Mum on drones, US up on Balochistan
By: The Nation Monitoring – 1 November, 2012

UNITED NATIONS – Ducking the drone issue, the US has voiced concerns over what it called “growing instability” in Balochistan.US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Eileen Donahoe, alleged that security squads in the province, under their kill-and-dispose of policy, have been “targeting proponents of civic rights, local activists and their families, journalists, political workers and student leaders, therefore the Baloch society has been alienating and chances of peace there have been shrinking”.

Donahoe, while taking part in the debate on the human rights situation in Pakistan during a UN Human Rights Council meeting Tuesday, demanded that this drive to gag opponents through the use of force be stopped, and those responsible for torturing and lifting people at the national level be brought to justice.

According to BBC, the US envoy also expressed apprehensions over the increasing attacks on Shias and Pakistani authorities’ sluggishness to investigate them. Donahoe, however, did not make any mention of US drone strikes that some believe she should have.

The UN Human Rights Council, elections for which are heating up, allowed a mere 80 seconds per speaker on candidate Pakistan.Including Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, most of the Western countries called for amendments to the blasphemy law in the light of the international conventions; signing of international convention against enforced disappearance of civilians; effective execution of the rights of women, children, religious and ethnic minorities; effective implementation of the existing laws to discourage the trend of forced marriages and human trafficking.

They also called for the protection of human rights activists and journalists. Algiers, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Indonesia, many African and Asian Muslim countries, and China, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and Sri Lanka expressed satisfaction over the progress in legislation about human rights in Pakistan, keeping in view the economic, political and terrorism challenges facing it.

Nevertheless, Indian delegation did not participate in the UN review meeting for Pakistan, although it was present in Geneva.

Speaking back to back, Sri Lanka wished Pakistan best of luck in its fight against terrorism, and Sudan raised the issue of US drone strikes. Last week, Christof Heyns as UN system Special Rapporteur responded to Inner City Press that this fight in 2009 killed some 40,000 civilians. Is this the luck being wished? Sri Lanka soon faces its own so-called Universal Periodic Review, but with even less time per speaker: only 72 seconds.

On Pakistan, Sudan raised the issue of drone strikes, days after its ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, told Inner City Press that his country would be filing a complaint against Israel with the UN Security Council for the bombing of Yarmouk compound in Khartoum.

The UNSC has been closed for five days: first for Eid and the weekend, now two days and counting for Hurricane Sandy in New York.Incoming UNSC member Australia raised Malala by name; Brazil offered some praise despite a glancing reference to ‘recent disturbing developments’.

Permanent UNSC member the UK raised the death penalty; failed UNSC candidate Canada used its time to ask a question about religious freedom.The US has been running to keep its seat on the Human Rights Council, and sent official Harold Koh to make its case at the UN Headquarters earlier this month. When Inner City Press asked about drone strikes, not only in Pakistan but also Yemen and Somalia, Koh said these comply with all international laws, a point about which Inner City Press asked Heyns, who is UN system Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions. He was less sure of their legality. But what is or can be resolved in the 80 seconds given on Pakistan? Or the 72 seconds coming up on Sri Lanka?

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US to break silence over Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests
By Julian Pecquet – 31 October, 2012

The Obama administration is preparing a statement addressing the ongoing crackdown against pro-democracy protests by U.S. ally Bahrain amid increasing international condemnation, a State Department official told The Hill on Wednesday.

The Persian Gulf kingdom, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, banned all public demonstrations on Tuesday. It also threatened legal action against protest supporters amid intensifying complaints of discrimination against the Sunni-ruled country’s Shiite majority. Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdulla al-Khalifa justified the decision by accusing protesters of fomenting violence and disrupting the economy.

The State Department and the U.S. embassy in Manama have so far declined to comment. The department, by contrast, vocally condemned the death of a Bahraini policeman earlier this month when his patrol came under attack by rioters.

Al-Khalifa on Wednesday called the ban “temporary.”

“Interior Minister: banning rallies & gatherings is a temporary decision until security is restored to protect national unity,” the Interior Ministry said on Twitter. “Freedom of expression is protected within the constitution and law.”

The Obama administration has been criticized for not supporting the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain as it has in other Arab Spring countries. Republican candidate Mitt Romney has declined to challenge President Obama on the issue.

The United States is increasingly isolated, however. Great Britain has criticized Bahrain, despite signing a defense cooperation agreement with the country earlier this month.

“A blanket ban of this nature is excessive,” Alistair Burt, the British minister for the Middle East and North Africa, said Tuesday.

“Peaceful protest is a democratic right. I hope the Bahraini government will rescind this measure as quickly as possible.”

The human-rights group Amnesty International has also weighed in.

“Even in the event of sporadic or isolated violence once an assembly is underway, the authorities cannot simply declare a blanket prohibition on all protests,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the Middle East and North Africa Program deputy director at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

“Such a sweeping measure amounts to nothing less than nullifying the rights to freedom of association, expression and assembly. Law enforcement officials must act to protect peaceful protesters rather than using the violent acts of a few as a pretext to restrict or impede the rights of all.” …more

The BCHR Holds the King Responsible for the Spread of the Culture of Impunity which Has Claimed the Lives of Tens of Victims
31 October, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights reached compelling and extremely worrying facts, after having prepared a deep report (study) by both the Monitoring and Research Committees in the Center, looking into the cases of impunity and lack of accountability to members of the ruling family and officials in the security forces and the army who were involved in gross violations of human rights, that violate both local and international law, by committing crimes of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary executions, deprivation of life, brutal torture, mock trials and the use of excessive force. This is after the Authority in Bahrain backed with forces from the Gulf states (Peninsula Shield) – mostly from Saudi Arabia – crushed the vast national uprising that was affected by the Arab Spring and that calls for freedom and democracy in February and March 2011 and thereafter until the writing of this report.

The results of the study, which comes a year after the release of the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry [1], show that the policy of impunity is still entrenched in the doctrine of the Authority and its security institutions as a basic prevalent culture. This culture which is humanly and internationally condemned constitutes an instrument of repression and paves the way for the fall of more victims of the official excessive violence that is still practiced by the Authority in Bahrain as the only option for dealing with the peaceful demonstrators. This policy is one of the main obstacles behind limiting violations and one of the most important indicators of not implementing the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, which clearly recommended investigating the violations and holding the offenders accountable based on the level of responsibility, and it also documented cases of murder, torture and excessive use of force.

What increases the concern of the BCHR is that this systematic policy of impunity and of providing immunity to criminals and enabling them to continue with their duties and their security positions without accountability has led to more deaths among peaceful demonstrators. In August / September 2012, two young men were killed; Hussam Mohammed Jassim Al-Haddad (16 years) [2], and Ali Hassan Neamah (17 years) [3]; who were shot dead by the security forces, and which is the same way by which they killed a number of protesters in February, March 2011 and the months that followed. Instead of undertaking serious investigations in these two incidents, the Bahraini Public Prosecution quickly acquitted the policemen accused of killing Al-Haddad and Neamah, and reserved the cases, justifying that with the self-defense position they were put in which forced the policemen to use bullets and violence that leads to killing as stated by the Public Prosecution about reserving the two cases [4]. …more

Bahrain charges four men with insulting king
18 October, 2012 – The Guardian

Bahraini authorities have detained four men on charges of defaming the country’s king on Twitter, according to the state news agency BNA. The men, all in their 20s, were arrested on Wednesday morning after security forces confiscated their computers and other electronic equipment, Mohammed al-Maskati, head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights said.

Criticising King Hamad and other members of the Al Khalifa ruling family is a serious offence in the Gulf Arab island kingdom. Bahrain’s public prosecution office had questioned four defendants and charged them with the “crime of insulting his majesty the king on their personal accounts on Twitter”, prosecutor Ahmed Bucheeri said on Wednesday, according to BNA.

The defendants will face “an urgent trial before the criminal court”, he said. No date has yet been given.

Bahrain, a US ally that hosts the US navy’s fifth fleet, has been in political turmoil since pro-democracy protests led by its Shia majority erupted last year and were put down by the Sunni rulers.

Last month, Zainab al-Khawaja, the daughter of an imprisoned Bahraini activist was jailed for two months for damaging public property in a police station, which included the picture of King Hamad, the government’s information authority said. Khawaja’s lawyer said her sentence was handed down for tearing up a picture of the king.

In July, prominent protest leader Nabeel Rajab was sentenced to three months in jail over a tweet against the prime minister, a member of the ruling family, which the court said insulted Bahrainis. He was later acquitted on appeal.

The ruling family used martial law and help from Gulf neighbours to put down last year’s uprising, but unrest has resumed.

Protesters and police clash almost daily and Washington has called on its ally to talk to the opposition. Bahraini authorities accuse Iran of encouraging the unrest and has vowed a tough response to violent protests as talks with the opposition have stalled.
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Syria opposition must beware of Islamist ‘hijack’: Clinton
31 October, 2012 – Agence France Presse – The Daily Star

ZAGREB: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that Washington wanted to help the Syrian opposition unite against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime but urged it to resist efforts by “extremists” to hijack the revolution.

“There are disturbing reports of extremists going into Syria attempting to take over what has been a legitimate revolution against an oppressive regime for their own purposes,” Clinton warned during a visit to Croatia.

The opposition should “strongly resist the efforts by the extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution.”

Clinton’s comments as international Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi urged China to help end the escalating conflict that has killed more than 36,000 people since an uprising against Assad’s rule erupted in March last year.

“We are working very hard with many different elements of opposition inside and outside Syria,” Clinton told reporters, saying the United States was interested in “helping the opposition to unite strongly and resist the Assad regime”.

Washington wanted to assist the opposition “to unite behind a shared effective strategy that can resist the regime violence and begin to provide for a political transition”.

The opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Council (SNC) “can no be longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition,” Clinton said.

“They can be part of the opposition, but the opposition must include people from inside Syria and others.”

Clinton also called for an opposition “leadership structure” to ensure that all Syrians are represented and protected, adding: “There has to be a representation of those who are on the front line fighting and dying today.”

Earlier Wednesday, Syrian opposition groups, including representatives from the SNC and leaders of the Free Syrian Army, called for a transitional government in exile to be formed to win greater political support from the international community.

But in Paris, Russia warned that the “bloodbath” in Syria would continue if the West stuck to its demand for Assad’s ouster.

“If the position of our partners remains the departure of this leader who they do not like, the bloodbath will continue,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius.

Fabius also said France and Russia failed to bridge their differences over Assad’s role in any future transition government at a meeting in Paris.

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In 2010, France made the choice to breath new life into its colonial policy. This led her to instigate a regime change in the Ivory Coast and Libya, and to aim for the same result in Syria. But faced with the fiasco of the latter operation, Paris got carried away by the wave of events that she herself unleashed. After having armed and trained terrorist groups in Syria, the DGSE has now struck at the heart of the Lebanese capital.

The Sore Losers of the Syrian Crisis
by Thierry Meyssan – Voltaire Network – Beirut (Lebanon) – 1 November 2012

A dramatic scene following the attack against Beirut’s Christian neighborhood of Achrafieh. The personal effects belonging to General Wissam that were found at the crime scene led the authorities to conclude that he had been killed. However, the forensic investigation was unable to establish that the victim was actually inside the car. The General allegedly returned the same day from Paris where he had met with his reporting officer, General Benoît Puga; however the air and border police could find no record of his arrival in Lebanon.

During a recent Round Table in Ankara, Admiral James Winnfeld, Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that Washington would reveal its intentions toward Syria once the 6 November presidential elections were over. He made it plainly understood to his Turkish counterparts that a peace plan had already been negotiated with Moscow, that Bashar al-Assad would remain in power and that the Security Council would not authorize the creation of buffer zones. For his part, Herve Ladsous, the U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, announced that he was studying the possible deployment of peacekeepers (“blue helmets”) in Syria.

All regional actors are preparing for the cease-fire which will be overseen by a U.N. force composed principally by troops of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikstan). These events signify that the United States is effectively continuing a process, begun in Iraq, of retreat from the region and has accepted to share its influence with Russian.

At the same time, the New York Times revealed that direct negotiations between Washington and Iran are slated to restart even as the United States continues its attack on Iranian monetary values. It is becoming clear that, after 33 years of containment, Washington is acknowledging that Teheran is an established regional power, all the while continuing to sabotage its economy.

This new situation comes at the expense of Saudi Arabia, France, Israel, Qatar and Turkey all of whom had placed their bets on regime change in Damascus. This diverse coalition is now suffering divisions between those demanding a consolation prize and those trying to sabotage outright the process underway.

Ankara has already changed its tune. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, previously ready for the worst, is now actively seeking reconciliation with Teheran and Moscow. Several days after insulting the Iranians and harrassing the Russian diplomats in his country, he is now all smiles. He took advantage of the Organization of Economic Cooperation in Baku to approach President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He proposed a complex framework for discussing the Syrian crisis which would allow Turkey and Saudi Arabia not to be left by the wayside. Careful not to humilate the losers in the conflict, the Iranian president indicated he was open to such an initiative. …more

Excerpt – Press Briefing US Department of State

Mark C. Toner
Deputy Spokesperson
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
October 31, 2012

TRANSCRIPT:

1:34 p.m. EDT

MR. TONER: Good afternoon. Happy Halloween. I’d like to say the reason we’re late is because I was getting into my elaborate costume, but clearly, unless you count a middle-aged bureaucrat a costume –

QUESTION: I thought it was a little Dr. Evil. (Laughter.)

MR. TONER: In any case, welcome to the State Department. And it’s good to see you all. I hope everyone made it through the storm more or less intact and that your homes and your families are safe. Certainly it was a suspenseful couple of days, but welcome back.

Just at the top, I do want to note that 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. We urge the Government of Bahrain to uphold its international commitments and ensure that its citizens are able to exercise – are able to assemble peacefully and to express their views without fear of arrest or detention. We urge the Government of Bahrain to work with responsible protest leaders to find a way for peaceful and orderly demonstrations to take place. The decision to curb these rights is contrary to Bahrain’s professed commitment to reform, and it will not help advance the national reconciliation nor build trust among all parties.

We also urge the opposition to refrain from provocations and violence. Violence undermines efforts to reduce tensions, rebuild trust, and pursue meaningful reconciliation in Bahrain. Recent violent attacks, including fatal attacks, on security force personnel are a deeply troubling development. So we urge the Government of Bahrain to take steps to build confidence across Bahraini society and to begin a meaningful national dialogue with the political opposition.

With that, I’ll take your questions.

QUESTION: Just on that —

MR. TONER: Yeah, sure.

QUESTION: — before we move onto Syria. This has been made – this position, your views have been made clear to the Government of Bahrain directly? Is that correct?

MR. TONER: Matt, I’m not sure at what level we’ve communicated these to the Government of Bahrain.

QUESTION: They’re not just hearing this from you right now?

MR. TONER: They’re not just hearing this from me, no. But I’m not sure at what level – I’m not sure whether through our —

QUESTION: Well, was it there, here?

MR. TONER: — embassy or bilaterally. I’ll have to check on that.

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