US concerned at Bahrain’s ban on protests
31 October, 2012 – Lebanon Now

The United States on Wednesday voiced concern at Bahrain’s ban on all protests and public gatherings, urging the Gulf state to find a way to allow peaceful demonstrations to resume.

“The United States is deeply concerned by the Bahraini government’s decision to ban all public gatherings. Freedoms of assembly, association and expression are universal human rights,” acting State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said.

“We urge the government of Bahrain to work with responsible protest leaders to find a way for peaceful and orderly demonstrations to take place.”

Curbing the right to assembly was contrary to “Bahrain’s professed commitment to reform and will not help advance national reconciliation nor build trust among all parties,” he told journalists.

Bahrain on Tuesday banned all protests and gatherings to ensure “security is maintained,” after a spate of clashes between Shiite-led demonstrators and security forces in the Sunni-ruled country.

The Gulf state has been shaken by unrest since its forces in March last year crushed a month of popular protests led by members of its Shiite Muslim majority demanding greater rights and an end to what they said was discrimination against them by the Sunni royal family.

The crackdown, which drew strong criticism from international rights groups, was followed by a three-month state of emergency declared by King Hamad, during which protests were also banned.

Toner added Washington was also urging “the opposition to refrain from provocations and violence” adding recent attacks on security forces were “a deeply troubling development.”

“Violence undermines efforts to reduce tensions, rebuild trust, and pursue meaningful reconciliation in Bahrain,” he said.

“We urge the government of Bahrain to take steps to build confidence across Bahraini society and to begin a meaningful… dialogue with the political opposition.”

…source

March 14 Group’s Political Games will Never Return Them to Power
By Mohammad Irani – Mehr News Agency – 29 October, 2012 – Moqawama.com

Lebanon is facing a new security dilemma in the wake of the recent bombing in Beirut that killed the head of the intelligence unit of the country’s Interior Ministry, Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan.

In light of current developments in the Middle East and Lebanon’s special geopolitical position in the region, the repercussions of the incident were not restricted to Lebanon.

Neighboring Syria, which is still grappling with a 19-month political crisis, was roundly accused and the Lebanese opposition said it was the prime suspect.

Al-Hassan was one of the key members of the March 14 alliance and was totally opposed to Syrian intervention in Lebanon. Immediately after the bombing, some figures in the opposition seized the opportunity and accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of personally having a hand in the assassination of al-Hassan. This is obviously a new political game by the March 14 group to help it return to power, but the country’s current situation shows that there is almost no chance for the March 14 group to win such a game.

Meanwhile, after more than 19 months of chaos in Syria, the efforts of Western governments and their regional proxies to internationalize the crisis have failed. The Sassine Square bombing in Beirut was apparently another move by the anti-Syria front to intensify the crisis and pave the way for military action against the Syrian government.

The fragility of the sectarian political system in Lebanon increases the risk of civil war. This would not only harm Lebanon’s national interests but would also create a threat for neighboring countries.

However, despite the Lebanese opposition’s anti-Syria propaganda, it can be said that Syria did not gain any advantage from the Beirut bombing. In light of the internal crisis in Syria, it would be almost impossible for Damascus to commit such an act of political suicide. Moreover, after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, Syria has had a much more diminished role in Lebanon, and logically, the Syrians do not want to add to their problems in Lebanon.

The assassination of Wissam al-Hassan, who was one of Lebanon’s most senior security officials, was certainly a complicated operation that needed sophisticated intelligence support. Taking Syria out of the picture, the only other regional player that could have sponsored such an operation is “Israel”. The “Israelis” have a long record of hostility toward Lebanon and Syria, and this time, they were trying to replicate what they did in the Hariri assassination to further destabilize the region. However, the conspiracy was foiled again, and “Israel” was unable to benefit from the unrest in Lebanon. …source

Months before Assassination, Jordanian Intelligence Warned Al-Hassan: “Israel” Wants Your Head
Local Editor – Moqawama.com – 30 October, 2012

Under the title, “Wissam al-Hassan: They want my head,”, “al-Akhbar” Lebanese newspaper revealed information that reflect the possibility of “Israel’s” involvement in Achrafieyh blast; thus, the assassination of Lebanese Information Branch head.

According to “al-Akhbar” Tuesday’s editorial, the victim informed people close to him, that Jordanian officials warned him he is at the center of “Israeli” targets.

In details, months before his murder, al-Hassan told a number of his close associates about two meetings he held with the head of Jordanian intelligence [in Germany] and a minister in a direct connection with the Jordanian intelligence. “The two men reported information from meetings with “Israeli” Intelligence officials,” al-Hassan said.

Al-Hassan further revealed the content of the Jordanian officials talks with the “Israelis”, which tackled the situation in Lebanon and its consequences.

According to “al-Akhbar” sources, the Jordanians addressed al-Hassan by saying: The “Israelis” aren’t satisfied with your performance and you have to be cautious.”

In parallel, one of the two men warned al-Hassan: “You have to be careful, even in Europe .”

“Al-Hassan was aware of the fact that the “Israelis” wanted his head and said more than once that he is no longer safe during his visits to Europe,” the daily mentioned.

It also noted: “The victim knew the size of “Israeli” wrath resulting from the fall of their espionage cells in Lebanon since 2008.”

Moreover, other sources unveiled to “al-Akhbar” that “The beginning of this year carried another alert to al-Hassan.”
“He received a letter, in January 2012, from United Arab Emirates Intelligence based on reliable information that a senior officer in the Lebanese Internal Security Unit will be a target of an assassination attempt,” they said.
Al-Akhbar quoted these sources as saying: “The officer will be the target of a car bomb in the Achrafieyh, on the road between the ISF building and the ISF official’s residence.”

“Al-Hassan was surprised for until that moment , his secret office was unknown,” the newspaper added.

In this context, it also highlighted: “An Emirati official told al-Hassan that available information reflected that “al-Qaeda”, particularly a group in ain al-Helwe camp, is preparing for an assassination attempt.” …source

Bahraini Monarchy Asks For More Rebellion: “All Rallies Banned”
30 October, 2012 – The Trench

One day after a former admiral of the Fifth Fleet published a laughable defense of Bahrain’s monarchy, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and his royal circle have flashed their true colors for all to see. Of course the King’s American loyalists appear to be irreparably blinded by the island’s military use vis-à-vis Iran, but their arrogance may seriously threaten U.S. interests at some future moment.

In the immediate term, one of the fastest ways to explode any trend is to ban it.

On Tuesday Bahrain’s Interior Minister, a hawkish instrument of King Hamad’s power, announced the monarchy’s decision “to stop all rallies and gatherings until ensuring that security is maintained through achieving the targeted security to protect national unity and social fabric to fight extremism.” Lieutenant-General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa manifests the kingdom’s ongoing attempt to delegitimize Bahrain’s pro-democracy opposition, so his rhetoric comes as no surprise to protesters and opposition leaders. Turning youthful and revolution-minded individuals into “terrorists” and “extremists” is standard procedure for Bahrain’s monarchy, a borrowed tactic used by autocracies for the last half century.

The Interior Minister argued that King Hamad, “has strived in the previous phase to protect freedom of expression by allowing rallies and gatherings, but that privilege has been abused repeatedly by organizers’ violations and the participants’ lack of commitment to the legal regulations.”

Denying the violent elements of Bahrain’s opposition is a non-starter. Rather, their actions are justified by the government’s disproportionate crackdown on a largely peaceful movement for greater representation and human rights. Governments bear a higher level of responsibility than non-government organizations, and starting a protest at a funeral is trumped by gassing that protest. King Hamad committed a fatal error when summoning Saudi Arabia and the GCC’s Peninsula Shield (along with Jordanian and Pakistani mercenaries) early into a national crisis. Repeated attempts to stage a hollow “National Dialogue” robbed the process of its credibility, and the King’s hyped Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) functions as a diversion away from the fundamental issues of parliamentary and judiciary reform – and growing calls to strip Hamad of his powers. …more

Bahrainis hold anti-regime demonstrations in Manama despite ban
31 October, 2012 – PressTV

Bahraini anti-regime protesters have once again staged rallies in the capital Manama despite a recent ban on all opposition protests and public gatherings.

The angry protesters took to the streets in support of political prisoners being held in jails, including opposition leader Hassan Mushaima.

The family of Mushaima says he is gravely ill and needs immediate medical attention.

Senior Bahraini cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim said the Al Khalifa regime has denied treatment of Mushaima in jail despite his “frightening” health condition.

Bahraini security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the demonstrators in Manama.

The recent demonstration comes after Bahrain’s Interior Ministry imposed a ban on all protests and gatherings across the country and cited anti-regime demonstrations as repeated abuse of the rights to freedom of speech and expression.

“All rallies and gatherings have been suspended and no public activity will be allowed until security and stability are achieved,” said Interior Minister Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa on Tuesday.

“Rallies and gatherings will be considered illegal and legal action will be taken against anyone calling for or taking part in them.”

Bahraini protesters have been holding anti-regime demonstrations since February 2011 and they hold King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa responsible for the death of demonstrators during the uprising.

The protesters say they will continue holding demonstrations until their demand for the establishment of a democratically elected government is met. …source

Muqtada al-Sadr: Iraq Is Being Driven to Ruin
By: Ahmad al-Moussawiv – 25 October, 2012 – Al Akhbar

The Sadrist leader tells Al-Akhbar that the US still wields too much influence in the country, Maliki is a threat to democracy, and there is no way of resolving the political crisis.

Baghdad – The Ahrar Bloc affiliated to the Sadrist movement led by Muqtada al-Sadr is one of the biggest players on the Iraqi political stage, with 39 members of parliament and five ministers in the government as part of the Shia Iraqi National Alliance (INA) coalition.

The movement began taking shape as a political current in the 1990s under Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, who was killed along with his sons Mustafa and Mumal in Najaf in 1999 by agents of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Sadr accused the US of continuing to meddle in Iraqi affairs, despite the withdrawal of most of its troops from the country, with damaging consequences for Iraqi politics.

After the 2003 US invasion in 2003, Muqtada, Sadr’s fourth son, emerged as the movement’s leader, delivering a now-famous speech after Friday prayers at the Koufa mosque in which he declared his opposition to the American presence and announced the formation of the movement’s paramilitary wing, the Mahdi Army.

The Sadrist movement has been engaged in the political process since the first post-invasion parliamentary elections in 2005. Sadr himself moved to Iran last year to complete his theological studies at the seminary of Qom, but continues to follow political development in Iraq from his base there.

In an interview with Al-Akhbar, Sadr accused the US of continuing to meddle in Iraqi affairs, despite the withdrawal of most of its troops from the country, with damaging consequences for Iraqi politics.

“The American occupation of the sacred land of Iraq had a big and negative impact on the land and the people. It took lives and plundered resources, and it continues to do so,” he said. “But perhaps the most important of these negative results is the consolidation of the occupation’s influence over the land that tormented it for years. This influence amounts to imposing military and political control and continuing its unacceptable interference with the political parties.”

Sadr charged that a number of Iraqi institutions remain under US control. “There are still many files which it continues to control, as well as some bases and detention centers, in addition to its intelligence and other influence,” he said.

“This interference will prevent Iraq from being independent and making its own regional and international decisions,” Sadr added. “America wants this in order to increase its hegemony and power internally and externally.”

Sadr was also strongly critical of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, saying his autocratic behavior was endangering the country’s democracy and making a resolution to the long-running political crisis in the country “impossible.”

Sadr concurred with the growing chorus of charges by Iraqi political groups that Maliki monopolizes the decision-making, and warned: “ I’ve said it in the past and will continue to say it. I do not fear for myself personally in this regard, but this behavior will ultimately result in taking Iraq away from the path of democracy and freedom, and even that of clean elections.” …more

These are fighters, brothers and cousins with a sworn allegiance to those who felled the US Trade Towers in 2001

Call me jaded but I expect the article’s author, Shadi Mokhtari, has become the poster child for the “new veneer” of Western Human Rights agenda that strangely resembles a Wooded Horse I once saw in Troy named “NGO”. Polly Anna lives for another day. The BICI Report Shadi claims as progress for Human Rights was and still is a misdirection created by forced collaboration between the State Department and Bahrain’s bloody MOI to save 10s of millions in Military Contracts from a roving “pack of liberals” back in the US.

The “New Politics of Human Rights” in the Middle East made Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights another White House doormat. To date noting substantial from the State Departments BICI has been acted upon and the systematic elimination, murder and imprisonment of “anti-regime” elements seems nears completion. The imprisonment of Nabeel Rajab and Zainnab al-Khawaja has cleared the way for the restoration of “opposition regime reformers” who have patiently waited on State Department-Regime mop-up activities to contain the Revolution.

Shadi’s references to the elimination of Hosi Mubarak as a small victory; under the bus he went to the cheers of all of us as Obama made his bid in the back-halls to hang on the CIA trained Military that has become the steering committee for the New Democratic Egypt. Sorry, at the moment it hard for me to hear the optimism of New Human Rights in the Middle East. It sounds like spinning a train wreck as an opportunity for the scrap metal dealer…. Phlipn Out.

The New Politics of Human Rights in the Middle East
By Shadi Mokhtari – 30 October, 2012 – Foreign Policy

For decades, “human rights in the Middle East” was a subject of scrutiny, debate, and mobilizations spearheaded from outside of the region. Western governments including successive U.S. administrations frequently took up the region’s dire human rights conditions and funded a variety of human rights initiatives to remedy them, in many ways as a substitute for forgoing economic and military alliances with highly repressive regimes. These foreign governments’ human rights talk was heavy in its emphasis on women’s rights and other violations for which backward cultural and religious belief were designated as the key culprits and light on its emphasis on civil and political rights violations. During the post-9/11 era, as highlighting the Middle East’s deplorable human rights conditions added a veneer of moral purpose to military interventions in the region, the “human rights in the Middle East” line of inquiry took on a life of its own and created a cottage industry of Western-driven human rights assessments and prescriptions. All the while, local voices promoting human rights were largely silenced by authoritarian rulers simultaneously paying lip service to human rights and undermining it by arguing that it served foreign, Western, imperialist agendas. Cumulatively, there dynamics resulted in minimal Middle Eastern agency in defining the nature and scope of its own predicament vis-à-vis the human rights paradigm.

Today, the region’s myriad of human rights mobilizations and contests are increasingly being spurred from within the Middle East, not abroad.

Domestically, where there have been uprisings (not facing crippling state violence) human rights have emerged at the fore of calls for political change and local human rights activists long relegated to the realm of the out-of-touch Westernized elite, have gained considerably in their legitimacy, numbers, and influence. These strengthened human rights forces now insert their voices into virtually every unfolding political contest — openly bringing past and present abuses to light and pushing human rights stances into constitutions-drafting processes, parliamentary agendas, and socio-economic policies. Where they have not been able to substantially realize their demands, they have often compelled authoritarian rulers to go to increasingly greater lengths to showcase purported commitments to rights, the most notable examples being the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) and the prosecution of Hosni Mubarak.

At the same time more meaningful human rights engagements are taking shape at the regional level. Using Cairo and Tunis as venues for considerably less fettered activism, protesters and an expanding cadre of activists are posing human rights challenges across borders within the region. For instance, Egyptian NGOs put out statements on Saudi abuses, an NGO banned in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) moves to Tunisia, activists and ordinary citizens protest in front of Syrian embassies throughout the region, and Tunisian activists hold a “Friends of Bahrain” conference to show support for the Bahraini revolution in reaction to the “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunis, while Yemeni activists gather to support the hunger strike of a prominent Bahraini activist. …more

While Bahrain’s Anti-regime Opposition languishes in Prison the UKs ‘Good Friday’ John Powell is training the “Pro-reform Opposition” in another Regime Charade of self preservation. Those Western consultants love lining their pockets with al-Khalifa dollars from rent on NSA Bahrain. Phlipn Out.

Jonathan Powell’s NGO has organised meetings for Bahraini government and opposition, applying lessons of Northern Ireland

Ex-Blair aide advising Bahrain on conflict resolution
30 October, 2012 – guardian.co.uk

Bahraini government and opposition figures are being trained in negotiation and conflict resolution techniques by Tony Blair’s former chief of staff Jonathan Powell, the Guardian can reveal.

Powell, who played a key role in securing the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998, was asked to undertake the work when Bahrain approached the UK Foreign Office for help with implementing the recommendations of an independent report on the Gulf state’s unrest last year.

Since leaving government in 2007 Powell has run InterMediate, a small NGO working on conflicts across the world. According to sources in Manama, Powell’s team has organised a series of discreet meetings in London and Northern Ireland for Bahraini officials and opposition figures, applying the lessons of the province’s sectarian divide in a Middle Eastern context.

A spokesman for InterMediate said that for reasons of confidentiality it does not comment on any of its projects, and refused to confirm or deny that it was involved in Bahrain. He stressed that as a matter of principle the charity does not accept funding from the government of any country in which it works.

Bahrain is known for employing expensive western PR agencies to present its case. It also buys security expertise. Last year it secured the services of John Yates, the former Metropolitan police commisioner, who is an adviser to the interior ministry. Another adviser is John Timoney, a former Miami police chief.