Bahrain Cracks Down on Freedom
20 November, 2012 – Peak Oil

The ruling Al Khalifa monarchy is one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships. It’s also a valued US ally. Bahrain is home to America’s Fifth Fleet.

Imperial priorities matter most. Washington backs Bahraini harshness. State terror is policy. Murder, torture, lawless imprisonments, and daily atrocities get tacit support.

Bahrain ruthlessly wages war on freedom. Fundamental human and civil rights are spurned. Activists, protesters, medical professionals treating them when injured, independent journalists, and others supporting right over might are brutalized and imprisoned.

Nabeel Rajab is one of Bahrain’s best. He’s a prominent human rights leader. Activism got him targeted. His resume includes many impressive credentials. In 1999, he and others co-founded the Bahrain Human Rights Society.

In 2002, he, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, and others co-founded the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR). Authorities terrorized its members for years. Nonetheless, it remains viable.

It promotes civil, political, and economic freedom, ending racial discrimination, and universal human and civil rights. Bahraini despots equate these principles with terrorism.

Last August, Bahrain’s Lower Criminal Court sentenced Nabeel to three years in prison. Supporting right over wrong in the emirate is dangerous. Expressing democratic views is criminalized. So is championing social justice publicly.

King Hamad calls peaceful protests “foreign plots.” Nabeel and others like him put their lives on the line for years. Bahraini activists face arrests, harsh interrogations, torture, and imprisonment. The mainstream media largely ignores it.

Nabeel’s been in prison since July. He’s charged under Article 178 of Bahrain’s penal code. It prohibits unauthorized gatherings of five or more people for the “purpose of committing crimes (or) undermining public security, even if intended to achieve a legitimate purpose.”

His lawyers appealed. A Bahraini court delayed proceedings. Its ruling won’t be known until around mid-December. Peaceful protests are criminalized. State courts tolerate no challengers. They give kangaroos a bad name.

Bahrain banned protests earlier. On July 20, 2006, King Hamad ratified Code 32 on “Public Gatherings, Processions and Assembly.” Doing so amended the 1973 Decree No. 18. Human rights groups condemned the action. It lawlessly targeted free expression and peaceful gatherings.

Unauthorized public meetings and seminars were prohibited. So was anything thought potentially threatening monarchal rule. Activists were targeted. Arrests and prosecutions followed. Bahraini repression is brutal and longstanding.

On October 30, public gatherings were again prohibited. Interior Minister Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa said “rallies and gatherings will be considered illegal, and legal action will be taken against anyone calling for or taking part in them.”

That’s how police states work. Fundamental rights are criminalized. Daily nonviolent protests continue nonetheless. Participants face tear gas, rubber bullets, beatings, arrests, and at times death.

Anyone challenging regime harshness faces arrest and brutal imprisonment. Even The New York Times noticed. On October 30, it headlined “Citing Violence, Bahrain Bans All Protests in New Crackdown.”

Protesters refrain from violence. Security forces commit it against them. Banning public gatherings “drew swift condemnation from human rights groups and opposition activists who said it was intended solely to stifle criticism of the ruling monarch in the tiny Persian Gulf nation.”

Activists accused the monarchy of “methodically blocking all avenues for dissent.”

“In recent weeks, activists have been prosecuted for postings on social media, and doctors, charged with illegal gathering and other crimes after treating protesters, have been sent to jail.”

It’s gone on repeatedly since early last year. The Times and other Western media gave it scant coverage. They still do. Reports exclude important information readers most need to know.

Dozens of deaths, hundreds imprisoned, torture, and kangaroo court justice go largely unnoticed.

On November 10, a Washington Post editorial headlined “Bahrain’s broken promise,” saying:

Last November, King Hamad promised 26 reforms. “That promise has gone unfulfilled.” At best, only three were partly implemented. “The most important ones – on the release of political prisoners and relaxation of controls on free expression – have been ignored.”

The Post exhibited a rare moment of candor. It should have done more much sooner. Nonetheless, it said “convictions of leading regime opponents (were) reconfirmed.”

It mentioned Nabeel’s imprisonment. It excluded his activist history and harsh treatment. It said public protests were banned.

Without explanation, it said “five bombs exploded around the capital of Manama on Monday, killing two people.”

Protesters spurn violence. Despite brutal security force crackdowns, they remain peaceful. Bahraini authorities called Monday’s explosions “terrorism.”

They were state-sponsored false flags. Expect more of the same ahead. Four suspects were arrested. They won’t be treated kindly or fairly. Bahrain’s head of public security blamed Hezbollah elements. No evidence whatever suggests it.

Minister Samira Ibrahim bin Rajab said opposition groups use Iranian tactics. He blamed pro-Iran television stations for supporting Bahraini protests. Press TV reports them accurately. So do Russia Today and independent journalists. …more

Bahraini Security Forces Arrest Shia Preachers During Mourning for Imam Hussain
20 November, 2012 – ABNA

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Bahraini security forces arrested yesterday a number of Shia orators/preachers as they were addressing Bahrainis on the occasion of the day of Ashura – a religious Shia-Muslim holiday – The religious figures were arrested while honoring the death of Hussein – grandson to Prophet Mohammed, an extremely important figure in Islam.

The sources pointed out that among the detainees were — Kamel al-Hashimi, Sheikh Hassan Alaley, Sheikh Jaafar Alsaegh, and Ahmed Al Majid. The voice of Manama – a local newspaper – couldn’t confirm the accuracy of the information at the time of printing.

Lawyer Abdullah Alshamlawy said via Twitter – social network – “Hashemi is undergoing an interrogation at the Budaiya police Centre, where he is being detained.” The news was denied later on by the authorities. Officials maintained they had no knowledge of Hashemi whereabouts.

Amal – the Association of Islamic Action issued a statement warning against the government’s practice, stressing such a blatant crackdown on religious figures in Bahrain were deeply disturbing and proof that the regime was willing to stoop to religious repression to assert its hold over the country. They called for immediate action as it said never before Bahrain witnessed such intense sectarian crackdown.

Amal confirmed that Shia preacher Kamel Alhashemi – west of Beni Jamra – was called in by the regime and detained for 48 hours. Preachers Alradud Alhaji Abba Dhar Al-Halwagi and Sheikh Hassan, Alhaj Jafar Al-Shamrook had been arrested.

Amal called for the immediate release of all prisoners of conscience, urging activists around the world to mobilize for Bahrain.
…source

Mexico disputes House GOP report alleging Iran, Hezbollah are using Mexican drug cartels
20 November, 2012 – The Daily Caller – Matthew Boyle

A spokesman for Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhán, told The Daily Caller his country’s government disputes a recent House GOP report alleging that Iranian and Hezbollah terror operatives are using Mexican drug cartels as a conduit to infiltrate the United States.

Last week, the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management released a report titled “A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence and Terror at the Southwest Border.”

The report found that the “Southwest border has now become the greatest threat of terrorist infiltration into the United States.” It specifically cited a “growing influence” from Iranian and Hezbollah terror forces in Latin America.

The Mexican government disagreed with that assessment.

“The Government of Mexico, as it has done in the past, reiterates that no such relationship or presence exists,” Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, wrote in a letter to The DC.

Alday pointed to the U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism to support Mexico’s argument. “[I]n each and every one of its Country Reports on Terrorism, the US Department of State has unmistakably established that there is no such relationship.”

Alday quoted the latest such State Department report, issued on July 31 of this year.

“No known international terrorist organization had an operational presence in Mexico and no terrorist group targeted U.S. citizens in or from Mexican territory,” the State Department report reads. “There was no evidence of ties between Mexican criminal organizations and terrorist groups, nor that the criminal organizations had political or territorial control, aside from seeking to protect and expand the impunity with which they conduct their criminal activity.”

A spokesman for the House subcommittee, chaired by Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, did not immediately respond to a request for comment in response to the ambassador’s letter.

But the 50-page congressional report did contain what the House Republicans who prepared it contend is evidence that terror organizations are using Mexico’s drug cartels as a front.

In October 2011, Iran apparently tried to exploit its ties to the drug cartels to conduct its eventually foiled assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

“According to a federal arrest complaint filed in New York City, the [Iranian] Qods Force attempted to hire a drug cartel (identified by other sources as the Los Zetas) to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir for a fee of $1.5 million,” the report reads. “The terror attack was to take place at a popular restaurant in Washington, D.C. without regard to collateral deaths or damage.”

“The Qods Force made this solicitation because it knows drug traffickers are willing to undertake such criminal activity in exchange for money,” the report continues. “Moreover, if this terror attack had been successful, the Qods Force intended to use the Los Zetas for other attacks in the future. Had it not been for a [Drug Enforcement Agency] DEA informant posing as the Los Zetas operative, this attack could have very well taken place.” …source

Kuwait endorses GCC security pact
By Habib Toumi – 20 November, 2012 – Gulf News

Manama: Kuwait’s government has endorsed a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) security pact signed by the alliance’s interior ministers last week.

“The cabinet has approved the GCC security agreement after it was amended to upgrade it to deal with the latest requirements and various challenges and to bring it in line with the Kuwaiti constitution,” the government said following its weekly session.

Shaikh Ahmad Al Humood, the interior minister, told the cabinet that all the articles in the security pact were “in full harmony with the Kuwaiti constitution and laws.”

Kuwait had reservations about some of the articles in the initial security agreement announced in Manama in December 1994 when the leaders of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE convened for their annual summit.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Oman endorsed it at the time and Qatar joined in 2009.

However, the GCC leaders, at their 2010 summit in Kuwait, called for building on the understanding by putting it to a committee of experts and specialists from the GCC countries.

The agreement was signed last week by the interior ministers of the six member countries.

Al Humood said that the new version of the agreement was fully compatible with the Kuwaiti constitution.

“Its implementation will have to be endorsed by the parliament,” he said.

Kuwait is set to elect a new parliament on December 1 after the legislative house voted in on February 4 was dismissed by a Constitutional Court ruling that said that the decree calling for the elections was unconstitutional.

Last week, Bahrain’s government endorsed the security pact.

The security treaty draft which allows lawbreakers and wanted people to be tracked across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries regardless of their nationality has been endorsed by Bahrain.

“The Cabinet reviewed a memorandum from the Interior Ministry on the GCC security draft and approved it,” Yasser Al Nasser, the Cabinet secretary general, said following the session.

The draft aims at reinforcing security cooperation and coordination between the six member countries of the GCC, Al Nasser said.

Under the treaty, each GCC country is bound to take legal action — based on its own legislation — against citizens or residents who interfere in the domestic affairs of another member. The member countries will also exchange information and expertise to combat all forms of crime, the draft stipulated. …source