Posts from — August 2012

Human Right activists locked up in Bahrain
15 August, 2012 – By Colin S. Cavell – PressTV

Bahrain’s geopolitical status as an island nation allows it to easily incarcerate oppositional leadership, torture them, and-if recalcitrant and unrepentant-kill them. Unfortunately for the House of Khalifa, a majority of the citizenry of Bahrain refuse to be enslaved under a despotic monarchical form of government.”
Bahrain courts have put off until Thursday, August 16th, their decision on several charges against Nabeel Rajab, President of Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR).

The court’s ruling, initially scheduled for Sunday, August 12th, is to decide on Mr. Rajab’s guilt for tweeting statements which the regime of King Hamad Al-Khalifa deems insurrectionary. Until the court rules, Mr. Rajab remains behind bars as a prisoner of the state.

Yes, you read that correctly, Rajab was imprisoned for utilizing the social medium of tweeting where comments are restricted to 140 characters! In Bahrain today, articulating any opinion which the Khalifas deem subversive will land you in jail. The 48-year-old Nabeel Rajab is only one of the most notable democratic activists to find himself behind prison bars in the kingdom’s dungeons.

Joining Rajab in custody at the present time is 30-year-old activist Zainab Al-Khawaja, a courageous pro-democracy activist who was arrested and sent to jail for peacefully, yet publicly, protesting against the 229-year-old Al-Khalifa monarchy. Zainab, a graduate of the American Studies Center at the University of Bahrain, had previously been injured by Bahraini police who shot her with a tear gas canister in her right thigh in June during another peaceful protest.

Also locked up for voicing his opposition to the family dynasty of the Al-Khalifa is 51-year-old Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, father of Zainab and past president of the BCHR and former director of the Middle East-North Africa region for the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders’ Front Line. Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja drew international attention to the Arab Spring uprising in Bahrain with a 110-day hunger strike which he ended at the end of May 2012 when the regime had doctors in the military hospital force-feed him against his will.

Languishing also in prison, since March of 2011, is 53-year-old Ibrahim Sharif al-Sayed who is General Secretary of the secular liberal National Democratic Action Society (Wa’ad) and one of the most knowledgeable and astute leaders of the pro-democracy opposition. Sharif’s main crime is that he understands the nature of the Khalifa monarchy too well and knows how to dislodge it and is unafraid in organizing to do so. It was inevitable that Sharif would be one of the first to be sent to jail. Moreover, Sharif is a Sunni, which undercuts the regime’s claim that oppositional forces in Bahrain are only comprised of Shia co-religionists acting as an Iranian-directed fifth column.

In addition to the above pro-democracy activists, Bahrain’s prisons are hosting, as well, the following opposition leaders: 64-year-old Haq Movement for Liberties and Democracy Secretary-General Hassan Mushaima, 47-year-old University of Bahrain academic Dr. Abdul-Jalil Al-Sangace who is head of the Human Rights Office as well as Director of the Media and International Relations for the Haq Movement for Liberties and Democracy, Sheikh Mohammed Ali Al-Mahfoodh, Chairman of Amal Society and a prolific writer of letters to President Barack Obama explaining the Bahraini Revolution to him, Board Member of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) Naji Fateel, and countless others who have dared to exercise their rights guaranteed under the Universal Convention on Human Rights.

Bahrain’s geopolitical status as an island nation allows it to easily incarcerate oppositional leadership, torture them, and-if recalcitrant and unrepentant-kill them. Unfortunately for the House of Khalifa, a majority of the citizenry of Bahrain refuse to be enslaved under a despotic monarchical form of government.

Since the February 14th revolution started in 2011, over three quarters of the population regularly march en masse in the streets of Bahrain calling for the removal of the Al-Khalifa and the establishment of a democracy with genuine republican representative government. In addition, police nightly contend with democratic activists in every village and town in Bahrain. The police respond with poison tear gas, arrests, torture, and killings.

Confident-some say perhaps overconfident-are the Khalifa who grant the US Navy port access to its Fifth Fleet as well as tarmac rights at the Sheik Isa Airbase in Bahrain allowing the US to forward project its military into the Middle East in order to maintain hegemonic control over the region and thus ensuring American theft of Middle Eastern oil through its string of despotic monarchs from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and on into Kuwait. These puppet states are all US & UK proxy-run regimes led by the most corrupt autocratic regimes on Earth, a group of despotic absolute monarchs possessing none of the virtues described in fairy tales and all of the vices humans attribute to the dregs of society.

Keeping the lid on journalistic reporting from the Kingdom is a full-time activity of the Al-Khalifa regime. Seattle-based documentary filmmaker, Jen Marlowe, was deported from the Kingdom in July of this year for attempting to report on the ongoing democracy protests. In May of 2012, Freelance journalist Ahmed Radhi was arrested and disappeared into the Kingdom’s labyrinthian system of torture chambers because he dared to criticize Saudi Arabia’s proposed union with Bahrain.

Three Channel 4 television journalists from the UK were arrested and then deported from Bahrain while attempting to cover a pro-democracy protest march during the controversial Grand Prix car races which took place in Bahrain in mid-April of this year. Ahmed Ismail Hassan, a Bahraini videographer was killed in April of this year while filming a pro-democracy protest in Salmabad, a village southwest of Manama. Global Research’s Middle East and East Africa Correspondent Finian Cunningham was ordered out of Bahrain on June 18, 2011 due to his uncompromising and critical reporting of the democratic uprising in the country as well as the concomitant brutal oppression, mass arrests, torture, and murder of pro-democracy activists. And this is merely a partial list of the hundreds of bloggers, journalists, and human rights defenders who have been arrested, jailed, tortured, and/or deported from the country since the pro-democracy uprising commenced in February of 2011.

In addition to silencing protesters and journalists, the Bahraini government has enlisted the assistance of at least five American and three UK-based public relations firms to spin the news abroad that Bahrain is once again “open for business” to gullible Brits and Yanks. As well, it appears that academics are now being enlisted to validate the regime’s narrative that all is well in Bahrain. Just recently, a bizarre report was issued by a Dr. Mitchell A. Belfer claiming that “Bahrain is back on track following the unrest and majority of the people have become tired of political bickering and street violence.”

The Bahrain regime’s new “expert” is reportedly the editor of the Central European Journal of International and Security Studies (CEJISS) and is associated with the Prague-based Metropolitan University Department of International Relations and the founder of its European Studies program. If, as this Dr. Belfer concludes, that the “‘coast is clear and tensions have subsided’,” then his findings are in direct contradiction to that of numerous human rights organizations and most international observers of Bahrain.

Whether he is merely a shill for the Khalifa regime or simply delusional as regards the objective situation in Bahrain, we at least know his political allegiance, as he is reported to have asserted that the pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain are waging a “‘losing’ battle as the country slowly gears towards dialogue and reconciliation.” Such wishful thinking on the part of the regime and its lackeys is entirely fanciful and completely ignores the massive and determined opposition to the monarchy in Bahrain. But given that the Al-Khalifa have long been living a fairy-land existence with little connection to the lives of everyday citizens in Bahrain, it follows that they may indeed believe that there is no such thing as objective reality. ‘Simply say it isn’t so, and the protesters instantly vanish,’ appears to be their strategy. If only life were so simple… …source

Track Record of postponements raises question of political show trials.

Verdicts to be Issued Thursday for Bahraini Human Rights Defender Nabeel Rajab
(Witness Bahrain) – 14 August, 2012 – BCHR

On Thursday August 16, a court in Manama, Bahrain is expected to issue a verdict/hear briefs in four cases pending against Human Rights Defender Nabeel Rajab, including Rajab’s appeal over the three-month sentence he is currently serving for being found guilty of libel due to posting six statements on Twitter that are critical of the Bahraini Prime Minister. The other cases that the court will hear include allegedly inciting gatherings and unauthorized marches.

This is not the first time the court has set a date for a verdict, and in other prominent cases – notably that of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja – the court has met only to announce a delay. These postponements raise the question as to the legitimacy of Bahrain’s judicial process. Media reports have cited the delays as an indication of the government’s commitment to reform, yet the track record to justify such conclusions is lacking.

“I believe strongly in peaceful means of struggle. It could take longer time, but has better results,” Nabeel Rajab told Witness Bahrain in a videotaped interview just days before his arrest. “I will continue all my life struggling for democracy and human rights.”

Rajab is currently being held in Jaw Central Prison and, according to reports from his family, in an insect-ridden cell without air conditioning or proper ventilation, and without needed medical attention for his eczema, high blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat. …more

Said Yousif Almuhafa (right) with Nabeel Rajab current illegally detained for “insulting tweet”

Feminism as Counterterrorism?
By Vasuki Nesiah – 14 August, 2012

The most prominent and unequivocal public articulation of an alliance between feminism and counterterrorism came at the dawn of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, when Laura Bush argued that “the fight against terrorism is a fight for the rights and dignity of women.” This approach was criticized by many as “just a few opportunistic references to women.” However, today, what we may term ”security feminism” is becoming embedded in American foreign policy — a trend that has been emphatically empowered by Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

This “securitizing” of women’s issues means that feminist interests have been “muscled up” and framed to have traction as a mode of counterterrorism. For instance, Isaac Kfir argues that rather than advocating for gender equity “as a basic right,” we should be “changing the discourse and using national security” language “to advance gender equality.” In other words, it is not just counterterrorism advocates opportunistically playing the gender card. Feminists also play the security card. Over the long term, their goal is to heighten the visibility and significance of gender issues. More immediately, some also hope they can secure greater funding for women’s groups as “an important countermovement to terrorism.”

The security paradigm is, crucially, not just a framework to advance nationalism and militarization. For many in the counterterrorism field, it is also about highlighting vulnerability. It is the focus on vulnerability and victimization that converges with those invested in mainstreaming feminism within foreign policy agendas. For instance, feminists and counterterrorism advocates have found common cause in anti-immigrant policies through issues such as human trafficking. Laura Sjoberg’s language of “empathetic war-fighting” draws from feminist security theory to capture this convergence. “Empathetic war-fighting,” she writes, brings a “focus on individual human security [that] will strengthen just war [theory]’s effectiveness, increase its relevance to modern warfare, and decrease its insidious abstraction and gender bias.” …more

Bleeding Syria
By Adil E. Shamoo – 9 August, 2012 – FPIP

Syrian rebels have been fighting Bashar al-Assad’s forces for nearly a year and a half in a conflict that has caused 20,000 deaths. As the world watches in horror, much confusion remains about the nature of the rebel troops, the identity of the regime’s supporters, and what actions — if any — should be taken by the rest of the world.

The Syrian rebels represent a range of interests. Most are Sunni Muslims that have been shut out of power by the current Shia Alawite regime. Among others, they include Muslim Brotherhood members and — more recently — a mix of al-Qaeda supporters. The Syrian regime is supported by middle-class and wealthy Syrians, Alawites, and Christians, who together constitute nearly half of the population.

Syria has become a battleground for disparate forces with vastly differing goals. It is likely that the Syrian regime will be toppled soon, but no one really knows what will happen afterwards. The best guess is that the killings will continue as these groups continue to fight for power.

Although these internal forces are deadly, even graver complications have arisen as a result of external meddling. A host of self-serving sharks have exploited the legitimate struggle against the dictatorial Assad regime to serve their own regional interests. This outside interference has only worsened the catastrophe for the Syrian people.

The Sectarian Divide

While the United States and its allies were quick to declare that Assad must go, they have largely turned a blind eye as the rebels have committed extreme atrocities against regime forces and their supporters. They have overlooked the concerns of Syria’s minorities, who have enjoyed the protection of the regime and perceive the conflict as a fight for their lives.

The United States and its allies are providing covert support to the rebels through ground operations at the Turkish border with Syria. Turkey’s primary interest is to ensure that the Kurds living in Syria and Iraq do not foment more discontent among the 14 millions Kurds in Turkey. For its part, the United States is seeking to ensure a pro-Western regime in Syria that will be friendly to U.S. interests and its allies in the region.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are supporting the Sunni Syrian rebels with tens of millions of dollars for weapons gladly funneled by intermediaries of the Western powers such as Turkey. These conservative Sunni regimes are fomenting a sectarian war against the Shia. The simplistic narrative of brave Syrian rebels fighting for their freedom against a cruel and vicious Syrian regime obscures the more complex story of sectarian strife, which has been stoked by internal and external forces alike.

In public there is little to no discussion about the role our allies have played in fueling a sectarian war in the Middle East. Instead, the sectarian bloodbaths occurring all over Syria are portrayed almost exclusively as regime atrocities, leading to more Western calls for regime change.

Our Iraq policy created sectarian divisions resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Continuing our false posturing in Syria only underscores regional impressions of U.S. foreign policy as deadly and devious, and reminds the inhabitants of the region that we are not to be trusted. …more

Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa has agreed to give the WikiLeaks founder asylum, according to an official in Quito

Julian Assange will be granted asylum, says official
Irene Caselli – guardian.co.uk – 14 August, 2012

Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa has agreed to give Julian Assange asylum, officials within Ecuador’s government have said.

The WikiLeaks founder has been holed up at Ecuador’s London embassy since 19 June, when he officially requested political asylum.

“Ecuador will grant asylum to Julian Assange,” said an official in the Ecuadorean capital Quito, who is familiar with the government discussions.

On Monday, Correa told state-run ECTV that he would decide this week whether to grant asylum to Assange. Correa said a large amount of material about international law had to be examined to make a responsible informed decision.

Ecuador’s foreign minister Ricardo Patiño indicated that the president would reveal his answer once the Olympic Games were over. But it remains unclear if giving Assange asylum will allow him to leave Britain and fly to Ecuador, or amounts to little more than a symbolic gesture. At the moment he faces the prospect of arrest as soon as he leaves the embassy for breaching his bail conditions.

“For Mr Assange to leave England, he should have a safe pass from the British [government]. Will that be possible? That’s an issue we have to take into account,” Patino told Reuters on Tuesday.

Government sources in Quito confirmed that despite the outstanding legal issues Correa would grant Assange asylum – a move which would annoy Britain, the US and Sweden. They added that the offer was made to Assange several months ago, well before he sought refuge in the embassy, and following confidential negotiations with senior London embassy staff.

The official with knowledge of the discussions said the embassy had discussed Assange’s asylum request. The British government, however, “discouraged the idea,” the offical said. The Swedish government was also “not very collaborative”, the official said.

The official added: “We see Assange’s request as a humanitarian issue. The contact between the Ecuadorean government and WikiLeaks goes back to May 2011, when we became the first country to see the leaked US embassy cables completely declassified … It is clear that when Julian entered the embassy there was already some sort of deal. We see in his work a parallel with our struggle for national sovereignty and the democratisation of international relations.”

Assange took refuge in Ecuador’s embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct. He is said to be living in one room of the diplomatic building, where he has a high-speed internet connection.

Ecuadorean diplomats believe Assange is at risk of being extradited from Sweden to the US, where he could face the death penalty. Assange’s supporters claim the US has already secretly indicted him following WikiLeaks’ release in 2010 of US diplomatic cables, as well as classified Afghan and Iraq war logs.

Correa and Patiño have both said that Ecuador will take a sovereign decision regarding Assange. They say they view his case as a humanitarian act, and are seeking to protect Assange’s right to life and freedom. On Monday the state-run newspaper El Telégrafo confirmed a decision had been made, although the paper did not specify what that decision was. It said that senior officials had been meeting in the past few days to iron out the last legal details.

Two weeks ago Assange’s mother Christine Assange paid Ecuador an official visit, following an invitation by Ecuador’s foreign affairs ministry. She met with Correa and Patiño, as well as with other top politicians, including Fernando Cordero, head of Ecuador’s legislature. Both Patiño and Ms Assange appeared visibly touched during a press conference, which had to be briefly suspended when Ms Assange started crying.

Ms Assange also held several public meetings in government buildings, and in one case she was accompanied by the head of Assange’s defence team, Baltasar Garzón, the former Spanish judge who ordered the London arrest of Chile’s General Pinochet. …more

Egypt’s president considering amending Camp David Accords
14 August, 2012 – War in Context

Al-Masry Al-Youm reports: President Mohamed Morsy is studying whether to amend the Camp David Accords to ensure Egypt’s full sovereignty and control over every inch of Sinai, said Mohamed Gadallah, legal adviser to the president.

Calls for amending the peace treaty with Israel, which also governs the security presence in the Sinai Peninsula, have been on the rise since last week’s attack on a military checkpoint at the border left 16 Egyptian security officers dead.

Former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi called for the amendments Saturday. The Revolutionary Youth Union has filed a lawsuit before an administrative court demanding that the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel be amended.

Morsy has vowed several times since he took office to preserve international treaties that Egypt has signed.

Gadallah didn’t give more details on the issue while speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm Monday. He added that Morsy would soon order the release of another batch of military detainees. …source

Washington Puts Its Money on Proxy War
The Election Year Outsourcing that No One’s Talking About
By Nick Turse – The TomDispatch

In the 1980s, the U.S. government began funneling aid to mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan as part of an American proxy war against the Soviet Union. It was, in the minds of America’s Cold War leaders, a rare chance to bloody the Soviets, to give them a taste of the sort of defeat the Vietnamese, with Soviet help, had inflicted on Washington the decade before. In 1989, after years of bloody combat, the Red Army did indeed limp out of Afghanistan in defeat. Since late 2001, the United States has been fighting its former Afghan proxies and their progeny. Now, after years of bloody combat, it’s the U.S. that’s looking to withdraw the bulk of its forces and once again employ proxies to secure its interests there.

From Asia and Africa to the Middle East and the Americas, the Obama administration is increasingly embracing a multifaceted, light-footprint brand of warfare. Gone, for the moment at least, are the days of full-scale invasions of the Eurasian mainland. Instead, Washington is now planning to rely ever more heavily on drones and special operations forces to fight scattered global enemies on the cheap. A centerpiece of this new American way of war is the outsourcing of fighting duties to local proxies around the world.

While the United States is currently engaged in just one outright proxy war, backing a multi-nation African force to battle Islamist militants in Somalia, it’s laying the groundwork for the extensive use of surrogate forces in the future, training “native” troops to carry out missions — up to and including outright warfare. With this in mind and under the auspices of the Pentagon and the State Department, U.S. military personnel now take part in near-constant joint exercises and training missions around the world aimed at fostering alliances, building coalitions, and whipping surrogate forces into shape to support U.S. national security objectives.

While using slightly different methods in different regions, the basic strategy is a global one in which the U.S. will train, equip, and advise indigenous forces — generally from poor, underdeveloped nations — to do the fighting (and dying) it doesn’t want to do. In the process, as small an American force as possible, including special forces operatives and air support, will be brought to bear to aid those surrogates. Like drones, proxy warfare appears to offer an easy solution to complex problems. But as Washington’s 30-year debacle in Afghanistan indicates, the ultimate costs may prove both unimaginable and unimaginably high.

Start with Afghanistan itself. For more than a decade, the U.S. and its coalition partners have been training Afghan security forces in the hopes that they would take over the war there, defending U.S. and allied interests as the American-led international force draws down. Yet despite an expenditure of almost $50 billion on bringing it up to speed, the Afghan National Army and other security forces have drastically underperformed any and all expectations, year after year.

One track of the U.S. plan has been a little-talked-about proxy army run by the CIA. For years, the Agency has trained and employed six clandestine militias that operate near the cities of Kandahar, Kabul, and Jalalabad as well as in Khost, Kunar, and Paktika provinces. Working with U.S. Special Forces and controlled by Americans, these “Counterterror Pursuit Teams” evidently operate free of any Afghan governmental supervision and have reportedly carried out cross-border raids into Pakistan, offering their American patrons a classic benefit of proxy warfare: plausible deniability.

This clandestine effort has also been supplemented by the creation of a massive, conventional indigenous security force. While officially under Afghan government control, these military and police forces are almost entirely dependent on the financial support of the U.S. and allied governments for their continued existence.

Today, the Afghan National Security Forces officially number more than 343,000, but only 7% of its army units and 9% of its police units are rated at the highest level of effectiveness. By contrast, even after more than a decade of large-scale Western aid, 95% of its recruits are still functionally illiterate.

Not surprisingly, this massive force, trained by high-priced private contractors, Western European militaries, and the United States, and backed by U.S. and coalition forces and their advanced weapons systems, has been unable to stamp out a lightly-armed, modest-sized, less-than-popular, rag-tag insurgency. One of the few tasks this proxy force seems skilled at is shooting American and allied forces, quite often their own trainers, in increasingly common “green-on-blue” attacks.

Adding insult to injury, this poor-performing, coalition-killing force is expensive. Bought and paid for by the United States and its coalition partners, it costs between $10 billion and $12 billion each year to sustain in a country whose gross domestic product is just $18 billion. Over the long term, such a situation is untenable.

Back to the Future

Utilizing foreign surrogates is nothing new. Since ancient times, empires and nation-states have employed foreign troops and indigenous forces to wage war or have backed them when it suited their policy aims. By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the tactic had become de rigueur for colonial powers like the French who employed Senegalese, Moroccans, and other African forces in Indochina and elsewhere, and the British who regularly used Nepalese Gurkhas to wage counterinsurgencies in places ranging from Iraq and Malaya to Borneo. …more

Saudi court in Riyadh brought ten charges against senior Shia cleric ‘Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer’
Shia Post – 14 August, 2012

Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer who has been held for one year without trial had been presented to Central Criminal Court in Riyadh 9 August 2012.

Central Criminal Court filed ten charges against Sheikh al-Amer, as in an charge sheet.

Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer, the Shia leader prayer of the Imam Baqi mosque in the town of al-Hofouf in al-Ahsa district of the Eastern Province, was arrested on 3 August 2011 by the General Intelligence (Al-Mabahith Al-’Aamma) of Al-Ahsa.

Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer called for a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia which is an absolute monarchy.

His charges range from tarnishing the reputation of the state, calling for the conservative Islamic kingdom to become a constitutional monarchy, equal rights for the oppressed Shia minority and put an end to sectarian discrimination in the country.

It is worth to mention that Shaikh Tawfiq al-’Amer was arrested on 27 February 2011 by the Saudi General Intelligence.

On June 22, 2008 Shaikh Tawfiq al-’Amer was arrested, after he spoke out in a sermon he gave in Hofuf on June 11 against a May 30 statement signed by 22 prominent Saudi Wahhabi clerics, including Abdullah bin Jibrin, Abd al-Rahman al-Barrak, and Nasir al-‘Umar, in which they called the “Shia sect an evil among the sects of the Islamic nation, and the greatest enemy and deceivers of the Sunni people.”

In September 2008 , Shaikh al-’Amer was arrested for the second time according a direct order from the Interior Minister (Nayef bin Abdulaziz).

In April 2005 Shaikh al-’Amer was arrested over his supporting religious and societal activities in his town.

Sheikh Amer is one of the prominent advocates of civil rights and freedoms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Also, he is well knows for his bold views of reforms at high levels. …source

Russia denies move to put Bahrain in UN focus
By Habib Toumi – 13 August, 2012 – Gulf News

Manama: Russia’s ambassador to Bahrain has denied a report that his country had suggested putting Bahrain’s political situation on the agenda of the Security Council.

“The report is groundless and lacks credibility,” Victor Smirnov told Bahraini officials as well as MPs Ahmad Al Saati, the head of the Bahrain Parliamentary Bloc, and Sawsan Al Taqawi, the head of the Foreign, Defence and National Security Commission, in separate meetings.

The media report surfaced over the weekend and the suggestion to discuss the situation in Bahrain was attributed to the Russian permanent representative at the United Nations.

According to the report that cited ‘diplomatic sources’ it did not name, the US, France and the UK were shocked by the Russian suggestion to debate developments in Bahrain. It did not mention the reaction of China, the fifth member of the Security Council, to the alleged suggestion.

However, Smirnov told the two Bahraini lawmakers that Moscow did not issue any new formal statement on Bahrain, saying that Russia’s positions are “clear” and “posted on the foreign ministry website”.

Official statements on Russia’s policy are made by the president, the foreign minister or his deputy only and other statements, even if they are issued by officials, do not reflect Russia’s position, the diplomat was quoted as telling the Bahraini MPs. …more

Bahrain Uprising: Police Fire Tear Gas, Rubber Bullets On Protesters
RT – 14 August, 2012

Dozens of people have reportedly been injured after the army fired rubber bullets at protesters during a recent escalation of violence in Bahrain. Several Bahraini towns have witnessed heavy clashes between protesters and regime forces.

Activists posted on Twitter scores of photos showing fresh injuries from rubber bullets as well as clouds of teargas in the streets of Bahrain.

Most of the reports of violence were coming from one of Bahrain’s largest cities A’ali. Clashes have also been reported in Saar, Sitra, Karanah and several other cities.
Bahrain

Bahrain

Activists say at least two people were detained during the latest night of clashes. Authorities have deployed additional troops and, reportedly, tanks to patrol the streets.

The ongoing uprising by the country’s Shiite majority, which claims systematic discrimination on the part of Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy, has weakened after multiple mass arrests. At least 50 people have been killed and many more detained since protests began 18 months ago.

The Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, a leading Bahraini opposition party, accuses the regime of keeping around 1,400 prisoners as political hostages to put pressure on the opposition. One of its leading figures, Khalil Al-Marzooq, told RT that the authorities are violently suppressing protests and arresting citizens on a daily basis to prevent the people from expressing their lawful demands.

“They do not want anyone to protest, especially in the last few months, and they crash any movement by the youth now, when they fire excessive tear-gas and shotguns at these demonstrators,” Al-Marzooq said. “And some of the youth unfortunately retaliate with Molotov cocktails because of the anger,” he added.

Several dozens of opposition leaders and prominent human rights activists have been detained since protests began and the court is due to decide their fate. This is one of the reasons why the protests intensified recently, Al-Marzooq says.

“Today and especially tonight lots of youths went to the street to demonstrate calling for the release of these people,” Al-Marzooq said. These prominent detainees have become “symbols” for activists, inspiring them to demonstrate peacefully without fear of repressions from the authorities, he explained.

“All of these are not going back home,” he said. “Even if they are detained ten times and released, they will continue to be in the streets until we reach our dignity, freedom, and reach a political system that we desire.”

Al-Marzooq believes that the international community will eventually change its “biased” stance on the Bahraini regime’s violations of human rights and that will speed up the “Bahraini revolution.”

“What is happening in Bahrain is absolute monarchy. There is no real representation for the people in the cabinet, the legislative authority and the judicial authority and security,” he said. “The Bahraini people are able to make it and we will make it. We will see what happened in Egypt and Tunisia happen in Bahrain.” …source

Israeli official warns Hezbollah against aiding Iran
14 August, 2012 – Al Akhbar

A senior Israeli military official warned Hezbollah on Tuesday it will suffer a “harsh and painful” blow if it assists Iran in the event of an Israeli strike against the Islamic republic, Israeli media reported.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth cited an anonymous official who said Israel will target all of Lebanon, and not just Hezbollah strongholds, in any future war.

“Hezbollah will not be the only one to pay the price; the entire nation of Lebanon will,” he said.

“I suggest Hezbollah not test us.”

The Israeli official conceded Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal has increased since the last war in July 2006, and that its capabilities can reach the entire Jewish state.

“Since the Second Lebanon War there have been six years of calm. After the next war there will be 10 years of calm,” he said.

Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in a war of words in recent months, issuing threats and counter-threats as speculation mounts of a possible Israeli strike on Iran.

The Lebanese Shia group is an important ally of Iran, and successfully thwarted an Israeli invasion attempt in 2006.

The official’s remarks come a day after former Israeli Mossad chief Danny Yatom said Israel would have to destroy parts of Lebanon and Gaza as part of any strike on Iran, to offset threats on its borders.

“We will have to stop the firing of missiles, both from the north and the south, as quickly as possible.”

To do this, he said, Israel would have to “act with great force against infrastructure in Lebanon and Gaza, and it is possible that the price that Lebanon and Gaza will pay will be horrible,” he told Israel Radio on Monday.

“We are liable to destroy, or likely to destroy, parts of Lebanon, and parts of Gaza, so that our citizens will not suffer and be killed,” he said.

Hezbollah denies member kidnapped in Syria

Meanwhile, Hezbollah denied on Tuesday a media report that a member had been kidnapped by Syrian rebels in Syria.

Saudi channel Al-Arabiya reported that Hassan Salim al-Miqdad had been detained by the Free Syrian Army in Damascus, a claim denied by Hezbollah’s media office.

In a statement, Hezbollah said that Miqdad was not a member of the party.

Hezbollah is still working to secure the release of 11 kidnapped Lebanese Shia pilgrims being held near Aleppo by rebels.

The pilgrims were detained while returning from a trip in Iran by bus in May. The rebels released the women on the bus, but kept the men, charging them with being members of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah denied the charges, insisting the men were pilgrims, while the released female relatives, now in Beirut, continue to claim that the Free Syrian Army was responsible for the kidnapping.

The Free Syrian Army denied at the time it was involved.

Hezbollah has stood by President Bashar al-Assad during the uprising, angering Syria’s opposition groups who had hoped Lebanon’s powerful Shia movement would back their revolt.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has previously stated he was willing to play a mediation role between opposition groups and the regime. …source

Saudi Arabia a dictatorship: Swedish defence minister Sweden
14 August, 2012 – PressTV

“Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian regime and an absolute monarchy, where serious human rights crimes are committed.”

Sweden’s Defense Minister Karin Enstrom Sweden’s defense minister has criticized the violation of human rights in Saudi Arabia, describing the kingdom as a “dictatorship.”

“Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian regime and an absolute monarchy, where serious human rights crimes are committed,” Karin Enstrom told the Swedish news agency TT.

“The (Swedish) government does not qualify countries as democracies or dictatorships, but if the only choices to describe Saudi Arabia are as a democracy or dictatorship, then Saudi Arabia has to be described as a dictatorship,” said Enstrom, who is also a member of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s conservative Moderate Party.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Saudi regime ”routinely represses expression critical of the government”.

Since February 2011, protesters have held demonstrations on an almost regular basis in Saudi Arabia, mainly in Qatif and Awamiyah in Eastern Province, primarily calling for the release of all political prisoners, freedom of expression and assembly, as well as an end to widespread discrimination.

However, the demonstrations have turned into protests against the repressive Al Saud regime, especially since November 2011 when Saudi security forces killed five protesters and injured many others in the province.

Similar demonstrations have also been held in Riyadh and the holy city of Medina over the past few weeks. …more

Letter to a Revolutionary

Ya Qalbi,

Yesterday I read a letter from Mashrou3 Leila:

“Today I found myself walking down Hamra Street, humming Abdul-Halim Hafez’s ‘Ana Leik Ala Tool’ to myself, and I could swear I heard you singing the harmony into my ear. It made me giggle a little burn into my chest. I worry you might get caught in a protest, imprisoned, kidnapped, missing, gone. But I know you need to do what you need to do; I wouldn’t ask you not to, but please be safe. Someday, I promise, worry will be a sentiment completely alien to us.”

These words spoke to me, they spoke to the little demon worrier that seems to have taken residence up in my head. The letter spoke of fears of loss, it spoke of courage and of strength. It spoke of accepting the evidence of the need to fight, despite the dangers and the intimidation, despite the worry and the dread. You know this is what I struggle with the most, you know I couldn’t bear to lose you to the claws of an absurd regime. You know me, inside and out.

Leila’s story is fictional but for us it is all too real, or maybe she’s just a projection of a million fears experienced by a million hearts, making her more real than we could ever be.

You and I my friend are the children of the demise and disappointment of all our comrades before us, and the parents of an angry movement of hope : we tried and are still trying to revive the spark of contestation and revolution , and we’ve managed to a certain extent, or so I would like to believe. We’re marching for our present, yes, for our future, certainly, but we are also marching for our fallen friends, the ones who got killed and crushed and harassed and silenced. The ones who are still alive, They’re older now, they’re bitter, too, they don’t seem like they still can find the strength in them to carry on, yet you can find them next to us, their eyes barely daring to believe again, carrying in their hearts the memory of all they have lost, just like we carry in ours the smiles of those of whom we’re separated from by the inexorability of death or by the atrocity of prison walls and tortures.

My love, it seems like we have lost the innocence of youth and with it the ability to enjoy things in their superficiality. We can not be fooled anymore, and perhaps some days this realization is too painful for us to bear. My love, we are too dangerous for them to avoid us, they will hunt us down, we shall be prepared.

I keep hearing people comfortably sitting on plush chairs pompously labeling what we do: the Iranian “Green Movement” or the “Twitter Revolution”, as if Evin had never existed, as if the Iranians had never risen before the invention of social media. “The Arab Spring” now being replaced by the “Arab Autumn” or even “Winter”, as if revolutions could ever be expressed in terms of fucking seasons, as if we were sleeping and awoke like some sort of natural process, what are we, fruits or something? Pardon my language my sweet friend, but condescension irks me and I’ve never been one to shut up.

It has been a long time since we’ve started my beloved, and we are tired, yet the road up ahead seems even more tortuous and long, paved with too many traps for us to comprehend. Some of us decide to retreat, others become suicidal, we lose a few along the way, the sufferings are too much for anyone to bear.

Yet there we still are, despite the tears and the frustration and the tension and the deaths and the threats. Yet we continue, doing what we can, each at its own level, because we owe it to ourselves, to those who died, to those who fight, to those who lost, to those who are too deprived of privilege to attract wide attention to their cases.

This isn’t a Winter, this isn’t a season, this isn’t a moment that shall pass. This is a Revolution, a process, and it shall take its own sweet time.

We’re ready for it.

…source

Bahrain: Justice Delayed for the 13 Detained Political and Human Rights Figures
14 August, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The higher court of appeal held a session today to issue its verdict in the appeal trial of the 13 political and Human Rights activists, however the verdict has been delayed until the 4 September 2012 for no reason. The activists were originally sentenced in a military court to between five years and life imprisonment and the court of cassation has voided the verdicts on 30 April 2012, however the activists were not released.

Bahrain center for Human Rights believes this appeal trial is not more than a show and a delay of justice that adds up to the violations to the rights of the detained activists as it’s based on the invalid verdicts of the military court at time those verdicts should be called void for the unconstitutionality of the military courts and for being proved to be solely based on coerced confessions taken under severe torture as openly described in the report by the independent commission of inquiry (BICI) appointed by the king.

The activists had submitted their appeals since Oct 2011, however the court of cassation didn’t hold any hearing session until April 2012 when it ruled on 30 April 2012 that the National Safety Court (military court) verdict does not outline the crime elements, neither in its Mens rea nor its Actus reus, and is therefore “a void verdict that should be reversed”. As such, the activists should have been released immediately, however they were dragged into another show of trials at the higher court of appeal were a fast trial was held between 8 May 2012 until 27 July 2012 through 16 hearing sessions.

The activists have detailed to the court the torture they were subjected to throughout their detention and even though their torturers have been named. There has not been any investigation into these allegations.

Instead of prosecuting the officers involved in torture, the coerced confessions taken under torture and the interrogation records prepared by the military prosecution were used against the activists at the higher court of appeal as sole evidence. The file in the court’s possession lacks any decisive evidence that links activists to the charges in question. …more

Libyan fighters join Syrian revolt against Assad
14 August, 2012 – By Mariam Karouny – Reuters

BEIRUT: Veteran fighters of last year’s civil war in Libya have come to the front-line in Syria, helping to train and organise rebels under conditions far more dire than those in the battle against Moammar Gadhafi, a Libyan-Irish fighter has told Reuters.

Hussam Najjar hails from Dublin, has a Libyan father and Irish mother and goes by the name of Sam. A trained sniper, he was part of the rebel unit that stormed Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli a year ago, led by Mahdi al-Harati, a powerful militia chief from Libya’s western mountains.

Harati now leads a unit in Syria, made up mainly of Syrians but also including some foreign fighters, including 20 senior members of his own Libyan rebel unit. He asked Najjar to join him from Dublin a few months ago, Najjar said.

The Libyans aiding the Syrian rebels include specialists in communications, logistics, humanitarian issues and heavy weapons, he said. They operate training bases, teaching fitness and battlefield tactics.

Najjar said he was surprised to find how poorly armed and disorganised the Syrian rebels were, describing Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority as far more repressed and downtrodden under Assad than Libyans were under Gadhafi.

“I was shocked. There is nothing you are told that can prepare you for what you see. The state of the Sunni Muslims there – their state of mind, their fate – all of those things have been slowly corroded over time by the regime.”

“I nearly cried for them when I saw the weapons. The guns are absolutely useless. We are being sold leftovers from the Iraqi war, leftovers from this and that,” he said. “Luckily these are things that we can do for them: we know how to fix weapons, how to maintain them, find problems and fix them.”

In the months since he arrived, the rebel arsenal had become “five times more powerful”, he said. Fighters had obtained large calibre anti-aircraft guns and sniper rifles.

…more

Israeli Antiwar Protests chant ‘Ehud, are you out of your fucking mind’

Israel will not launch “stupid” attack: Iran
14 August, 2012 -Al Akhbar

Iran on Tuesday said it is dismissing Israeli threats of an imminent attack against it, explaining that even some Israeli officials realized such a “stupid” act would provoke “very severe consequences.”

“In our calculations, we aren’t taking these claims very seriously because we see them as hollow and baseless,” foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters in a weekly briefing.

“Even if some officials in the illegitimate regime (Israel) want to carry out such a stupid action, there are those inside (the Israeli government) who won’t allow it because they know they would suffer very severe consequences from such an act,” he said.

Iran’s defense minister, General Ahmad Vahidi, was quoted by the ISNA news agency saying that Israel “definitely doesn’t have what it takes to endure Iran’s might and will.”

He called the Israeli threats “a sign of weakness” by “brainless leaders.”

The comments were a response to bellicose rhetoric from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in recent days suggesting they were thinking more seriously of military action against Iranian nuclear facilities.

“We are determined to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear (armed), and all the options are on the table. When we say it, we mean it,” Barak told Israeli radio last Thursday.

Israeli media have underlined the threat, reporting that a decision could be made within weeks. They have also highlighted opposition to the idea by current and former Israeli military officials.

The United States has recently multiplied visits by top officials to Israel in what appears to be an attempt to dissuade the Jewish state from targeting the Islamic republic.

“We continue to believe there is time and space for diplomacy,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday.

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Turkish army stages military drill at Syria frontier: report
14 August 14, 2012 – Agence France Presse

ANKARA: The Turkish army on Tuesday staged a new military drill near its border with Syria, in the throes of an uprising that has led to deteriorating relations between the neighbouring nations, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkish tanks accompanied by advanced armoured personnel carriers and tactical missile-launching platforms were deployed at the Oncupinar crossing in southern Kilis province for the drill, the report said.

Tuesday’s drill follows several military exercises at the Syrian border after the government warned that it would pursue Kurdish rebels across the frontier.

Turkish media has interpreted the drills as a show of force against Damascus, which Ankara accuses of giving a freehand to Syrian Kurds allowing them to launch cross-border attacks in Turkey.

The relationship between Ankara and Damascus hit an all-time low after a Turkish Phantom jet was brought down by Syrian fire on June 22, killing its two-men crew and leading Ankara to brand Damascus as a “hostile” opponent.

The Syrian regime counters the Turkish accusations with claims that Turkey is supporting “terrorists” to bring down the regime, referring to the Free Syrian Army of defecting soldiers, currently based on Turkish soil near the border.

The jet shoot-down, still under investigation, triggered a massive military build-up all along the 900-kilometre (550-mile) border, shuttered by large numbers of Turkish tanks, weapons, missile batteries and troops.

Turkey is currently home to more than 60,000 Syrian refugees in several camps along the border where rebel forces made up of army defectors are also based.
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1917 Russian Revolution

The 1917 Russian Revolution was not, as many people suppose, one well organised event in which Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown and Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power. It was a series of events that took place during 1917, which entailed two separate revolutions in February and October (with a great deal of political wranglings inbetween), and which eventually plunged the country into Civil War before leading to the founding of the Communist State.

Growing Unrest

The first major event of the Russian Revolution was the February Revolution, which was a chaotic affair and the culmination of over a century of civil and military unrest. The causes of this unrest of the common people towards the Tsar and aristocratic landowners are too many and complicated to neatly summarise, but key factors to consider were ongoing resentment at the cruel treatment of peasants by patricians, poor working conditions experienced by city workers in the fledgling industrial economy and a growing sense of political and social awareness of the lower orders in general (democratic ideas were reaching Russia from the West and being touted by political activists). Dissatisfaction of the proletarian lot was further compounded by food shortages and military failures. In 1905 Russia experienced humilating losses in the Russo-Japanese war and, during a demonstration against the war in the same year, Tsarist troops fired upon an unarmed crowd – further dividing Nicholas II from his people. Widespread strikes, riots and the famous mutiny on the Battleship Potemkin ensued.

Such was the climate in 1905 in fact that Tsar Nicholas saw fit, against his will, to cede the people their wishes. In his October Manifesto, Nicholas created Russia’s first constitution and the State Duma, an elected parliamentary body. However Nicholas’s belief in his divine right to rule Russia meant that he spent much of the following years fighting to undermine or strip the Duma of its powers and to retain as much autocracy as possible. (Modern historians might note that Russian rulers haven’t come a long way in the last hundred years!).

When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by political activists in Serbia in 1914, the Austro-Hungarian empire declared war on its neighbours. Serbia turned to Russia for help. Tsar Nicholas II saw a chance to galvanise his people against a common enemy, and to atone for the humiliations suffered in the Russo-Japanese war. It didn’t quite work out however…

World War I

In many ways Russia’s disastrous participation in World War I was the final blow to Tsarist rule. In the very first engagement with the Germans (who had sided with the Austro-Hungarian Empire), the Battle of Tannenberg, the Russian army was comprehensively beaten suffering 120,000 casualties to Germany’s 20,000. A continuing series of losses and setbacks meant that Nicholas left St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1915 to take personal control of the army. By this time Russia was sending conscripts and untrained troops to the front, with little or no equipment and fighting in an almost continual retreat. In 1916 morale reached an all time low as the pressure of waging the war fell hardest on prolaterian families, whose sons were being slaughtered at the front and who severe suffered food and fuel shortages at home. The Tsar and the Imperial regime took the blame as civil unrest heated up to boiling point.

The February Revolution (1917)

On 23rd February 1917 the International Women’s Day Festival in St. Petersburg turned into a city-wide demonstration, as exasperated women workers left factories to protest against food shortages. Men soon joined them, and on the following day – encouraged by political and social activists – the crowds had swelled and virtually every industry, shop and enterprise had ceased to function as almost the entire populace went on strike.

Nicholas ordered the police and military to intervene, however the military was no longer loyal to the Tsar and many mutinied or joined the people in demonstrations. Fights broke out and the whole city was in chaos. On October 28th over 80,000 troops mutinied from the army and looting and rioting was widespread.

Faced with this untenable situation Tsar Nicholas abdicated his throne, handing power to his brother Michael. However Michael would not accept leadership unless he was elected by the Duma. He resigned the following day, leaving Russia without a head of state.

The Provisional Government

After the abdication of the Romanovs a Provisional Government was quickly formed by leading members of the Duma and recognised internationally as Russia’s legal government. It was to rule Russia until elections could be held. However it’s power was by no means absolute or stable. The more radical Petrograd Soviet organisation was a trade union of workers and soldiers that wielded enormous influence. It favoured full-scale Socialism over more moderate democratic reforms generally favoured by members of the Provisional Government.

After centuries of Imperial rule Russia was consumed with political fervour, but the many different factions, all touting different ideas, meant that political stability was still a long way off directly after February Revolution.
[Read more →]

Anti-government protests rock heart of Tunisia revolt
14 August, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Hundreds of protesters demonstrated against Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party during a general strike Tuesday in Sidi Bouzid, hub of the 2011 uprising, an AFP journalist reported.

Residents of Sidi Bouzid were among hundreds of members of the political opposition and trade unions, as well as civil society groups and employer organizations to march towards the court house on the outskirts of the town.

They shouted slogans including: “The people want the fall of the regime!” and “Justice, woe to you, Ennahda has power over you!” in reference to the moderate Islamist party that heads Tunisia’s ruling coalition after winning elections last October.

Offices and shops were shut in the town center, although some butchers stayed open to allow customers to prepare for the iftar evening meal, when Muslims break their day-long fast during Ramadan.

Tunisia’s main union, the UGTT, had called the strike in Sidi Bouzid to put pressure on the government to release detained activists, and to develop the marginalized region.

Government spokesman Samir Dilou said the strike was unjustified, and criticized the opposition for exploiting legitimate social grievances.

“I don’t think the call for a general strike is justified… I think there are only political considerations here, with political parties involved,” Dilou, who is also human rights minister, told private radio Mosaique FM.

Dilou acknowledged that “difficult living conditions in certain regions” are provoking people to take to the streets and pledged that the government would address those hardships with “understanding.”

The demonstrators also denounced authorities for suppressing recent protests and urged them to free activists arrested last week during demonstrations that were dispersed by police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

By 1100 GMT the activists had gathered outside the court house, which was protected by a heavy deployment of police.

Some protesters smashed the window of a car belonging to an Al-Jazeera TV crew – the Qatar-based satellite news channel is accused by government critics of supporting Ennahda – but otherwise no violence was reported.

Separately, around 150 Ennahda supporters staged a rival protest in the town center.

Tunisia’s Islamist-led government has faced growing dissent in recent weeks.

On Monday thousands of people demonstrated in the capital Tunis for women’s rights, in the biggest show of force by the opposition since April.

The central town of Sidi Bouzid is the birthplace of the 2011 uprising that toppled strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and touched off the Arab Spring in several countries of the region ruled by autocratic regimes.

The Tunisian uprising was triggered when a street vendor immolated himself in December 2010 in protest over his own precarious livelihood.

The town is located in a particularly marginalized region, and analysts warn that poor living conditions and high youth unemployment there and elsewhere – driving factors behind the revolution – have improved little since then.
…source