoners fell prey.”

According to Amnesty International, which has issued two urgent appeals on Adnan’s behalf, as of December 31 last year, 307 Palestinians were in Israeli administrative detention, including 21 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council that was elected in January 2006.

“I hereby assert that I am confronting the occupiers not for my own sake as an individual, but for the sake of thousands of prisoners who are being deprived of their simplest human rights while the world and international community look on,” Adnan wrote in his letter.

In addition to Amnesty, Human Rights Watch too has heard Adnan’s message, calling on Israel to release or charge him. …more

Activists and American Observers Detained as Bahrain Marks Protest Anniversary
By ROBERT MACKEY – February 14, 2012 – NYT

Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, center, surrounded by protesters and American observers.Mazen Mahdi/European Pressphoto AgencyNabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, center, surrounded by protesters and American observers.

Bahrain arrested three local human rights activists on Tuesday, along with six Americans who had traveled to the kingdom as part of a private monitoring mission, during a security crackdown on the first anniversary of the country’s protest movement.

As Reuters reports, the authorities detained Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, and the American observers who entered the country last week to work with Witness Bahrain, a project set up by international activists to monitor the policing of demonstrations in the country.

Bahrain’s state news agency reported that the six Americans were deported “for applying for tourist visas under false pretenses.” An immigration official told the agency, “People coming to visit Bahrain need to understand that lying on immigration documents is against the law.”

Two Bahraini activists, Naji Fateel and Hassan Jaber, were also detained with Mr. Rajab after the police fired tear gas at a small group of demonstrators who tried to march to the former site of Lulu Roundabout, or Pearl Square, the focal point of protests last February. (To deny opposition activists a rallying point, the authorities removed the traffic circle last March, and pulled down the pearl monument that had become a symbol of the protest movement.)

Nabeel Rajab, a rights activist, was detained at gunpoint in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, on Tuesday.Hamad I. Mohammed/ReutersNabeel Rajab, a rights activist, was detained at gunpoint in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, on Tuesday.

After Mr. Rajab was released several hours later, he updated his Twitter feed with just one word: “resistance.”

Video posted online by activists showed armored police vehicles patrolling the streets, in the capital and in Shiite villages where support for the protest movement is strong.

…more

Adding Fuel to Syria’s Fire
By Anya Barry, 13 February, 2012

russia-syria-assadDespite the widespread international denunciation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the government in Damascus continues to crack down hard on the country’s growing domestic opposition. “They are moving in a direction that completely shows that they are absolutely out of touch,” says Yasser Tabbara, the secretary general of the Syrian National Council (SNC), a government opposition group. Other countries in the region have experienced revolutions, but Syria remains in a state of uncertainty. At the UN, China and Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government’s actions, making a coordinated international response even more difficult.

Meanwhile, as the conflict rages on, Syria continues to receive shipments of military supplies—specifically from countries like Iran, Lebanon, and Russia. In January, Russia inked a lucrative deal with the Syrian government to sell approximately $500 million worth of military arms in the form of 36 Yak-130 aircraft combat jets. Russia’s actions have caused significant outcry from the international community. High-ranking officials such as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice as well as other Western diplomats have stated their strong disapproval of Russia’s move. Over the past 10 months, Syria’s escalating violence has resulted in the deaths of 5,400 civilians. Russia’s combat jets are specifically designed to shoot targets on the ground, which could lead to an increase in the civilian death toll.

Arms Embargo?

In response to the ongoing problems in Syria, the Moroccan delegation to the UN introduced a resolution calling for an arms embargo on Syria and for Assad’s resignation. Russia vetoed the resolution, claiming that it would precipitate regime change and a possible civil war. As Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov stated, “there is no clear line between arms contraband that some countries engage in to support extremist forces in Syria, and the legal military-technical ties with this country.” Russia has claimed that the violence occurring in Syria is the result of opposition groups rather than Assad’s security forces. One rebel group, the Free Syrian Army, has been trying to smuggle weapons across the border through Lebanon, but the amounts pale in comparison to what the Syrian security forces have been receiving from abroad.

According to Business Insider, Syria is one of Russia’s largest weapons consumers, purchasing around $4 billion total in military supplies. Additionally, Syria’s port of Tartus, where Russia recently sent an aircraft carrier, serves as Russia’s sole naval base in the region. Russia has also invested around $19.4 billion in Syria’s infrastructure and exports about $1.1 billion in goods to the nation. If Assad were to resign, Russian business interests could be seriously put at risk. An additional motive for Russia’s staunch support for the Assad regime is the concern that if Syria’s government were to crumble, it could have a domino effect in the nearby Russian North Caucasus region. …more

Loss in the Time of Revolution
11 February, 2012 – by Flo – Witness Bahrain

Witness Bahrain team members spent the evening visiting families of those who have lost loved ones in the revolution. Story after story of young boys seemed ripped apart limb from limb, killed by tear gas canisters to various parts of the body, beaten to death to the point of internal bleeding without any visible bruises. And of course, each story came complete with slideshows of the boys living and photos of them lying cold, dead and bloodied on the mortician’s slab.

All of the dead detailed below are from Sitra, a collection of 6 villages on one of Bahrain’s outlying islands. The first time Witness Bahrain visited Sitra we were told it is the capital of the revolution because of the resilience of the people there and because of the strength of their ongoing and nightly demonstrations against the regime.

Meeting with families and loved ones of those killed is always a moving and affecting experience. Witnessing the loss of anyone’s loved ones is always difficult, whether it is amidst revolution or not. Combine that with stories of youth shot down before their time and graphic post mortem images of those same youth sewn back together after being dragged under vehicles or lying in pools of their own blood in the street and the experience becomes another thing all together.

Part of the resilience of those in struggle that I have encountered in more then one time and place is that these losses do not leave the people destroyed. People have an understanding that these losses are the unfortunate price that needs to be paid when fighting for justice – especially, as is usually the case, when fighting against violent regimes bent on doing nothing but protecting their own interests.

These are the stories we heard:

Ali Jawad Ahmad al-Shaikh was 14 years old when he was killed on August 31, 2011, by a tear gas canister to the head. Ali was a part of a demonstration in his village at the time of his death. In a video shown by his family, you can see Ali fleeing as police pursue him through the streets of the village. Moments later, shots are heard and the next video shows Ali lying face down in a pool of blood pouring out of his head. As Ali’s friends attempt to approach, police again fire tear gas surrounding his lifeless body in a cloud of gas, making it impossible for Ali’s friends to retrieve his body. …more

Bahrain: First anniversary of popular uprisings
14 February 2012 – fidh

While thousands of Bahraini people are expected to meet on 14 February 2012 to mark the first anniversary of the start of pro-democracy protests, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is publishing a position paper on the situation of human rights since the release of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report on 23 November 2011 [1]. On the basis of the information received from reliable sources [2], FIDH points out that key recommendations in the BICI report have not been effectively implemented, and human rights violations recorded in the said report continue unabated.

This report strongly questions the commitment of the King of Bahrain, who declared at the occasion of the release of the BICI report “we are determined, (…), to ensure that the painful events our beloved nation has just experienced are not repeated, but that we learn from them, and use our new insights as a catalyst for positive change.” This statement was reassuring as the BICI had documented 45 killings, 1,500 cases of arbitrary arrest, and 1,866 cases of torture.

Since that date, the Government of Bahrain (GoB) has made other comforting declarations and has set up several follow-up and implementation mechanisms, among them, a national Commission which is mandated to review the laws and procedures adopted in the wake of the February and March 2011 events. This Commission is also mandated to make recommendations to the legislative body to amend existing laws and to adopt new legislation. Among the 18 commissioners, mostly members of the Shura council, are occupying governmental position. Only one, Mr. Abdulla Al-Derazi, former president of BHRS, is a civil society activist, undermining the recommendation No. 1715 [3]. The Commission should complete its mandate before the end of February 2012.

However, these pledges and initiatives have yet to be translated into concrete actions. Indeed, large-scale human rights violations continue to be committed on a regular basis as protests are still ongoing. Use of excessive force against peaceful protesters, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, ongoing judicial harassment, impunity, obstacles to independent monitoring, etc., as documented in the FIDH position paper, continue to be recorded. …more

‘Bahrainis must revolt against Al Khalifa regime to get freedom
15 February, 2012 – PressTV

Video HERE (if you can get past the network interference)

Bahraini anti-regime protesters have kept the popular uprising against the Al Khalifa dynasty alive for a whole year, despite continued crackdown by the regime that is supported by the US and Saudi Arabia.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Colin Cavell, a former Assistant Professor at the University of Bahrain, from Austin, to further discuss the issue.

The video offers the opinions of two additional guests: Jamal Wakim who is the professor at the Lebanese International University and Jafar al-Hasabi, a Bahraini political activist from London

Press TV: Mr. Cavell, would you say that despite the fact that we know that these demonstrations have been taking place for a whole year now, that they’ve been continuing, that however, the regime has been successful in stopping these protests from moving any more, rather from forcing it to undergo changes.

Would you say that the protesters do have the upper hand or is it the regime that has the upper hand?

Cavell: The regime has not stopped the protests; they have not stopped the will of the people!

The people are very united; they have lost their fear of the regime!

And as I’ve said many times before, directly to the US State Department, they need to realize that the situation is not going to go away.

The State Department thinks that this will be like the 90s, and that things will quiet down eventually.

No, the people have had enough of a 228-year monarchy and autocratic dictatorship and they want change.

But I leave that to the Bahraini people to decide.

My purpose here is to tell the US government, we need to live up to democratic values. We need to quit supporting monarchical dictatorship, and we need to quit ignoring democratic activists in the streets.

Especially, when they have a vast majority of the population of Bahrain!

Press TV: Mr. Cavell, that brings to the question of how much control the Bahraini rulers have in this situation. Would you agree with this interpretation or this analysis that the Bahraini rulers are listening to each and every order that’s coming from Riyadh and they themselves are in a very weak position?

Cavell: Well, first of all, the Al Khalifas have no desire to enact reforms. Yes they are a satrap or an appendage of Saudi Arabia.

But to add to professor Wakin’s analysis, it’s also the US that is keeping the Saudi monarch in power, as well as the Bahraini monarch in power.

And this goes back to a deal made between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abdul Aziz back in 1945, in the Great Bitter Lake in Egypt, where they said, we will support this one family in Saudi Arabia, and we’ll have cheap access, easy access to oil in the region.

And we have utilized that model ever since, supporting the Saudi monarch, supporting the Al Khalifas in Bahrain, supporting the other five members of the [P]GCC monarchs.

We have to quit supporting despotic tyrants. We should live up to our democratic values instead of just kowtowing to these monarchs, because it’s betraying who we are as democratic republic.
[Read more →]

Bahraini Activists Detained, Deported on One-Year Anniversary of Protests
14 February, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

Freedom House is appalled by the Bahraini government’s relentless repression of activists before and on the one-year anniversary of the “Pearl Roundabout.” Three human rights activists were detained on February 14 – Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Naji Fateel and Hassan Jaber. On February 12, human rights activist Zainab Alkhawaja, who has documented the protest movement on Twitter using screen name “Angry Arabiya,” was arrested. Zainab’s father, prominent activist and founder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, was sentenced to life in prison and recently began a hunger strike. In addition, two activists working with Witness Bahrain – Radhika Sainath and Huwaida Arraf – were deported this past weekend after entering the country in anticipation of the February 14 protests. The Bahraini government continues to crack down on ordinary Bahraini citizens and has failed to implement comprehensive political reform. In recent weeks, Bahrain has prevented journalists and human rights organizations, including Freedom House, from entering the country.

Bahraini citizens have been broadly engaged in protests since February 2011, to call for a more representative government and to denounce ethnic-based inequities in a country run by the Sunni Al-Khalifa royal family, where the majority of citizens are Shiite. Despite promises of reform, Bahraini authorities have continued to use torture against detainees, block access to medical services, and raid the homes of suspected protesters. Bahraini rights groups have reported ongoing arrests, intimidation, and in some cases torture of those speaking out against despotic rule. …source

Libya Struggles to Curb Militias as Chaos Grows
By ANTHONY SHADID – 8 February, 2012 – NYT

TRIPOLI, Libya — As the militiamen saw it, they had the best of intentions. They assaulted another militia at a seaside base here this week to rescue a woman who had been abducted. When the guns fell silent, briefly, the scene that unfolded felt as chaotic as Libya’s revolution these days — a government whose authority extends no further than its offices, militias whose swagger comes from guns far too plentiful and residents whose patience fades with every volley of gunfire that cracks at night.

The woman was soon freed. The base was theirs. And the plunder began.

“Nothing gets taken out!” shouted one of the militiamen, trying to enforce order.

It did anyway: a box of grenades, rusted heavy machine guns, ammunition belts, grenade launchers, crates of bottled water and an aquarium propped improbably on a moped. Men from a half-dozen militias ferried out the goods, occasionally firing into the air. They fought over looted cars, then shot them up when they did not get their way.

“This is destruction!” complained Nouri Ftais, a 51-year-old commander, who offered a rare, unheeded voice of reason. “We’re destroying Libya with our bare hands.”

The country that witnessed the Arab world’s most sweeping revolution is foundering. So is its capital, where a semblance of normality has returned after the chaotic days of the fall of Tripoli last August. But no one would consider a city ordinary where militiamen tortured to death an urbane former diplomat two weeks ago, where hundreds of refugees deemed loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi waited hopelessly in a camp and where a government official acknowledged that “freedom is a problem.” Much about the scene on Wednesday was lamentable, perhaps because the discord was so commonplace.

“Some of it is really overwhelming,” said Ashur Shamis, an adviser to Libya’s interim prime minister, Abdel-Rahim el-Keeb. “But somehow we have this crazy notion that we can defeat it.”

There remains optimism in Tripoli, not least because the country sits atop so much oil. But Mr. Keeb’s government, formed Nov. 28, has found itself virtually paralyzed by rivalries that have forced it to divvy up power along lines of regions and personalities, by unfulfillable expectations that Colonel Qaddafi’s fall would bring prosperity, and by a powerlessness so marked that the national army is treated as if it were another militia.

The government could do little as local grievances gave rise last month to clashes in Bani Walid, once a Qaddafi stronghold, and between towns in the Nafusah Mountains, where rival fighters, each claiming to represent the revolution, slugged it out with guns, grenades and artillery.

“It’s a government for a crisis,” Mr. Shamis said, in an office outfitted in the sharp angles of glass and chrome. “It’s a crisis government. It is impossible to deliver everything.”

Graffiti in Tripoli still plays on Colonel Qaddafi’s most memorable speech last year, when he vowed to fight house to house, alley to alley. “Who are you?” he taunted, seeming to offer his best impression of Tony Montana in “Scarface.”

“Who am I?” the words written over his cartoonish portrait answered back.

Across from Mr. Shamis’s office a new slogan has appeared. …more

Honduras: While Corruption and Repression Mushroom, Justice Rots on the Vine
By Mark Engler – 15 February, 2012 – FPIF

Honduras has become a human rights disaster. The country now has the world’s highest murder rate. And impunity for political violence is the norm.

For all this, the United States deserves a good deal of the blame.

I was pleased to see the New York Times recently publish a hard-hitting op-ed by Dana Frank that makes this case. Lest anyone in this country think that things in Honduras have settled into a peaceable, post-coup normality, Frank describes the post-June 2009

chain of events—a coup that the United States didn’t stop, a fraudulent election that it accepted—[that] has now allowed corruption to mushroom. The judicial system hardly functions. Impunity reigns. At least 34 members of the opposition have disappeared or been killed, and more than 300 people have been killed by state security forces since the coup, according to the leading human rights organization Cofadeh. At least 13 journalists have been killed since [President Porfirio] Lobo took office, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The police in Tegucigalpa, the capital, are believed to have killed the son of Julieta Castellanos, the rector of the country’s biggest university, along with a friend of his, on Oct. 22, 2011. Top police officials quickly admitted their suspects were police officers, but failed to immediately detain them. When prominent figures came forward to charge that the police are riddled with death squads and drug traffickers, the most famous accuser was a former police commissioner, Alfredo Landaverde. He was assassinated on Dec. 7. Only now has the government begun to make significant arrests of police officers.

State-sponsored repression continues. According to Cofadeh, at least 43 campesino activists participating in land struggles in the Aguán Valley have been killed in the past two and a half years at the hands of the police, the military and the private security army of Miguel Facussé. Mr. Facussé is mentioned in United States Embassy cables made public by WikiLeaks as the richest man in the country, a big supporter of the post-coup regime and owner of land used to transfer cocaine.

This past Tuesday, a comical response to Frank’s piece appeared at Foreign Policy, written by former Bush administration official José Cárdenas. It was humorous in that it included an understated disclaimer at the end. Cárdenas wrote, “Full disclosure: In July 2009, I helped to advise a Honduran business delegation that came to Washington during their presidential crisis to defend Manuel Zelaya’s removal from power.”

Not surprisingly, given his qualifications, Cárdenas frames Honduras’s current problems as solely the product of drug trafficking, and he encourages the United States to recognize that “Honduras’s war on drugs is ours too.” …more

Can the informal leader of Bahrain’s revolution keep the movement going despite a government that cracks down with impunity and an indifferent world?

The Agony of Nabeel Rajab
By Karen Leigh – 12 February, 2012 – The Atlantic

Nabeel Rajab, the man who comes as close as any to leading Bahrain’s revolution, was in a Manama coffee shop last March, holding his drink and casting an amused eye out the window at what appeared to be government-issued security cars lined up at the curb.

“I’m not hiding,” he said.

At the time, Rajab, the gregarious, grey-haired president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was one of a trio of prominent activists — including University of Bahrain professor Dr. Abdul-Jalil al-Singace and the BCHR’s founder, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja — who had become the most revered figures of the then weeks-old revolution.

Now, almost a year later, his two contemporaries have each received lifelong prison sentences, leaving Rajab — a 47-year-old building contractor by trade — the de-facto leader of Bahrain’s resurgent uprising.

He’s kept safe by making himself a celebrity among the Arab Spring’s activists, journalists, experts, and rights workers, too well-known for the regime to arrest or worse, as it has with so many others.

“Already I have seen violence from people, which worries me.”

Many, including Rajab himself, correlate his freedom to a strong personal relationship with those international figures, many of whom were in Manama for the first months of the island kingdom’s Shi’a revolt.

In the last year, he’s attended conferences across the Arab world and has traveled to Washington, D.C., to publicize the ongoing violence against what he says are peaceful protests against the monarchy, which is made up of the country’s Sunni minority.

“He has deftly used his high media profile and connections with Western diplomats to stay out of prison,” says Barak Barfi, a New America Foundation fellow who was on the ground in Manama last March. “Nevertheless, his plight has been much better than that of other regime critics such as Singace, who, lacking Rajab’s high-level ties, find themselves imprisoned for long periods of time.”

But Rajab hasn’t had an easy time, and Bahrain revolution is struggling.

At a rally outside the King’s palace in Riffa last March, he stood on a dirt field, providing information and reassurance to protesters and journalists. In buoyant spirits, he marveled at the size of the crowd. At the same rally, fellow activist al-Singace, briefly freed from prison in a government show of goodwill, parted the crowd in his wheelchair, flowers thrown at his feet.

Rajab is the only highly visible Bahraini activist still able to attend those marches, which though largely ignored by international media, have happened most Fridays for the last year, a testament to the stubborn will of the country’s activist corps.

Rajab says there is “violence every night” inflicted by security forces on the streets of Bahrain’s poorer Shi’a neighborhoods. His claim is backed up by a constant stream of information coming from cyber activists based on those very streets.

The devastation, they say, comes largely from the tear gas grenades that are often shot into houses or overhead into a crowd, as they were that day on the field in Riffa.

“It’s like shooting a cannon at someone,” Rajab says. “They’re supposed to be rolled on the ground. What they’re doing on these crowded, small streets is throwing tear gas into people’s homes. It’s especially complicated if you have asthma or chronic disease.”

In the last year, two physical attacks on Rajab, allegedly by government forces, made global headlines. “His good relations with Western governments have not been able to prevent the regime from persistently harassing him,” Barfi says.

For a period of months last year, Rajab was forbidden to leave Bahrain. …more

Occupy Lulu

Occupy Oakland