Bahrain: Vital Reform Commitments Unmet
28 March, 2012 – Human Rigths Watch

Bahrain has taken some positive steps, but the Bahraini authorities can hardly claim that the BICI’s recommendations have been implemented as long as hundreds of people remain behind bars solely for speaking out and demanding a change of government. And it seems that no high-ranking officials have been investigated for their roles in rampant torture or unlawful killings.
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

(Beirut) – Bahrain’s government has not carried out critical recommendations by the independent commission that looked into extensive human rights violations during the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 2011, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), established by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and headed by the Egyptian-American jurist Cherif Bassiouni, issued its findings in November 2011. The king promised at the time to carry out all of its recommendations and established a National Commission to monitor the process. That body reported on March 20, 2012, that the implementation of the BICI’s recommendations had been “comprehensive and far reaching” and “touched all aspects of Bahraini life.” But some of the BICI’s most serious concerns, like accountability for crimes such as torture and relief for people wrongly imprisoned, were not adequately addressed, Human Rights Watch said.

“Bahrain has taken some positive steps, but the Bahraini authorities can hardly claim that the BICI’s recommendations have been implemented as long as hundreds of people remain behind bars solely for speaking out and demanding a change of government,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “And it seems that no high-ranking officials have been investigated for their roles in rampant torture or unlawful killings.”

In one positive step recommended by the BICI, the government stripped the National Security Agency (NSA) of authority to arrest and detain people. The king replaced Shaikh Khalifa bin Abdullah Al Khalifa as head of the agency, but then in a disturbing move promoted him to secretary general of the Supreme Defense Council and a national security adviser to the king with ministerial rank.

The BICI report found that the NSA played a major role in the arrests of 2,929 people during the 10-week state of emergency, from mid-March until early June last year, typically in nighttime raids on homes.Its report said that NSA and other security forces “intentionally broke down doors, forcibly entered and sometimes ransacked the houses,” used “sectarian insults and verbal abuses,” and humiliated relatives and terrified children of those targeted. It said that the pattern of the arrests showed the “existence of an operational plan” that was “designed to inspire terror” among those targeted for arrest. …more

Syria Rebels Form Death Squad, Behead Army Soldiers
Posted on March 28, 2012

Syrian rebels have formed their own laws, courts and death squads in Baba Amr neighborhood in the restive city of Homs and beheaded the captured army soldiers, a report has revealed.

The report, published by Spiegel Online on Monday, discloses violent measures by the anti-government armed groups, laying bare the other side of the unrest in the Middle Eastern country.

Hussein, one of the rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, is quoted in the report as saying that he himself decapitated four army soldiers who had been detained by gunmen.

Hussein said that he beheaded the first victim, a Shia soldier who had confessed to using violent tactics, in mid-October, 2011, in a cemetery.

Hussein did not care whether the soldier’s confessions were real or he had made them under duress. He had simply grabbed a knife and beheaded the soldier who had knelt down in front of him.

The soldier had been captured out of sheer “bad luck”, said Hussein.

While he is a member of a rebel death squad killing government forces in the name of the “Syrian revolution,” there are others who are responsible for torturing captured soldiers.

Many rebels can torture, but not everyone can kill, admits Hussein, who is now receiving treatment in a hospital in the Lebanese city of Tripoli where he and his fellow companions are openly talking about torturing and killing Syrian army soldiers.

“But I do not know why killing is not difficult for me,” he added.

Hussein’s life story demonstrates the course of actions rebels have taken during more than a year in the Arab state.

The report further divulges that Syrian rebels in Homs have since August, 2011 begun regular execution of Syrian soldiers.

“As of last summer, we have executed 150 men, which constitutes only 20 percent of our prisoners,” claimed another hospitalized rebel identified as Abu Rami.

“Moreover, when we realize that a Sunni is spying against us we then hold a brief trial for him,” Abu Rami said, adding that they have executed between 200 and 250 people in such cases.

Revealing the shocking incidents in which rebels even kill Sunnis, he went on to say that “Syria is not a place for the squeamish. “

The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing the protesters. …more

U.N. gets reports of child soldiers with Syria rebels
By Louis Charbonneau – 25 March, 2012 – Reuters

(Reuters) – Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad have been accused of using children as fighters in violation of international conventions banning the recruitment of child soldiers, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.

The U.N. concern about the possibility that Syria’s opposition may be using child soldiers follows last week’s report from the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch that armed Syrian opposition groups have kidnapped, tortured and executed members of supporters of Assad and members of his security forces.

“We are receiving allegations of children with the Free Syrian Army,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, U.N. special representative for children and armed conflict, said in response to a question about Syria’s rebels. She gave no details.

“We haven’t been able to verify or check” the veracity of those allegations, Coomaraswamy added.

Earlier this month the International Criminal Court in The Hague convicted Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo of using child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Coomaraswamy said on Monday that she welcomed that guilty verdict.

The main focus of her news conference was South Sudan, Africa’s youngest country and a region that has long been a concern for those opposed to the use of child soldiers.

Coomaraswamy said was encouraging that the South Sudanese army, the SPLA, has released some 3,000 children from its ranks and expects to free another 2,000 in the near future. …source

Senate offers resolution arming Syrian rebels
By Lisa Mascaro – 28 March, 2012 – LA Times

Washington — Saying President Obama and the United Nations are not doing enough to stop the bloodshed in Syria, leading Senate hawks have proposed supplying Syrian rebels with weapons and support in the first congressional move toward ending the Assad regime.

The senators made it clear Wednesday they were not calling for the authorization of U.S. military intervention as they pressed to send munitions and aid to the Syrian rebels as they battle President Bashar Aassad.

“How can you sit on the sidelines in Syria and not take a stand?” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who put forward the resolution with fellow Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the independent from Connecticut, among others.

McCain, Graham and Lieberman had previously called for U.S.-led military airstrikes in Syria, but their resolution Wednesday fell short of that stance.

The resolution states the Senate would support calls by Arab leaders to support the Syrians “through the provision of weapons and other material support.”

It is unclear if the resolution introduced Wednesday to send munitions and tanks to the rebels would be voted on in the Senate, especially as lawmakers are set to adjourn for a spring recess at the end of this week. …more

Poland charges former intelligence chief over secret CIA prison site
Associated Press – guardian.co.uk – 28 March, 2012

Poland has pressed the first charges in an investigation into a secret CIA prison on its territory, according to reports.

The Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper says former intelligence chief Zbigniew Siemiatkowski has been charged with exceeding his powers, depriving prisoners of war of their freedom and allowing corporal punishment in an investigation that began in 2008.

“I cannot comment because all the proceedings are a state secret. I can neither negate nor confirm,” said Siemiatkowski, who was head of Poland’s Intelligence Agency between 2002 and 2004 when it joined the US-led war on terrorism. The charges make Poland the first country to incriminate an official over CIA sites operated during Washington’s fight against terror.

Prosecutors are investigating whether Poland’s leaders illegally allowed the CIA to run a site and whether terrorism suspects were tortured there a decade ago.

Former CIA officials said the prison operated from December 2002 until autumn of 2003, and that prisoners were subjected to harsh interrogations. The Council of Europe and the United Nations have also said they have evidence the site existed.

However, Polish officials in power at the time deny there was ever such a site.

Two Guantánamo Bay prisoners, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri and alleged al-Qaida facilitator Abu Zubaydah, have been given victim status in the investigation after claiming they were held in Poland and subjected to harsh treatment.

The investigation was recently taken from prosecutors in Warsaw and given to investigators in Krakow, but officials have not explained the reason behind the move. …source

Saudi forces occupy Bahrain and there is right to resist: Kuwaiti deputy
27 March, 2012 – Shia Post

The deputy in the Kuwait Parliament and Secretary General of the General Conference spoke to Al-Manar channel in support of the people of Bahrain about what happened in the meeting of the Human Rights Council held a few days ago in Geneva.

Abdul Hameed Dashti said: ” We are surprised that the system sent 40 people and leaves them for the duration of the session which is more than a month, and provides them with coverage of material, including those who participated in the suppression and killing of detainees. We pointed out to this in disgrace, so they understood to leave immediately, and fled. Among the delegation were security officers and intelligence that shall not be in the building of the United Nations”.

About the position of the United Nations, Dashti replied: “It did not do what it must to learn about what all of this, and when it learned about it after we exposed it, we will follow any action taken by the UN organization”.

The member of the Kuwaiti parliament considered that Saudi forces are occupied by troops of Bahrain, and that even if the Bahraini people responded to this non-peacefully, they have the right in accordance with international law.

He commented on the annexation of Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, saying that the annexation is not allowed, and that Bahrain will resist this with all legitimate means. He stressed that what is being proposed of alliance or annexation comes under the legitimization of Saudi Arabia’s occupation of Bahrain. …more

Amnesty: U.S. Ranks 5th on Global Execution Scale
PETER JAMES SPIELMANN – Associated Press – 27 March, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — The United States was the only Western democracy that executed prisoners last year, even as an increasing number of U.S. states are moving to abolish the death penalty, Amnesty International announced Monday.

America’s 43 executions in 2011 ranked it fifth in the world in capital punishment, the rights group said in its annual review of worldwide death penalty trends. U.S. executions were down from 46 a year earlier.

“If you look at the company we’re in globally, it’s not the company we want to be in: China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq,” Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA, told The Associated Press.

The United States seems deeply divided on the issue.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry was cheered at a Republican presidential candidates’ debate last September when he defended his signature on 234 execution warrants over more than 10 years as being the “ultimate justice.”

Just weeks later, young people rallied in person and online to protest the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia for the 1991 murder of a police officer. In the intervening years, key witnesses for the prosecution had recanted or changed their stories.

“I think the debate on the issue may be nearing a tipping point in this country,” Nossel said. “I think we’re seeing momentum at the state level, in the direction of waning support for the death penalty.”

Illinois banned the death penalty last year, and Oregon adopted a moratorium on executions.

Maryland and Connecticut are close to banning executions, Amnesty said. And more than 800,000 Californians signed petitions to put a referendum on the state ballot in November that would abolish the death penalty.

However, 34 U.S. states have the death penalty.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks U.S. trends, told the AP that last year 78 prisoners received death sentences, down from an average of more than 300 annually a few years ago. “Executions peaked in 1999 at 98,” he added. “By all measures, the death penalty is on the defensive.”

Dieter attributed much of the decline to the introduction of DNA testing, which has exposed some mistaken convictions. With stronger defense tactics and appeals processes getting longer, U.S. states also found it more and more expensive to pursue death penalty cases, he said. …more

Rights Activists, Writers Targeted for Peaceful Expression, Assembly

Saudi Arabia: Stop Arbitrary Arrests, Travel Bans on Opposition
28 March, 2012 – Human Rights Watch

Saudi Arabia is redoubling its efforts to punish those who dare to demand democracy and human rights reform. Instead of imposing arbitrary travel bans and holding activists in long-term detention, Saudi authorities should be respecting basic rights including freedom of expression and movement.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

(Sanaa) – Saudi Arabia should end the arbitrary detention and travel bans inflicted on those who peacefully exercise their freedom of speech or assembly, Human Rights Watch said today. Several intellectuals remain in detention one year or longer for charges relating to their exercise of freedom of speech and assembly, while others have been newly targeted over the past two weeks with bans on foreign travel.

“Saudi Arabia is redoubling its efforts to punish those who dare to demand democracy and human rights reform,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of imposing arbitrary travel bans and holding activists in long-term detention, Saudi authorities should be respecting basic rights including freedom of expression and movement.”

The latest steps in Saudi Arabia’s relentless campaign to quash peaceful political dissent came in late March, when prosecutors banned foreign travel by two prominent rights activists, Muhammad Fahd al-Qahtani and Walid Abu al-Khair.

On March 20, al-Qahtani responded to a summons from Riyadh prosecutors the day before for interrogation about his human rights activities. On March 25, prosecutors imposed a travel ban on him, al-Qahtani told Human Rights Watch.

Jeddah prosecutors summoned Abu al-Khair on March 21, when they showed him an “urgent secret telegram” from the head of the Saudi prosecution service, Shaikh Muhammad al-Abdullah, stating that authorities had imposed an immediate ban on his planned foreign travel for “security reasons.”

Saudis have no judicial means to challenge travel bans. …more

Poetry, and Journalism of the Spirit
26 March, 2012 – By Yahla Lababidi – FPIP

Physical distance is difficult because of the helplessness it engenders. To see one’s world unraveling continents and oceans away and to feel that you can’t do anything can be terribly frustrating. But with distance, one also sees more clearly. Art, as I understand it, and this includes philosophy, is about cultivating a certain distance so that we might, in turn, lend our vision to those in the thick of historic events. Which is to say, one cannot evaluate the play while sharing the stage with the actors. At least this is how I justified my decision, as an Egyptian, to remain in the United States, my adopted home of the past six years, during the Arab Spring Revolution.

Since the Egyptian Revolution began over a year ago, discerning the meaning of poetry in trying times has been a quandary very much weighing on my heart and mind. Until then, I pretty much viewed art and politics as separate spheres. Journalism, I thought, was better suited to tackle the here and now, like Kierkegaard’s parable of the “matchstick” men: upon their head is deposited something phosphorescent, the hint of an idea; one takes them up by the leg, strikes them against a newspaper, and out comes three or four columns. Artists were creatures of another order, I suspected; they were closer to Nietzsche’s lovers of truth (in Zarathustra): “Slow is the experience of all deep wells: long must they wait before they know what fell into their depth.”

Of course, Kierkegaard is not being entirely fair to journalists, and there is a place and a need in this world for both: speed of coverage and slowness in reflection. For a journalist to achieve his highest function, which is to serve as a kind of moral watchdog, it might be necessary to rush—to the battlefield and to print—to keep their eye on the moment and to tell the story as it unfolds. Such near-sightedness is a virtue. For their part, artists and thinkers excel in a form of far-sightedness, somehow seeing just past the moment, over its head, to tomorrow. That is how they are able to lend us their vision.

And so it is that I have come to realize the role of poetry in times of crisis: Vision. By “vision” I mean that unblinking witness is only half of the equation. This is what I mean by seeing over the head of the times. It is not enough to bear witness toNow; journalists, to an extent, do that. Poetry lends us a third (metaphysical) eye, one that collapses distances, at once reminding us of our essential selves and who we can become. This vision provides more insight than mere sight. …more