Secretary Clinton’s Appointee to Bahrain, Chief Timoney, Enjoys Coffee while Trainees let loose on Streets

Medea Benjamin – “Since assuming his new position, Timoney has claimed that Bahrain has been reforming its brutal police tactics in response to recommendations issued by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. He says that there is less tear gas being used and that while tear gas might be “distasteful,” it’s not really harmful.

I have no idea what country Chief Timoney is talking about, because it’s certainly not the Bahrain I saw this past week, a week that marked the one-year anniversary since the February 14, 2011 uprising.

Timoney should also meet the parents of 14-year-old Ali Jawad al-Sheik. He did not die from inhalation. No. He was killed on August 31, 2011, when the police fired tear gas at protesters from roughly 20 feet away. A canister busted open the young boy’s face. To his parent’s furor, the autopsy said the cause of death was “unknown.”

The same thing happened exactly four months later to 15-year-old Sayyed Hashem Saeed. The police then used tear gas to disperse mourners at Sayyed’s funeral.

Faisal Abdali, a businessman who lives at the entrance of Sitra, would also love to speak to the police chief. He is hopping mad and wants some justice and accountability.” Police Chief Timoney, Meet Bahraini Mothers by Medea Benjamin – full story HERE

Our friend and ally, the Kingdom of Bahrain
by Mehdi Hasan – 01 March, 2012 – New Statesman

The latest Human Rights Watch report makes for depressing reading.

Yesterday I tweeted a link to this piece in the Atlantic Monthly on how the repressive Bahraini regime has signed up a top public-relations agency to rebrand its image in the west:

Last year, in the early weeks of Bahrain’s violent crackdown on the largely Shia opposition protests, the minister of foreign affairs inked a contract with Qorvis to provide public-relations services for $40,000 per month, plus expenses. One of the largest PR and lobbying firms in Washington, Qorvis employs a number of former top Capitol Hill staffers and also works for Bahrain’s close ally, Saudi Arabia. The firm’s work for Bahrain came under scrutiny last year when it defended the government’s raid last year on a Doctors Without Borders office in Bahrain. Also in 2011, a Qorvis official wrote pro-regime columns in The Huffington Post without revealing his affiliation with Qorvis.

This morning, I was at a breakfast briefing with Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, who was discussing the latest HRW report, “No Justice in Bahrain”.

From the report’s “Summary”:

Based on scores of interviews with defendants, former detainees, defense lawyers, and observers of the trials, as well as a comprehensive review of available court records, medical documents, and other relevant material, this report finds that the National Safety Courts repeatedly failed to respect and protect basic due process rights.

And:

Human Rights Watch interviewed eight defendants following their release in February 2011, all of whom said that they had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment, variously reporting beatings, sleep deprivation, forced prolonged standing, and extended detention in solitary confinement. Human Rights Watch had access to photographs of injuries and medical reports of government doctors that corroborated some of these accounts. Not only did the Public Prosecution Office reject without basis the defendants’ allegations of abuse, it premised its case largely on evidence that “came out of the mouths of the defendants themselves,” indicating that the case was built essentially on confessions.

In his briefing, Stork pointed out how HRW and other human-rights group have had their access to Bahrain “restricted since last April”. He also revealed how the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, who had been planning to visit Bahrain later this month, has been asked by the regime to postpone his trip. What do the Bahrainis – who hired John Yates (!), former assistant commissioner of the Met, to help “reform” their security forces – have to hide?

Perhaps it is the fact that, as Stork bluntly put it:

there is a patina of a justice system operating but, really, it’s a joke. There is no way if you’re a protester that you’re not going to get a conviction in court. . . The prosecutors are part of the problem.”

As I noted in the Guardian last year:

The Orwellian regime in Manama continues to round up people for the most minor of “offences”. Last month, for example, the 20-year-old university student Ayat al-Qarmezi was arrested, assaulted and sentenced to a year in prison – by a military court – for reading out a poem criticising the king at a rally.

The Bahraini government says things have changed; in a letter to the Times on 22 February, the country’s ambassador to the UK, Alice Samaan, wrote:

Last year our country experienced a period of unrest. Sine the demonstrations our response has been to introduce an independent investigation and a programme of reform.

But, as Stork pointed out this morning, the truth is that

just one Bahraini member of the security forces – a lieutenant accused of an extra-judicial killing of a protester – has been charged so far. The rest have been low-level, foreign members of the security forces from Pakistan and elsewhere.

For Stork, “there is no transparency here”. For example, the “independent” complaints unit set up to deal with protesters’ grievances is based inside – wait for it – the nation’s interior ministry. Hmm. And torture and abuses inside police stations may have stopped but, Stork pointed out, what is happening now is that

there are reports of demonstrators being picked up [by the security forces] and beaten before getting to the police station.

So what’s our government up to? Er, arming the Bahraini tyrants, that’s what. As I wrote in my column in the Times on 14 February:

Between July and September 2011, the [Conservative-Lib Dem] coalition authorised the sale of £2.2 million of arms to the regime. It was reprehensible and irresponsible, an official British betrayal not just of the Bahraini people, but of the Arab Spring itself.

The Bahrainis are concerned with their image but there is a huge disconnect between their self-image and what’s happening on the ground. Progressive? Perhaps you could call it ‘progressive authoritarianism’.

So, I ask again (as I have asked before), why on earth does the UK continue to support, defend and arm a progressive-authoritarian regime, which continues to beat and abuse its protesters, fails to conduct fair or transparent trials and investigations or allow in the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, and employs expensive foreign PR firms to help whitewash its crimes? Does our government have no shame?

Bahrain asks UN to postpone human rights inspection
1 March, 2012 – Al-Akhbar

Bahrain has asked the UN to postpone a planned trip by its special investigator to conduct an investigation into torture, the world body said on Thursday.

The Gulf monarchy also imposed restrictions on groups trying to monitor reform in the country.

The UN human rights office in Geneva said Bahrain formally requested postponing until July the visit by the UN special rapporteur on torture, which had been scheduled for March 8-17.

The investigator, Juan Mendez, will express his regrets to Bahraini representatives in meetings next week over this “last minute postponement,” said Xabier Celaya, a spokesman of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

He would also “seek to secure new dates as he remains very committed to undertaking this important visit,” Celaya added.

Bahrain said it was “still undergoing major reforms and wants some important steps, critical to the special rapporteur’s mandate, to be in place before he visits so he can assess the progress that Bahrain has made to date,” the spokesman said.

Bahrain, a key US ally and host to the US Fifth Fleet, has been under pressure to improve its rights record and institute political reforms after it crushed a pro-democracy uprising last year, imposing a period of martial law.

Fatima al-Balooshi, Bahrain’s minister for social development, told the UN Human Rights Council this week that the kingdom had drawn lessons from the upheaval.

“Mistakes were made. Serious wrongs were committed,” she told the Geneva forum. “We believe we are on the right track.”

The country remains in turmoil as clashes between youths and riot police continue daily and the banking and tourism-based economy, already down after the world financial crisis, struggles to pick up. …more

Fadhel al-Obaidi, 21 Years, Brain Dead – Shot with Gas Canister at point-blank in back of head by MOI Police

Brutal Bahraini State Terror
26 February 2012 – By Stephen Lendman – Media with Conscience

For over a year, Saudi and Al-Khalifa monarchy security forces terrorized nonviolent protesters. Thousands braved tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets, live fire, arrests, torture and disappearances.

Washington’s very much involved. Bahrain’s the home of America’s Fifth Fleet. Millions of dollars in aid’s provided. So are weapons, including armored vehicles, bunker buster missiles, wire-guided ones, and more. A Pentagon statement said.

They’ll “improve Bahrain’s capability to meet current and future armored threats. Bahrain will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense.”

In fact, Bahrain faces no external threats. Except for Western/Israeli-targeted Syria, Iran, and Lebanon, neither do other Middle East states. Yet Washington’s selling fighters, missiles, and other advanced weapons to regional allies.

In late December, a Saudi F-15 fighter deal was announced worth nearly $30 billion. Other plans include Iraq weapons sales worth around $11 billion. Israelis, of course, get billions of dollars in aid annually, including America’s most advanced weapons and technology. At the same time, Washington’s belligerently expanding its Middle East footprint.

Thousands of Iraqi troops remain. Others were repositioned. Kuwait contingents increased. Libyan bases are planned, and close ties continue with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and other regional states for future air, ground, and naval combat missions.

Notably, Bahraini activists published photos showing US troops training state security forces in crackdown tactics. In addition, former New York/Philadelphia/Miami Police chief John Timoney’s involved.

Occupy Miami organizer Mohammed Malik told Press TV he’s currently training Bahraini forces. His record includes repressive crackdowns against Miami global justice protesters, Philadelphia ones at the 2000 Republican National Convention, and other brutality in New York. For years, he terrorized city residents where he worked.

On February 16, London Guardian writer Ryan Devereaux headlined, “John Timoney: the notorious police chief sent to ‘reform’ forces in Bahrain,” saying:

For three decades, he was New York City police chief before heading up Philadelphia and Miami departments. He was hired along with former UK assistant top cop John Yates.

Timoney critics cite years of “police abuse, illegal infiltration tactics, fear-mongering, and a blatant disregard for freedom of expression.”

His methods include “pepper spray, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds, Tasers, electrified shields, batons,” beatings, and mass arrests. Florida ACLU executive director Howard Simon called his Bahrain presence “extremely unsettling. I’m concerned for the people of Bahrain with Timoney directing how police there are controlling crowds.”

On February 15, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) said brutal crackdowns continue. Saudi and Bahraini security forces attack nonviolent protesters daily. Stun grenades, shotguns, water cannons, and tear gas are used. When fired in closed places, it’s asphyxiating.

On February 7, six US citizens were arrested. Held in police custody for days, they were deported in handcuffs for the duration of their Bahrain/London flight. …more

Former senior Scotland Yard official struggles to explain ties to phone hacking suspects
By Associated Press, 1 March, 2012 – Washington Post

LONDON — One of Scotland Yard’s former top-ranking officers struggled Thursday to explain his close ties to people who later became suspects in the British phone-hacking saga, denying any suggestion that he refused to reinvestigate the scandal to protect his drinking buddies.

But former Assistant Commissioner John Yates had trouble explaining the nature of his convivial relationship with senior News of the World journalists Neil Wallis and Lucy Panton — both of whom have since been arrested.

Speaking via video link, Yates told a judge-led inquiry into the scandal that he was close to Wallis, saying the two traveled to soccer games together and regularly met for dinner or drinks at fancy restaurants. Still, he said that did not affect his judgment.

“I absolutely know — and guarantee — that none of that played any part in my decision-making,” he said. “My conscience is absolutely clear on that.”

Yates played a key role in the widening phone-hacking scandal when he knocked down a 2009 story published in the Guardian newspaper that suggested illegal behavior at the News of the World tabloid was more widespread than previously acknowledged. Yates took only six hours to veto any further investigation, saying there was no evidence to back the Guardian’s claim. …more

Ex-senators: Saudi Arabia linked to 9/11 attacks

NYT reports former Senator Bob Graham said in affidavit that there was a ‘direct line’ between at least some 9/11 terrorists and government of Saudi Arabia. Senator Bob Kerrey: Significant questions remain unanswered

Yitzhak Benhorin – ynetNews – 2 March, 2012

WASHINGTON – Was the Saudi government, seen by US diplomats as a crucial partner in the war on terror, involved in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001? According to two former senators who were privy to top secret information on the Saudis’ activities said they believe that the Saudi government might have played a direct role in the terrorist attacks.

“I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia,” former Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, was quoted by the New York Times as saying in an affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit brought against the Saudi government and dozens of institutions in the country by families of Sept. 11 victims and others.

Graham led a joint 2002 Congressional inquiry into the attacks.

According to the NYT report, published Wednesday, former Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat who served on the separate 9/11 Commission, said in a sworn affidavit of his own in the case that “significant questions remain unanswered” about the role of Saudi institutions.

“Evidence relating to the plausible involvement of possible Saudi government agents in the September 11th attacks has never been fully pursued,” Kerrey said.

According to NYT, the Saudis are seeking to have the case dismissed in part because they say American inquiries — including those in which Graham and Kerrey took part — have essentially exonerated them.

A recent court filing by the Saudis prominently cited the 9/11 Commission’s “exhaustive” final report, which “found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi individuals funded” al-Qaeda, the report stated.

However, the report said, Kerrey and Graham said that the findings should not be seen as an exoneration and that many important questions about the Saudis’ role had never been fully examined, partly because their panels simply did not have the time or resources given their wider scope.

According to NYT, Graham said in his affidavit that unanswered questions include the work of a number of Saudi-sponsored charities with financial links to al-Qaeda, as well as the role of a Saudi citizen living in San Diego at the time of the attacks, Omar al-Bayoumi, who had ties to two of the hijackers and to Saudi officials. …more

The responsibility to protect (RtoP or R2P) is a United Nations initiative established in 2005. It consists of an emerging norm, or set of principles, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility. RtoP focuses on preventing and halting four crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, which it places under the generic umbrella term of, Mass Atrocity Crimes. The Responsibility to Protect has three “pillars”.

One of the main concerns surrounding RtoP is that it infringes upon national sovereignty. This concern is rebutted by the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in the report Implementing the Responsibility to Protect. According to the first pillar of RtoP, the state has the responsibility to protect its populations from mass atrocities and ethnic cleansing, and according to the second pillar the international community has the responsibility to help States fulfill their responsibility. Advocates of RtoP claim that only occasions where the international community will intervene on a State without its consent is when the state is either allowing mass atrocities to occur, or is committing them, in which case the State is no longer upholding its responsibilities as a sovereign. In this sense, RtoP can be understood as reinforcing sovereignty. However it is not clear who makes this decision on behalf of ‘international community’. Because of this in practical terms, RtoP is perceived as a tool of western countries to justify violations of sovereignty of other countries especially in developing world, using international institutions The West controls. …more at wiki

Questioning Intervention in Syria: A Response to Anne-Marie Slaughter
By Michael Busch – 2 March, 2012 – FPIP – Dissent’s Arguing the World

Before making the jump from academia to the world of policy making and punditry, Anne-Marie Slaughter compiled an impressive body of scholarship on law and international society. Her early work linking the common threads of international relations theory and legal research was nothing short of groundbreaking, and contributed meaningful insights to both fields of study. Later, Slaughter’s A New World Order revolutionized intellectual understandings of global governance by introducing network analysis and her anatomy of “disaggregated states” to mainstream academic circles.

When Slaughter has recently offered her ideas in public, however, they have been less impressive. This has been especially pointed with regard to the unfolding horrors in Syria. In an extended meditation for the Atlantic, Slaughter forcefully advocates for the application of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine, arguing that the minimum requirements for triggering intervention have been met. On top of that, she claims, failure to act would expose R2P “as a convenient fiction for power politics or oil politics, feeding precisely the cynicism and conspiracy theories in the Middle East and elsewhere that the U.S. spends its public diplomacy budget and countless diplomatic hours trying to debunk.”

That Gareth Evans—the godfather of R2P—and others have argued that the minimum threshold for action in Syria has in fact not been met seems of little consequence to Slaughter, nor the fact that she is ready to suspend the writ of international law by acting without a Security Council mandate for the purpose of saving international law. As David Rieff points out, “Slaughter seems to be willing to undermine the structural foundations of international order, which, for better or worse, is based in large measure on the Security Council, in order to further it. Peace is war; war is peace. George Orwell, call your office.”

In Sunday’s New York Times, Slaughter returns with a condensed version of the same argument, this time sprinkled with some new ideas for resolving the crisis in Syria, though curiously not explicitly within the R2P framework. Which might be just as well: her opening statement is enough to make R2P advocates shudder. “The mantra of those opposed to intervention is ‘Syria is not Libya,’” Slaughter writes. “In fact, Syria is far more strategically located than Libya, and a lengthy civil war there would be much more dangerous to our interests. America has a major stake in helping Syria’s neighbors stop the killing.” Slaughter’s emphasis on American national interest rather than human rights is all the more curious given her awareness that humanitarian intervention is frequently seen, especially in the Global South, as a Trojan Horse designed to smuggle imperial intent past the gates of state sovereignty. …more

Russian premier vows to ward off attack on Iran
By shiapost – 2 March, 2012

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned of the dire consequences of a military conflict with the Islamic Republic, saying Moscow will do its utmost to avert a war on Iran.

“We will do everything possible to prevent a military conflict either in Iran or around it,” Putin told the chief editors of several leading international newspapers in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence near the Russian capital, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

Putin said a war in Russia’s neighboring country Iran would have very “negative, direct consequences” for Russia, adding, “I think no one is interested in the situation getting out of control.”

Israeli officials have recently hyped up their war rhetoric against Iran, threatening Tehran with military strikes in case the US-engineered sanctions against it fail to force Iran into abandoning its nuclear energy program.

Putin highlighted Iran’s right to access peaceful nuclear energy and said Tehran should proceed with its nuclear activities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In 2011, Russia proposed a “step-by-step” approach that would enable Iran to adopt measures to address IAEA questions on Tehran’s nuclear program.

According to the plan, Iran can revive negotiations to alleviate individual concerns of the IAEA about its nuclear activities and be rewarded along the way by a partial removal of sanctions.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program, using the pretext to impose unilateral and international sanctions against Iran and threaten the country with a military attack.

Iran has denied the allegations and promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country, warning that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East. …more

Obama to Iran and Israel: ‘As President of the United States, I Don’t Bluff’
By Jeffrey Goldberg – 2 March, 2012 – The Atlantic

Dismissing a strategy of “containment” as unworkable, the president tells me it’s “unacceptable” for the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

At the White House on Monday, President Obama will seek to persuade the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to postpone whatever plans he may have to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months. Obama will argue that under his leadership, the United States “has Israel’s back,” and that he will order the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear program if economic sanctions fail to compel Tehran to shelve its nuclear ambitions.

In the most extensive interview he has given about the looming Iran crisis, Obama told me earlier this week that both Iran and Israel should take seriously the possibility of American action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” He went on, “I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.”

The 45-minute Oval Office conversation took place less than a week before the president was scheduled to address the annual convention of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, and then meet, the next day, with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House. In the interview, Obama stated specifically that “all options are on the table,” and that the final option is the “military component.” But the president also said that sanctions organized by his administration have put Iran in a “world of hurt,” and that economic duress might soon force the regime in Tehran to rethink its efforts to pursue a nuclear-weapons program.

“Without in any way being under an illusion about Iranian intentions, without in any way being naive about the nature of that regime, they are self-interested,” Obama said. “It is possible for them to make a strategic calculation that, at minimum, pushes much further to the right whatever potential breakout capacity they may have, and that may turn out to to be the best decision for Israel’s security.”

The president also said that Tehran’s nuclear program would represent a “profound” national-security threat to the United States even if Israel were not a target of Iran’s violent rhetoric, and he dismissed the argument that the United States could successfully contain a nuclear Iran.

“You’re talking about the most volatile region in the world,” he said. “It will not be tolerable to a number of states in that region for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and them not to have a nuclear weapon. Iran is known to sponsor terrorist organizations, so the threat of proliferation becomes that much more severe.” He went on to say, “The dangers of an Iran getting nuclear weapons that then leads to a free-for-all in the Middle East is something that I think would be very dangerous for the world.”

The president was most animated when talking about the chaotic arms race he fears would break out if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, and he seemed most frustrated when talking about what he sees as a deliberate campaign by Republicans to convince American Jews that he is anti-Israel. “Every single commitment I have made to the state of Israel and its security, I have kept,” he told me. “Why is it that despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they’ve had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?”

Though he struck a consistently pro-Israel posture during the interview, Obama went to great lengths to caution Israel that a premature strike might inadvertently help Iran: “At a time when there is not a lot of sympathy for Iran and its only real ally, [Syria,] is on the ropes, do we want a distraction in which suddenly Iran can portray itself as a victim?”

He also said he would try to convince Netanyahu that the only way to bring about a permanent end to a country’s nuclear program is to convince the country in question that nuclear weapons are not in its best interest. “Our argument is going to be that it is important for us to see if we can solve this thing permanently, as opposed to temporarily,” he said, “and the only way historically that a country has ultimately decided not to get nuclear weapons without constant military intervention has been when they themselves take [nuclear weapons] off the table. That’s what happened in Libya, that’s what happened in South Africa.” ..more

01 March, 2012 – 19th Session of UN Human Right Council

Putin denies ‘special relationship’ with Syria regime
02 March, 2012 – Agence France Presse – The Daily Star

MOSCOW: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin denied Russia had a special relationship with the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad and called for a ceasefire to end the bloody conflict with the rebels.

With pressure mounting on Moscow to harden its line against Assad, Putin in talks with foreign news executives late Thursday rejected the idea that Moscow was taking sides in what he described as an “armed civilian conflict”.

“Our aim is not to help one of the sides — not the Syrian authorities nor the armed opposition — but to obtain an all round reconciliation,” he said in comments published on the government website Friday.

“We have no special relationship with Syria,” he added at the meeting at his suburban Moscow residence.

“Our principle is not to encourage the sides in an armed conflict but make them sit down at the negotiating table and agree acceptable terms for a ceasefire and to stop the human losses,” Putin said.

Russia in February outraged the West by vetoing, along with China, a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Assad regime for the violence.

Some analysts saw that defiant move as a warning from Putin to Western states that Russia would pursue a tough foreign policy if, as expected, he returns to the Kremlin after Sunday’s presidential elections.

…more

Libya: Release or transfer British journalists and Libyan colleagues
Amnesty International – 28 February, 2012 – UNCHR

Two British journalists and their Libyan colleagues held by a Libyan militia must be set free immediately or transferred into government custody, Amnesty International said.

Nicholas Davies-Jones, Gareth Montgomery-Johnson, and their Libyan colleagues have been held by the Suweihli militia since their capture in Tripoli early on 21 February.

The Suweihli militia – which operates out of Misratah but has operatives in Tripoli and elsewhere in the country – seized the men while they were reportedly filming in the capital. It accuses the two British men of entering the country without visas.

“The detention of these journalists is unlawful and arbitrary, and their captors in the Suweihli militia must either release them immediately or transfer them into the custody of the central Libyan authorities,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.

“If they are being held simply for breaching visa regulations, the central authorities should release them.”

The British journalists’ families told Amnesty International they remain concerned for the men’s safety and wellbeing.

UK authorities informed them British embassy staff in Tripoli visited the two journalists on at least two occasions and that the men were in good health but very tired.

A Libyan Interior Ministry official confirmed that the Suweihli militia is holding Nicholas Davies-Jones and Gareth Montgomery-Johnson. He said the militia was “operating outside the law and not under the control of the authorities”, and its leadership had refused repeated calls to hand over the captives.

On Tuesday morning, a representative for several Misratah militias operating in Tripoli confirmed that the men were still being held at the Suweihli militia headquarters in Tripoli.

Nothing is known about the identity and situation of the Libyan men who were detained with the British journalists.

The unlawful detention of these journalists is part of a broader pattern in Libya, where hundreds of armed militias operate outside any legal framework and in defiance of the central authorities’ call for militias to disband and join the armed and security forces.

Thousands of Libyans and hundreds of foreign nationals – mainly Sub-Saharan African migrants and refugees – are currently arbitrarily detained by armed militias who behave as if they are above the law.

Others are held in detention centres now under the control of the central authorities, but virtually none has so far been formally charged or brought to trial.

During a recent month-long fact-finding mission to Libya, Amnesty International visited 11 detention facilities across the country.

Many detainees said they had been tortured and Amnesty International saw torture marks and wounds resulting from recent abuse. Torture methods meted out by the militias included suspension in contorted positions; beatings for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains and bars, and wooden sticks; and the administering of electric shocks.

…more

Putin defends Russian stance on Syria
02 March, 2012 – By Vladimir Isachenkov – The Daily Star

MOSCOW: Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has strongly criticized the West for backing the Syrian opposition against the government, saying it has fueled the conflict.

Putin on Friday called for both Syrian government and opposition forces to pull out of besieged cities to end the bloodshed, adding that Western refusal to make that demand of opponents of President Bashar Assad has encouraged them to keep fighting.

“Do they want Assad to pull out his forces so the opposition moves right in?” Putin said at a meeting with editors of top Western newspapers in remarks carried by state television. “Is it a balanced approach?”

Putin ridiculed Western demands of Assad, saying the next thing they want will be for the Syrian leader “to grab a wooden mackintosh and have music play in his house.”

Assad “will not hear (the music) because it will be his funeral,” he said. “He will never agree to that demand.”

Putin refused to speculate on Assad’s chance of holding onto power, saying that reforms in Syria have been long overdue and it’s unclear whether the government and the opposition could find a consensus.

Syria is Russia’s last remaining ally in the Middle East. Moscow has maintained close ties with Damascus since the Cold War, when Syria was led by the current leader’s father, Hafez Assad.

Putin insisted that Russia’s opposition to the United Nations resolution condemning Assad is rooted not in its economic interests, but a desire to help end hostilities.

He defended last month’s Russia-China veto of a U.N. resolution condemning Assad’s crackdown on protests, saying that Moscow wants to prevent the replay of what happened in Libya, where a NATO air campaign helped Libyan opposition forces oust Moammar Gadhafi.
…more

Hackers deface Lebanese government websites
Al-Akhbar – 2 March, 2012

A screen grab of the image hackers uploaded onto the Municipality of Beirut website, as seen on 2 March 2012. (Photo: screen grab)

Cyber activists hacked into four Lebanese governments websites on Thursday, defacing the home pages in an apparent bid to raise awareness over the country’s rampant corruption.

The activists, referring to themselves as Lebanon Anonymous claimed via Twitter that they defaced the sites for the Directorate General of Lebanese General Security, the Ministry of Economy and Trade, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, and the Municipality of Beirut.

At the time of writing, the Municipality of Beirut website was still defaced, while the other government websites had been restored.

It is unclear whether Lebanon Anonymous is affiliated with the hacktivist group #Anonymous, renowned for its attacks on websites of governments and corporations it considers corrupt or seeking to limit free speech on the web.

Last month, they took down the Interpol’s website as a response to the arrest of 25 of their members, as well as the United Nations’ official site.

#Anonymous most recently hacked into the emails of US-based intelligence firm, Stratfor and released over five million emails, including information about credit card details, passwords, and the identities of sources.

The Stratfor emails have been obtained by Al-Akhbar, providing full coverage on the leaks. …source