Texas man pleads guilty in plot to kill Saudi ambassador
The Associated Press – 17 October, 2012

NEW YORK — A Texas man pleaded guilty Wednesday to plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, agreeing to hire what he thought was a drug dealer in Mexico last year for $1.5 million to carry out the attack with explosives at a Washington restaurant.

Manssor Arbabsiar, 57, entered the plea to two conspiracy charges and a murder-for-hire count in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where Judge John F. Keenan repeatedly asked Arbabsiar whether he intended to kill the ambassador. Arbabsiar, a U.S. citizen who holds an Iranian passport, said he did.

Sentencing was set for Jan. 23, when defense lawyers are likely to cite their claims that Arbabsiar is bipolar in asking for leniency. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Kim asked Arbabsiar if Iranian military officials based in Iran were involved in the plot. Arbabsiar said they were.

In a news release issued after the plea, Attorney General Eric Holder cited the efforts of law enforcement and intelligence agencies in disrupting “a deadly plot approved by members of the Iranian military to assassinate a sitting foreign ambassador on U.S. soil.”

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara noted that the harm likely would have extended beyond the ambassador, calling Arbabsiar “the extended murderous hand of his co-conspirators, officials of the Iranian military based in Iran, who plotted to kill the Saudi Ambassador in the United States and were willing to kill as many bystanders as necessary to do so.”

He said Arbabsiar “was in telephone contact with his Iranian confederates while he brokered an audacious plot.”

Arbabsiar admitted that he was directed by Iranian military officials to go to Mexico on multiple occasions from the spring to the fall last year to arrange the assassination.

Arbabsiar, who lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, for more than a decade, said he met a man in Mexico named Junior, “who turned out to be an FBI agent.” He said that he and others had agreed to arrange the kidnapping of the ambassador, Adel Al-Jubeir, but Junior said it would be easier to kill the ambassador. The agent was actually a Drug Enforcement Administration confidential source posing as a representative of a drug cartel.

The government said in a news release that Arbabsiar had described to the DEA source how his cousin in Iran, a “big general” in the Iranian military, had requested that Arbabsiar find someone to carry out the ambassador’s assassination. It said Arbabsiar rejected as “no big deal” the DEA’s worries about bystanders in a restaurant bombing, including the possibility that U.S. senators who dine there could be killed.

Arbabsiar has been held without bail since he was arrested Sept. 29, 2011 at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He was brought into court Wednesday in handcuffs. He spoke English and did not use a translator, despite saying he understood only about half of what he read in English. Bearded and bespectacled, he smiled several times during the proceeding, including in the direction of courtroom artists who were seated in the jury box when he entered court.

Kim said that if the government had proceeded to trial, it would have presented a jury with secretly recorded conversations between Arbabsiar and the confidential source, along with Arbabsiar’s extensive post-arrest statement to authorities and emails and financial records.

Authorities have said they secretly recorded conversations between Arbabsiar and the DEA informant after Arbabsiar approached the informant in Mexico and asked his knowledge of explosives for a plot to blow up the Saudi embassy in Washington. They said Arbabsiar later offered $1.5 million for the death of the ambassador.

Arbabsiar admitted Wednesday that he made a $100,000 down payment wired from an overseas account through a Manhattan bank in two wire transfers on Aug. 1, 2011, and Aug. 9, 2011.

After his arrest, Arbabsiar confessed that he was recruited, funded and directed by men he believed were senior officials in Iran’s Qods Force, a branch of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that in 2007 was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a supporter of the Taliban and terrorist organizations, the government said.

It said he claimed that he met several times in Iran with Gholam Shakuri, a co-conspirator and Iran-based member of the Qods Force, and another senior Qods Force official. After his arrest, Arbabsiar made phone calls at the direction of law enforcement to Shakuri in Iran and Shakuri confirmed that Arbabsiar should move forward with the ambassador plot, the government said.

Shakuri, also charged in the plot, remains a fugitive.

Arab rights group slams Bahraini regime’s repression
15 October, 2012 – PressTV

ANHRI condemns the use of the excessive force, by the Bahraini authorities, to suppress the peaceful demonstrations that took place in several regions in Bahrain.”

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has censured the Bahraini regime’s use of “excessive force” against peaceful protests in the Persian Gulf country.

“[The] ANHRI condemns the use of the excessive force, by the Bahraini authorities, to suppress the peaceful demonstrations that took place in several regions in Bahrain,” the Arab rights organization said in a statement on Saturday.

The Cairo-based rights group said that “the continuation of clear hostility against the peaceful demonstrations and the use of force and violence against demonstrations who call for reform, are an attempt to infanticide the Bahraini uprising.”

The rights group also added that Bahraini authorities should release all political prisoners and stop arresting rights activists.

Suppressing anti-regime protesters “proves that there is no indication that Bahrain intends to change its suppressive policy again[st] freedom of expression, opinion and people’s right of peaceful demonstrations,” it said.

It also called on the international community to pressure Bahrain to respect human rights conventions.

“The international society has to interfere to press the Bahraini regime to make sure it applies the obligations binding to it in accordance with the international covenants and human rights’ charters, in addition, to execute the recommendations stipulated in the report of the universal periodic review in Geneva,” the ANHRI said.

Bahrain’s revolution started in mid-February 2011, when demonstrators, inspired by the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive anti-regime protests.

Dozens of people have been killed in the regime’s crackdown and the security forces have arrested hundreds, including doctors and nurses accused of treating injured protesters.

A report published by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry in November 2011 found that the Al Khalifa regime had used ‘excessive force’ in the campaign of suppression and accused Manama of torturing political activists, politicians, and protesters. …more

Silencing Press TV is murdering the truth: Prominent analyst
17 October, 2012 – By Finian Cunningham – Press TV

In many ways, the gagging of Press TV by European powers is the equivalent to the murder of Maya Naser. It is the silencing of a voice that is otherwise exposing the truth about these powers: their criminality, duplicity, hypocrisy and their moral bankruptcy.”

Let’s be clear: this outrageous gagging of Iranian news media by a European satellite firm has the imprint of approval from the EU governments.

It would be incredible that such an offensive move by a private business company did not receive the go-ahead from governments in London, Paris and Berlin in particular. These powers have worked assiduously to create the noxious political climate, with their relentless poisonous propaganda against Iran, which has, in turn, facilitated this latest assault on the airwaves. The move is comparable to these governments subcontracting private military firms and mercenaries to do their dirty work.

The irony is that it is the British, French and German governments that, along with Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara, Riyadh and Doha, that are running amok in many parts of the world, smashing up international law and committing crimes against humanity on a massive scale. We only have to look at the criminal wars of aggression and illegal occupations in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria to identify those political entities that are posing the real threat to world peace and human rights.

Press TV has emerged as one of the few news broadcasters that is telling it like it is when it comes to the many conflicts raging across the world. Telling it like it is means informing the public of the real level of suffering for Palestinian civilians (not ‘suspected terrorists’) being bombed on a daily basis by American and European-backed Israeli warplanes. Telling it like it is means asking searching questions about why the US-led military forces are occupying Afghanistan after 11 years, killing civilians in their homes during endless night raids. Telling it like it is means reporting with appropriate focus on the murder of families in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen with American drone attacks that are personally signed off every week by an American president from the comfort of his White House. It means exposing how the sabotage and terror being waged across Syria – as in Libya last year – would not be happening only for the criminal, covert weapons and support given to mercenary gangs by Washington, London and Berlin, along with the rulers of Turkey, Israel and the Persian Gulf monarchies.

Telling it like it is means pointing out the rank hypocrisy and duplicity of Western governments supporting absolute monarchs in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates who are massacring peaceful protesters on the streets and in their homes because their people are simply calling for democracy and human rights. It means exposing these same Western-backed dictators locking up and torturing doctors, nurses and human rights defenders because they stretched out a helping hand to civilians butchered by security forces; yet these same Western-backed despotic misrulers are, laughably, calling for reform and free speech in other places of the world – where the real cynical agenda is “regime change”.

Tuning into or reading the Western and Arab media is an exercise in occlusion and omission. One would never glean any of the horrendous realities and truths about the criminality of Western governments, the military industrial financial complex they serve, and their proxies and puppet regimes. But these media are not just passively inadequate in their coverage of major events. They are actively functioning to cover up or downplay the crimes of their governments. That is why such media are in no danger of being banned in North America or Europe. Far from it, these outlets are providing a vital service in disseminating the disinformation of their governments and their corporate oligarchies – with the precise objective of emasculating any public understanding and opposition to criminal policies and practices. …more

Iran Foreign Ministry dismisses Bahraini interference allegations
16 October, 2012 – Islamic Invitation Turkey

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has dismissed Bahraini claims about Tehran interfering in Manama’s internal affairs.

During his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Mehmanparast said the stance of the Islamic Republic toward Bahrain is clear and Tehran has repeatedly announced that paying attention to people’s demands is the only way to ensure stability in any country.

“Suppressing people only complicates the problems,” the Iranian official said.

Bahrain summoned the Iranian Charge d’affaires Mahdi Islami on Monday over claims that Tehran is interfering in Manama’s internal affairs.

Mehmanparast said providing ground for the participation of the Bahrainis in the political affairs of their country would eliminate the need for accusing others of interference.

“Accusing other countries so that popular demands may be ignored and suppressed would bear no fruit,” Mehmanparast said.

Bahrain’s revolution started in mid-February 2011, when demonstrators, inspired by the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive anti-regime protests.

Dozens of people have been killed in the regime’s crackdown and the security forces have arrested hundreds, including doctors and nurses accused of treating injured protesters.

A report published by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry in November 2011 found that the Al Khalifa regime had used ‘excessive force’ in the campaign of suppression and accused Manama of torturing political activists, politicians, and protesters. …source

Saudi Arabia warns that protesters will be ‘firmly dealt with’
16 October, 2012 – Amnesty International

Warning coincides with veiled threat to UK over parliamentary investigation

The Saudi Arabian authorities must withdraw their threat to deal “firmly” with people taking part in demonstrations and refrain from detaining those who exercise their right to peaceful protest, Amnesty International said today.

The organisation’s call came after the country’s Interior Ministry last week issued a statement warning those taking part in demonstrations that they would face prosecution and be “firmly dealt with” by members of the security forces.

The Interior Ministry threat was followed this week by Saudi Arabia’s UK ambassador warning that Saudi Arabia would “not tolerate or accept any foreign interference in the workings” of his home country or neighbouring ones after a parliamentary committee announced its intention to investigate the UK’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The Interior Ministry statement also disclosed the names of ten people who have undergone, or are undergoing, judicial procedures in relation to crimes of “the deviant group”. They included the human rights activist Mohammed Saleh al-Bajady, who in April was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and a five-year travel ban for communicating with foreign bodies “to carry out activities that undermine security”.

Al-Bajady was also reportedly convicted of participating in the establishment of a human rights organisation, harming the image of the state through the media, calling on the families of detainees to protest and hold sit-ins, contesting the independence of the judiciary and having banned books in his possession. He has been held since his arrest on 21 March 2011, a day after he attended a demonstration in the capital Riyadh by families of detainees protesting that their relatives were held without charge.

Al-Bajady is a co-founder of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), an unregistered NGO which was set up in 2009 to campaign for civil and political reforms. It has also campaigned on behalf of detainees held without charge or trial and those they consider to be political prisoners.

Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Director Philip Luther said:

“The Saudi authorities must end their repeated moves to stifle people’s attempts to protest against the widespread use of arbitrary detention in the country.

“The right of people to peaceful protest must be respected and the security forces must refrain from detaining or using excessive force against people who exercise it.

“Amnesty International considers Mohammed Saleh al-Bajady to be a prisoner of conscience convicted on charges that amount to the criminalisation of his rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.

“He appears to have been targeted for his human rights activism and must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

Background:
Although protests in the kingdom are banned, they have been regularly taking place since February 2011, particularly in the Eastern Province. Hundreds of people have been arrested, though most have been subsequently released.

Since November 2011, around a dozen men have died and a number of others injured after being shot by the security forces during or in connection with protests in the Eastern Province. The Saudi Arabian authorities have stated that the deaths and injuries occurred during exchanges between the security forces and individuals who had used firearms or Molotov cocktails, but there are concerns that the security forces in at least some cases used excessive – and lethal – force against unarmed protesters.

Most recently, on 26 September, around two men were killed and a third later died from his injuries when security forces raided a house in order to arrest one of 23 men wanted for “stirring up unrest”. The wanted man was killed, along with two of his companions. Amnesty is not aware of the exact circumstances of the deaths and is calling on the authorities to order an impartial and independent investigation.

There has also been a recent increase in the number of protests taking place in other areas in support of those who detained, some without charge or trial, in the name of “security”. During the last few weeks, protests have occurred on this issue in the capital Riyadh, and the Qassim Province. On 23 September scores of people, including women and children, were surrounded by security forces and left without food or water until the following day after they had gathered in the desert around Tarfiya prison in Qassim to call for the release of relatives. Scores of men were reportedly arrested the following day and beaten at the time of arrest. Rima al-Jareesh, who had previously been arrested for participating in protests calling for her relative to be charged and tried or else released, was apparently beaten when she tried to prevent the men’s arrests. …source

Clinton Accepts Responsibility for Benghazi Attack
POMED – 17 October, 2012

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accepted responsibility for the attack in Benghazi that killed four State Department employees, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. “I’m in charge of the State Department’s 60,000-plus people all over the world (at) 275 posts.” Clinton defended Vice President Joe Biden‘s statement in last week’s vice-presidential debate that the Obama administration was unaware of the request for additional security leading up to the attacks. “The president and the vice-president wouldn’t be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals,” Clinton said. She also sat down for interviews with NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, and CNN to answer questions about the Benghazi attack.

Blake Hounshell, in an op-ed for Foreign Policy, expressed frustration with the U.S. political notion “that Libya is the most important story in the world after ignoring it for months. It reeks of political opportunism.” Frustrated by the lack of clear information on the events in Benghazi, Larry Clifton said, “Clinton can fall on the political sword for Obama if she wishes, but that doesn’t explain …source

NATO packs it in; Turkey on the verge of a nervous breakdown
by Thierry Meyssan – Voltaire Network – 16 October, 2012

On October 8, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CTSO) began maneuvers dubbed “Inviolable Fraternity” (“НЕРУШИМОЕ БРАТСТВО”). The scenario focuses on the deployment of a peace force in an imaginary country where international jihadists and terrorist organizations operate against a backdrop of ethnic and confessional divisions. The accredited diplomatic corps, which was invited to attend the exercises, listened attentively to the opening address of the deputy secretary general of the organization. He clearly indicated that the CTSO is preparing for an eventual intervention in the Greater Middle East. And for those feigning deafness, Nikolai Bordyuzha specified that his deputy was not speaking of Afghanistan.

The Geneva Declaration negotiated by Kofi Annan on June 30 foresaw the deployment of a peace force if the Syrian government and the opposition jointly made the demand. The Free Syrian Army rejected the accord. The term “opposition” refers only to the political parties who have been meeting since in Damascus, under the aupices of the Russian and Chinese ambassadors. As the Geneva Accord was validated by the Security Council, the deployment of the “blue chapkas” can be set in motion without requiring an ad hoc resolution. Valery Semerikov stated that 4,000 men had already been enlisted in the Peace Force with 46,000 others in the wings available for the rapid mobilization.

With this as background, the signs of Western retreat from Syria are multiplying. The influx of Western arms and combatants is drying up except for the ongoing transfers funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Even more surprising: on six successive occasions, the NATO Command at Incirlik gave jihadists instructions to regroup within specified zones to prepare for huge offensives. While the Syrian Arab Army, which was formed to confront the Israeli Army, may be ill-adapted for guerilla warfare, it is highly effective in conventional combat. In each of these engagements, it easily encircled and wiped out the assembled units of the Free Syrian Army. Though the initial defeats suffered by the jihadists could have been attributed to a tactical error or to an incompetent commander, after the sixth debacle another hypothesis must be considered: that NATO is willingly sending these combatants to their deaths.

In contrast to popular perceptions, the motivation of the jihadists is not, properly speaking, ideological or religious but rather, aesthetic. They are not looking to die for a cause and are not focused on the future of Jerusalem. They strike a romantic posture and seek to intensify their sensations whether through drugs or through death. Their behavior makes them easy to manipulate; they seek extreme situations which they are then placed in, and their movements are totally steered. Over the last years, Prince Bandar bin Sultan became the leading architect of these assemblages, including those of al-Qaeda. He supplied them with preachers promising a paradise where seventy virgins would provide them with ecstatic pleasures not if they accomplished a particular military or political feat but only if they died as martyrs wherever Bandar had need for them.

It seems Prince Bandar has disappeared from the scene since the attack on him on July 26. He may well be dead. From Morroco to Zinjiang, the jihadists have been left to their own devices, without any real coordination. They could be recruited by any number of actors, as the recent assassination of the U.S. Ambassador in Libya confirms. As a result, Washington wants to unload this risky and burdensome rabble or at the very least reduce their number. The orders that NATO gives to the jihadists are designed to expose them to fire by the Syrian Arab Army which is eliminating them en masse.

Recently, the French police killed a French Salafist who attacked a Jewish business establishment. The investigation that followed revealed that he belonged to a network including individuals that had gone to do jihad in Syria. The British police made a similar discovery four days later.

The message from Paris and London is that the French and British killed in Syria were not agents on a secret mission but fanatics who acted on their own initiative. This is obviously false because certain of these jihadists were carrying communication instruments of NATO specification, supplied by France and the United Kingdom. Whatever the case, these events are marking the end of the Franco-British involvement alongside the Free Syrian Army, while Damascus discretely exchanges its prisoners. A page has been turned.

Under the circumstances, one can understand the frustration of Turkey and the Wahhabist monarchies who at the request of the Alliance invested in the secret war unreservedly, but who now must assume alone the failure of the operation. Going for broke, Ankara threw itself into a series of provocations designed to prevent NATO from pulling out. Anything goes, from the firing of Turkish artillery into Syrian territory to the pirating of a civil airline. But these gestures are counterproductive.

Specifically, the Syrian air plane coming from Moscow which was turned around by Turkish fighters contained no weapons but rather high-explosive detection equipment to be used for the protection of civilians. Turkey, actually, did not seek to prevent Russia from delivering material aimed at protecting Syrian civilians from terrorism but aimed instead to increase tension by mistreating the Russian passangers and refusing to allow their ambassador to render assistance. Wasted effort: NATO did not react to the imaginary accusations put forward by Recep Tayip Erdogan. The only consequence is that President Putin has postponed sine die his visit to Ankara originally scheduled for the first half of December.

There is a long way still to go on the path to peace. But even if Turkey now or the Wahhabist monarchies later attempt to prolong the war, a process has been set in motion. NATO is packing up and the media are turning their gaze to other horizons.
…source

Bahraini forces arrest 10 including woman, children
16 October, 2012 – Shia Post

Around 10 citizens were arrested on Sunday and 2 were injured in attacks by regime forces. The forces used excessive force subjecting 23 areas to collective punishment, 6 places including houses were raided.

The internationally banned weapon, Birdshot was used heavily, along with disproportionate use of toxic teargas in neighborhoods, causing asphyxiation between citizens even in their homes.

As usual, the forces chose pre-dawn hours to raid citizens’ homes in order terrorize households and perpetrate more violations including beatings, vandalism and robbery. A number of houses were reported to have been raided and children and wanted persons were arrested.

Protests and demonstrations went on in different areas across Bahrain including: Manama, Dair, Sitra, JidAli, Kawara, Tubli, Aali, Buri, Saar, Bani-Jamra, Shakhoura, Dar-Kulaib, Saddad, Shahrakan, Nabih Saleh, Bilad Qadeem, Ma’ameer, Eker, Nuwaidrat, Jablat Habshi, Jufair.

Most protests were violently attacked and suppressed with excessive force punishing citizens for practicing their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

The demonstrations denounced the official summon to al-Wefaq secretary general, Sheikh Ali Salman and the insults to Sheikh Issa Qassim, warning of its consequences. These protests carried messages of warning of the regime’s persistence to the suppressive security solution that has done no good to anyone.

A medical staff working at Salmaniya hospital was arrested on Sunday, at a checkpoint when the forces found ‘Kerosene’ in her car. She had used it in a family trip a few days ago, but the forces did not give her the chance to explain, as everything could be turned into an accusation that could lead to jail, in a police-state ruled and controlled by the military.

The forces also arrested a number of children from bed during illegal dawn house raids in Issa-Town. Their families were neither shown legal warrants nor given any reasons for the raids and arrests. …source

Bahrain: Questioning and detention of human rights defender Mr Mohammed Al-Maskati
16 October, 2012 – Front Line Defenders

On 16 October 2012, prominent human rights defender Mr Mohammed Al-Maskati was summoned to Hoora Police Station for interrogation on accusations of rioting and participating in illegal gathering.

He is currently being detained overnight and he was informed that he will be taken to the office of the Prosecutor General on the morning of 17 October 2012. Mohammed Al-Maskati is the founder and the president of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR).

Mohammed Al-Maskati was summoned to Hoora Police Station by phone in the early morning of 16 October 2012. He subsequently went to the police station with his lawyer. However, it is reported that his lawyer was refused access to the police station, while Mohammed Al-Maskati was held for questioning. Later in the day, the human rights defender was informed that he would be held overnight and taken to the office of the Prosecutor General the following morning. As yet it remains unclear to which specific events the charges of rioting and participating in illegal gathering refer.

In September 2012, during his participation in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session on Bahrain in Geneva, he informed the UN Human Rights Council that he was receiving numerous anonymous calls which threatened his and his family’s life, in connection to his participation to the Council’s session.

Front Line Defenders has previously issued a number of urgent appeals on behalf of Mohammed Al-Maskati, the most recent of which is dated 11 March 2011, when the human rights defender was the subject of death threats circulating on several social networking websites identifying him and other Bahraini human rights defenders as “traitors” and urging for them to be killed.

These messages provided many personal details about him, including his full name, home address, telephone number and car model and registration plate, information normally found on a National Identity Card. Following the publication of these messages, Mohammed Al-Maskati received a number of anonymous phone calls with threats or insults. …source

Foreign Office ‘allows some countries to get away with abuses’
By Damien McElroy – Foreign Affairs Correspondent – 17 October, 2012

A Foreign Affairs Committee report found that diplomats allow some countries to get away with abuses that are held against other states.

In particular the Foreign Office has exhibited an inexplicable willingness to maintain normal relations with Bahrain, the Gulf kingdom which has faced down pro-democracy protests from its Shia Muslim majority.

Opposition activists have accused the authorities of using brute force to crush demonstrations, leading to a number of deaths, arbitrary arrests and torture in prison.

The committee continued meetings between government ministers and King Hamid with a principled stand against travel to Ukraine during the European football championships.

“Given the Bahraini authorities’ brutal repression of demonstrators in February and March 2011, we believe that Bahrain should have been designated as a country of concern in the FCO’s 2011 report on human rights and democracy,” the committee said. “The Committee also challenges the Government for being inconsistent in not taking a public stance on the Bahrain Grand Prix but boycotting group stage games at Euro 2012 in Ukraine.”

The report also found fault with the government’s assessment of the risk posed to detainees face with deportation to their home countries. “There are persistent allegations that asylum-seekers who have been returned to Sri Lanka by the UK have suffered torture and ill-treatment. When we tried to explore the issue, the Government was not particularly forthcoming,” it said.

A Foreign Office spokesman rejected the criticisms and said the government was committed to placing human rights concerns at the heart of its policy.

The MPs also recommended that the government place more visa bans on officials responsible for abuses. The findings said that the government had failed to integrate human rights considerations into its arms and trade policies.

“We promote human rights painstakingly and consistently. Our starting point for engagement on human rights with all countries is based on what is practical, realistic and achievable, although we are always ready to speak out as a matter of principle.” …more

Bahrain Grand Prix: Government Condemned For Inaction Over Human Rights
The Huffington Post – 17 October, 2012

Motorsports, Bahrain GP, Bahrain Grand Prix, Formula 1, Formula One, f1, Motor Sports, UK NEWS, Wec, World Endurance Championship, UK News

The government has been sharply criticised for refusing to back a boycott of the Bahrain Grand Prix over human rights concerns, despite implementing its own boycott of the Euro 2012 football championships in Ukraine.

The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said it was difficult to find any “consistency of logic” in ministers’ approach to the issue.

It said Bahrain should have been included by the Foreign Office on its list of “countries of concern” in the wake of the “brutal” suppression of anti-government protests last year.

The committee expressed concern that “political and strategic factors” had coloured the decision not to list the Gulf kingdom alongside other states held responsible for human rights abuses.

The government came under pressure to support calls for a boycott of the Formula One Grand Prix last April amid fears that it could be a catalyst for a renewed crackdown on protesters.

At the time prime minister David Cameron refused, arguing “Bahrain is not Syria” and that a process of reform was under way – although ministers have since acknowledged that progress has been “minimal”.

In contrast, in June the government announced no ministers would attend England’s games played in Ukraine in the group stage of Euro 2012 following the imprisonment of the opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. It followed similar moves by other European Union member states.

“We find it difficult to discern any consistency of logic behind the Government’s policy in not taking a public stance on the Bahrain Grand Prix but implementing at least a partial boycott of the 2012 Uefa Football Championship matches played in Ukraine,” the committee said.

In a wide-ranging report, the committee also expressed concern about the way asylum seekers were deported to countries such as Sri Lanka, despite fears they could face torture or abuse on their return.

It called on the Foreign Office to take a more “energetic” approach to evaluating reports from the media and non-governmental organisations in assessing the risks of returning people to such countries.

“We find it unsatisfactory that the government has not been more forthcoming to Parliament about its efforts – in general and in specific cases – to assess the level of risk to the safety of those who are removed from the UK,” it said.

The committee said it shared the “unease” over the practice of deporting foreign nationals who are considered a threat to national security to countries where there is a risk of torture, provided an assurance has been received from the government concerned that their human rights will be respected.

It said the practice – used most recently in the attempt to deport the radical preacher Abu Qatada to Jordan – would command greater confidence if the countries concerned had signed up to an international protocol requiring them to open up their places of detention to United Nations representatives. …source

Bahrain: A nurse sentenced to one year imprisonment in link to treatment of injured protesters
17 October, 2012 – ABNA.co

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights express concern regarding the arrest of yet another medical staff, Dental Assistant Halima Abdulaziz Al-Sabag on 15 Oct 2012, after attending her trial of appeal against 1 year imprisonment sentence which she received earlier, an action that affirm continuation of targeting of medical staff by the Bahraini authorities.

Dental Assistant Halima Abdulaziz Al-Sabag was arrested for the first time from her workplace in Salmaniya hospital on January 26, 2012. Allegedly she took first-aid medicines for the treatment of injured protesters, who suffered injuries as a result of the suppression of the authorities. She was detained for approximately 3 weeks pending investigation on an alleged charge of exploitation of her job to seize the money of the state, a charge denied by Al-Sabag. (see previous appeal here: bahrainrights.hopto.org/en/node/5006 ). She was put on trial along with the head nurse and sentenced on 18 Sep 2012 to 1-year imprisonment and a fine of 100 Bahraini dinars whilst the other nurse was acquitted.[1] She was then arrested again while attending her trial of appeal on 15 Oct 2012, to execute the sentence. The trial of appeal was postponed until 18 Nov 2012.

The hospitals in Bahrain have been under military control for over 18 months now, protesters are unable to receive proper treatment in the hospitals as they fear arrest if they seek hospital care for their injuries, as hospitals have been ordered to report any injury related to protest to the police. Instead, they are forced to receive inferior treatment at home, or remain untreated. In May there were documented cases of protesters being interrogated and arrested after arriving to hospitals, and before the completion of their medical treatment.[2]

The criminal courts in Bahrain are still considering the cases of 28 health professionals because of their involvement in the treatment of wounded demonstrators. Verdicts are expected to be passed on them on January 2013 . [3] On the 14th of June 2012, an appeals court upheld the convictions of nine doctors, who were sentenced to between one month to five years in prison for their involvement in the treatment of injured protesters during the Feb 2011 uprising, and subsequently 6 of them were arrested[4] . At the same time, some other members of the medical staff are still in prison, including Nurse Hassan Maatoq, sentenced by a military court to three years in prison [5] . All this is happening, although reports by international human rights organizations and Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), confirmed the exposure of medics to mistreatment and torture in order to extract confessions that have been later used in cases against them. …more