Alex Hundert, a pre-eminent member of the so-called “G20 ringleaders,” was sentenced to 13 + months in prison Tuesday.
Jayme Poisson – 26 Jaune, 2012 – Toronto News

Hundert is the last to be sentenced out of a group of six who struck a deal with the Crown last November. The half-dozen pleaded guilty to counselling to commit mischief. In exchange for their pleas, 11 co-accused had their charges dropped.

Hundert pleaded guilty to a further charge of counselling to obstruct police.

Addressing the court during an impassioned speech on the two year anniversary of the G20 summit, the 31-year-old activist accepted he did break the law but offered no apologies. He said that although he made the decision, he felt he was “bullied” into making his guilty plea because one member of the initial group of co-accused was facing deportation, and others were much younger.

Hundert said it was “ridiculous” to think his prosecution wasn’t politically motivated.

“I think every time someone behind the bench or Crown suggests it’s not, it puts the whole system in disrepute,” he said.

Raucous cheers and stomping could be heard from an overflow room packed with about 100 supporters. They were not allowed in the courtroom because of disruptions during previous hearings.

Prosecutor Jason Miller addressed the court briefly. The sentence, he said, was necessary to denounce the organization of violence during the G20 weekend and deter it from happening in the future.

Hundert, as well as other accused, met to plan protests against the G20 and encouraged property damage during the summit, according to an agreed statement of facts.

Hundert’s lawyer, John Norris, said the accusations against his client are but a “narrow band” of the work he does building communities. Norris said he believed, in the future, Hundert would be involved in more causes making those communities better.

Justice Lloyd Budzinsky said that even though Hundert was in custody when black-clad protesters took to the streets, smashing windows and lighting police cars on fire, he promoted the use of violence. …more

Chanting cats in Bahrain
26 June, 2012 – Angry Arab News Service

From Angry Arab chief Bahrain correspondent: “In the village of Sitra, villagers strapped small tape recorders on the village cats and let tapes with people chanting “down down hamad” play continuously. The police, always looking for someone to shoot, were confused at first because they had no idea where the chanting came from. True story straight from a friend from Sitra.” …source

Iran offers help to resolve Turkey-Syria jet row
26 June 26, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Iran on Tuesday offered to use its good ties with Damascus and Ankara to help resolve the row between the two countries over Syria’s downing of a Turkish warplane.

Syria’s shooting down of the jet last Friday was “a very sensitive issue” that also concerns Tehran, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said, just ahead of an emergency NATO meeting on the incident.

“We will use our good relationship with the two countries to resolve the issue,” Ramin Mehmanparast said in his weekly news briefing.

He hoped “key players in the region” would be able to contain the incident and prevent other countries from being dragged in.

“It should be resolved through restraint and negotiations and (the two sides) should avoid measures that disturb the security of the region,” he said. “We hope this issue will be resolved rapidly.”

Syrian air defenses brought down a Turkish F-4 Phantom fighter over the eastern Mediterranean. Damascus insists the jet was fired on inside its territory and called the flight “a gross violation of Syrian sovereignty.”

But Turkey, while admitting the plane had “briefly” flown through Syrian territory, has called the downing a “hostile act of the highest order” and called an emergency NATO meeting on Tuesday to discuss it.

Syria’s rocket message to the delusional
by Wassim Raad – 26 June, 2012

The Syrian command placed the government of Ottoman illusion before the hour of truth, after the Syrian air force deterred the Turkish combat jet which violated Syria’s airspace. Hence, the downing of the Turkish aircraft constituted a strong message to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has always been known for his threats to justify direct intervention in Syria. Firstly, the confusion was clear at the level of the Turkish reaction vis-à-vis the Syrian strong deterrence which drew a line of fire on the border, in parallel to the progress of the Syrian Arab army’s operations which aim at cleansing the border regions from the pits of armed and terrorist groups and at ending the smuggling of weapons and armed elements from Turkey.

Numerous journalistic reports revealed that the Turkish government was sponsoring networks smuggling arms and camps in which the armed men are being trained, especially following the New York Times report which pointed to the presence of officers from the CIA in the Turkish border regions, managing the operations in Syria and informing the armed terrorist gangs about the positions and movements of the Syrian Arab army via American satellite images. Moreover, according to Arab experts, the information is also being collected via reconnaissance operations carried out by Turkish fighter jets or American unmanned planes which the American newspapers have already revealed they were conducting flyovers on the Syrian border. That same report also assured that a CIA team was supervising the smuggling of weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the Syrian armed gangs. …more

Bahrain charging 3 police with murder in uprising deaths, plans payouts to victims’ families
26 June, 2012 – Washington Post

MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain said Tuesday that three police officers on trial over killing demonstrators during street protests last year will now face murder charges and could face the death penalty.

The defendants, who were not named, include a police lieutenant, according to a statement by the Gulf nation’s Information Affairs Authority. They were originally being tried on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

They are on trial for three separate shooting deaths that occurred in February and March 2011.

Conviction on manslaughter charges carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, but a murder conviction can result in life imprisonment or the death penalty, according to the IAA statement.

“If convicted of murder, employees of the Ministry of Interior are likely to receive the toughest penalties allowed by law,” it added.

A report issued in November by a commission authorized by Bahrain’s Sunni Muslim rulers cited medical reports that found all three victims were shot from close range. The report determined that their deaths were the result of excessive force by police.

The officers’ trial resumes July 10.

In a related development, authorities said they have begun the process of giving compensation to families of people killed during the uprising.

At least 50 people have been killed since the violence began in the strategic island nation, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Many were protesters, but security forces were also among the dead.

A total of $2.6 million is being paid out to the families of 17 victims initially, according to an IAA statement. It quoted Judge Khalid Hassan Ajaji, a Justice Ministry official, who said the office handling the claims began its work in March.

The statement did not name the recipients.

However, three defense lawyers representing several victims among opposition protesters said they were unaware of any payments being made so far.

“Nothing has been paid to any victim, according to my information,” defense lawyer Mohsen al-Alawi told The Associated Press. “The government said it will pay the victims, but nothing has been paid.”

Two other lawyers, Abdullah al-Shamlawi and Jalila al-Sayed, also said they did not know of any payments being made.

Last September, Bahrain’s king ordered the creation of a fund to compensate victims of the Arab Spring-inspired unrest that broke out in February 2011.

The country has experienced near daily protests for 16 months in an uprising by the kingdom’s Shiite majority seeking greater political rights from the Western-backed Sunni monarchy. …more

Many months of so-called police reform and political reform appear to have done little to improve exercise of the right to peaceful assembly. Denying a permit request was bad enough, but the decision to attack obviously peaceful protesters with completely excessive force was much more serious.

Bahrain: Police Attack Peaceful Protest – Authorities Continue to Deny Access to International Rights Groups
27 June, 2012 – Joe Stork – Human Rights Watch

(Beirut)– Bahraini authorities should immediately end the use of security forces to unlawfully attack peaceful protesters, Human Rights Watch said today. Riot police used teargas and sound bombs to disperse a demonstration on June 22, 2012, called by Al-Wefaq, Bahrain’s largest opposition group.

A small group of 25 or 30 people, some carrying flowers and led by Al-Wefaq’s leader, Sheikh Ali Salman, attempted to march to the protest site after the Ministry of Interior denied their request for a permit. They were stopped by a more or less equal number of riot police. Four witnesses told Human Rights Watch that riot police shot “flash-bang” grenades and teargas directly at the protesters without provocation. A video examined by Human Rights Watch appears to show police at first tossing flash-bang grenades into the crowd and then firing multiple rounds of the same type of device from riot control guns at extremely close range. The protesters behaved peacefully throughout and posed no threat of any kind to the officers or anyone else.

“Many months of so-called police reform and political reform appear to have done little to improve exercise of the right to peaceful assembly,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Denying a permit request was bad enough, but the decision to attack obviously peaceful protesters with completely excessive force was much more serious.”

Ali al-Mowali, 27, was hospitalized with apparently serious head injuries. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that a teargas canister hit al-Mowali when riot police attacked from a distance of just a few meters. He is being treated at the Salmaniya Medical Complex. At least three other people had lesser injuries including Salman, the Al-Wefaq leader, the witnesses reported.

Authorities arrested five protesters and charged them with illegal gathering, Jawad Fairooz, a leader of al-Wefaq, told Human Rights Watch. Al-Mowali is reportedly among those facing charges.

In a statement, the Interior Ministry said it will investigate the incident, but blamed the organizers for the casualties, saying, “They didn’t care about exposing the safety of the participants to danger.” The statement did not allege that the protesters were violent or threatening at any point.

“An official investigation into this incident is certainly warranted, leading to disciplinary action, and criminal prosecution of officers shown to have endangered lives with reckless use of crowd control devices,” Stork said. …more

Media Strikes Iran’s Nuclear Facilities As Talks Fail
22 June, 2012 – There Will Be War

The recently wrapped up Moscow talks between the P5+1 (the five U.N. Security Council members plus Germany) and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program, the second round after those held Baghdad in late May, have failed to bear fruit. To play the blame game and castigate just one side would be an exercise in schoolyard oversimplification.

In the end, it seems Iranian negotiators could not entertain a strict demand to “stop, shut and ship”—stop enriching, shut down the Fordow site and ship out their load of 19.75 percent uranium. Not a shock that they balked: this is basically telling a proud nation it has no right to an independent nuclear program, that it should dismantle years of hard, complicated work and toss hundreds of millions of rials into the Gulf. Meanwhile Iranian promises of a fatwa against nuclear weapons, of full cooperation with the IAEA, and of low-grade enrichment limits—should sanctions be relaxed—did little to assuage the U.S. and its cohorts. Rightly so: Why would the Western nations trust an antagonistic, power-hungry regime who will say or do anything to improve its chances at regional hegemony? Indeed, much has been written about how both sides have overplayed their hands, feeling they have the leverage to walk away from the negotiating table.

This breakdown means we must prepare for the return of an endless onslaught of articles baldly assuming an imminent military strike on Iran’s enrichment facilities, similar to those we saw on cover stories through January and February. We will see not only straight-up calls for a pre-emptive attack but articles like those in The New York Times that correctly caught flak for their subtle allusions to Iran’s nuclear arsenal, which doesn’t exist. Back then, the eager calls by warhawks in the U.S. and Israel to bomb Iran backfired, even as scare tactic, by prompting numerous Israeli military and Mossad vets to denounce the plan as nothing short of stupid.

Fast forward to June: Even before the negotiations officially ended, the calls for strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities were coming in loud as well as insidious.

Jumping the gun and surprising no one was The Weekly Standard’s Jamie Fly and Will Kristol. Though the bulk of their advice amounted to “isn’t it time for the president to ask Congress for Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iran’s nuclear program,” the buildup to this gem was meant to manipulate the uninformed. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but using a 1936 Winston Churchill speech to make the implicit/explicit connection of Iran to Nazi Germany is tired, cliched and wrong. Points awarded for not referencing the classic warmonger Chamberlain-Munich-1938 catch-all (which was probably considered) though I predict this will be regurgitated ad nauseam soon. …more

In The Cellars of Death, Bahraini Detainees are Tortured
26 June, 2012 – EBOHR

Bahrain prisons, are not less violent than Abu Ghraib or the Guantanamo as what happened there and still happening is way beyond one’s imagination. Its scary, brutal and so violent! After documenting some of the cases and stories of mass arrests and tortures I am not sure if I could ever survive if I was to be in the detainees shoes.

My father-in-law Mohamed Hasan Mohamed Jawad (Parweez) who is 65 years old is an independent Human Rights Activist and the eldest prisoner in Bahrain. He was convicted in a so-called “terrorist cell” known by The Alliance for Republic, in the top leading cases in Bahrain consisting of 14 opposition figures and leaders.

He was tortured severely after that he was kidnapped by the Bahraini army alongside the Peninsula Shield forces in March 22, 2011. He went missing for more than 50 days where everybody knew absolutely nothing about him and his family started thinking: “he could be dead”. During that time, he was tortured underground in the ministry of interior main office in Manama to a point where his both legs were drilled with an electrical drill, electrocuted, beaten, kicked and punched on the face several times for long cold months. He wrote his first diary from inside AlGurain military prison under the title of (The diaries of a prisoner of conscience in the cellars of death) in which he stated very frankly the very details of his arrest, investigation, torture and military trails and sentence for 15 years of imprisonment. A fact worth mentioning is that he noted in his diaries witnessing Martyr Karim Fakhrawi’s death under torture while being electrocuted with him in the same room.

In addition to all that, he was tortured brutally by the son of the king, Naser Bin Hamad AlKhalifa, who is the Commander of the Royal Guard, the Chairman of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sport, and the President of the Bahrain Olympic Committee. Naser Bin Hamad AlKhalifa who is a father of a nearly 2 years old girl called Sheema worked on torturing my father-in-law Parweez (65 years old) through beating his head continuously with a hose, bashing his head to the walls, while resting in between! My father-in-law still suffers from terrible headaches and pain in head back, legs and pelvis due to that.

Another personal case of a torture was that of my uncle Shaikh Abduladheem AlMohtadi -50 years old- who is a religious scholar and an author of the most Bahraini books published. He was also tortured badly, and his hand -the one which he writes with- was intentionally broken under torture by mercenaries working for the Ministry of Interior. …more

Rights group condemns “insulting” Bahrain payouts
26 June, 2012 – Al Akhbar

A leading Bahraini rights group on Tuesday condemned the decision to pay the families killed by security forces as “insulting.”

Bahrain announced it would pay $2.6 million to 17 families over deaths last year during an uprising that the Gulf Arab state put down by force.

“Disbursement of compensation to the families of 17 deceased persons has begun in keeping with the implementation of the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI),” said a government statement citing a justice ministry official, adding this amounted to $153,000 per individual.

It gave no details on who the recipients were.

Yet Maryam Al-Khawaja, acting head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said the payouts were an “insult” to the dead.

“The Bahraini government has been not only refused to acknowledge the pain and suffering of the people who lost family during the protest movement because of the excessive use of force, but it has also targeted those families – either through arrests or desecrating the graves of those killed,” she said.

“The offering of monetary compensation seems a little disingenuous and there are many that feel its more of an insult than anything else,” she added.

The BICI, an investigative body head by international legal experts, said in November at least 35 people died during the crackdown on the unrest, which began in February 2011 after revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.

The dead were mainly protesters, but also included five security personnel and seven foreigners. The report said five people died due to torture.

Bahrain, host to the US Fifth Fleet, has been under pressure to implement the BICI recommendations of police, judicial, media and education reform. …more

BCHR: Release of Testimony of former BCHR Director Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja

26th June, 2012: International Day Against Torture

Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s speech before the Supreme Court of Appeal 22/5/2012

Gentlemen, President and members of the honorable Supreme Court of Appeal,

Peace, mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak before your venerable selves, as I have been deprived of this right throughout the previous stages of the litigation. Kindly note that my statement has been excluded during the investigation as a result of me being subjected to torture.

I, the Bahraini citizen Abdulhadi Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, have been subjected since the April 9th 2011 to arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, psychological and physical torture, sexual assault and unfair trial, without having committed any offense for which I deserve legal punishment, in addition to torture and other violations criminalized by international and national laws. Please note that I do not belong to any association or political group, though this is not an offense in itself but rather a natural right of any human being.

These current and previous violations were in fact motivated by the thorny, difficult path which I have chosen, that is to defend human rights, not only as a matter of specialization and career – given that I am a researcher and trainer in this area – but also that I have decided that my duty is to stand with the oppressed and the victims of various abuses to which they are exposed, disregarding the risks and reactions of those who perpetrated such violations. Thus, my activities and practice involved serious issues such as political and financial corruption, arbitrary detention, torture, the privileges of the ruling class, sectarian and ethnic discrimination, as well as other topics including poverty and the right to human dignity, adequate jobs and housing, and the rights of foreign workers.

And if at the beginning back in the eighties

my activity involved volunteering with the “Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners in Bahrain”, which is considered a wing of one of the opposition political groups, it has, however, been shifted at the beginning of the nineties into working completely independent through founding “The Bahrain Human Rights Organization,” which played a fundamental and decisive role in bringing Bahrain out of the era of security of the State, through its activities in Western capitals in collaboration with the United Nations and international human rights organizations. I am honored to have gained then my second nationality when I became a political refugee in the Kingdom of Denmark, which ensured my freedom, dignity and shelter when I was facing persecution in my country of Bahrain. However, I never hesitated in returning to Bahrain in 2001 when I was allowed to, and there I continued carrying out my duty in education and training on human rights issues in Bahrain and abroad, assisting victims of violations to embark on a peaceful movement to demand their rights, in addition to monitoring and documenting human rights violations. As a result, the price I have been paying throughout the past ten years was facing physical assaults by security forces, arrest, detention, unfair trials, smear campaigns, and travel bans. This was the case even during the period from November 2008 to February 2011, during which I worked as a regional coordinator for Frontline Defenders, a leading international organization – based in Dublin and Brussels – which focuses on the protection of human rights defenders all over the world. The fact that I have resigned from my post as president of “The Bahrain Center for Human Rights” before undertaking my work at the international organization; which was not relevant to the situation of human rights in Bahrain – did not make any difference; for an overwhelming spirit of revenge was motivating those who have been targeted by my previous activity due to their responsibility in relation to the perpetration of violations through their positions as security and political officials, as well as them suspecting that – under cover -I have been using my international work to provide aid to local activists in Bahrain.

Then came the events of February 14th, and the subsequent declaration of a state of national safety to make it the right opportunity for revenge, especially that after I witnessing all those dead and injured in the first few days I decided to resign from my international post and to dedicate myself to full-time voluntary work in Bahrain to contribute to the popular peaceful movement and ensure its effectiveness in attaining rights, in addition to monitoring and documenting violations that occurred during the events. To these ends I took part in seminars, delivered speeches and participated in various meetings that were attended by representatives of political associations and groups, including political and civil rights activists, and jurists; in my capacity as an independent human rights defender. Those meetings were held at the headquarters of political associations and residents of political figures, and they were not secret and did not intend to establish new groups or create working plans, they were merely a platform for consultation and exchange of opinions in the midst of escalating and serious events. …more

Turkey Threatens Syria
25 June, 2012 – POMED

Turkey gave a warning to Syria today with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan telling parliament that if the latter country’s troops approached the border, they would be considered a military threat. Syria downed a Turkish jet last week and fired on a recovery operation that was attempting to rescue the lost pilots, whose plane went down over the Eastern Mediterranean. Erdogan had stern words for Syria, asserting that “this incident shows that Syria has become an open threat to Turkey, so we have come to a brand new level…Any military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria by posing a security risk and danger will be regarded as a threat and treated as a military target.” NATO also condemned the incident, but Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen indicated his expectation that the situation will not escalate any further.

Meanwhile, Israel is hosting Russian president Vladimir Putin, with a major topic of discussion being the crisis in Syria. Israel is concerned with Syrian instability and the possibility of weapons ending up in the hands of Hezbollah as a result. Israeli president Shimon Peres also expressed disgust with the Syrian regime, saying that “Assad stopped being an alternative when he started firing at his children…None of us can tolerate coffins filled with the bodies of children. That’s beyond politics.” For his part, Putin stated that he is “not obligated to Assad, but Russia and Syria have strategic relations.”

Mohammad Ataie writes in The Guardian that Iran is attempting to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria, despite its continued attachment to Bashar al-Assad. “Iran is not on the same side of the Syrian conflict as the US and its allies,” Ataie said, “but it does have a big stake in ending the bloodshed and finding a political solution to the crisis. This is common ground that should not be ignored in any genuine initiative to stop the unrelenting bloodshed and in beginning the implementation of reform in Syria. Kofi Annan has also expressed a desire to see Iran involved in talks toward ending the bloodshed in Syria, but will ultimately leave it up to the U.S. and Russia.

Today Syrian rebels and Republican Guard forces continue to clash outside Damascus, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting that six have been killed in heavy fighting. …more

Experts say “crimes against freedom of expression” should have special status
26 June, 2012 – by Français Partager

Reporters Without Borders welcomes yesterday’s joint declaration by four international experts calling on governments to treat “crimes against freedom of expression” as a special category under criminal law and thereby provide journalists and other news providers with better protection.

The joint call was issued by the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe representative on freedom of the media, the Organization of American States special rapporteur on freedom of expression and the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights special rapporteur on freedom of expression and access to information.

It came just five days after both Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, and Christoph Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, issued separate reports calling for greater efforts to protect journalists.

“These four experts have issued their joint call for crimes against freedom of expression to be assigned a special status under criminal law, with specific penalties, because they recognize the role that freedom of information plays in society, whether the information providers are professional journalists, citizen journalists or netizens,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“This joint declaration also testifies to the concern these experts feel for the safety of news providers and their awareness of the urgency of the situation. It stresses that governments have an obligation to investigate these crimes, to protect the victims and ensure that they have access to justice.”

Reporters Without Borders hopes that the joint declaration and the two reports will encourage state and non-state actors to adopt concrete measures to protect journalists and to combat impunity for those responsible for acts of violence against them.

“These experts have paved the way,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Now it is up to governments to implement their recommendations and give them binding force as soon as possible.”

A total of 29 professional journalists and at least 12 citizen journalists have been killed since the start of 2012 because of their commitment to providing news and information. Dozens of journalists have also been forced to flee abroad to escape harassment, violence, threats of arbitrary arrest or death. A total of 80 journalists fled into exile in 2011. …source