“The ruling elite in Bahrain has always found a way to engineer means of escaping accountability”

Marc Owen Jones: Bahrain’s history of political injustice
1 April, 2013 – You Middle East – Marc Owen Jones

In Bahrain, members of the ruling Al Khalifa family, or those responsible for protecting their interests (i.e. the security forces) have historically been afforded a large degree of impunity. This is despite evidence that points to their participation in gross acts of oppression. In the recent uprising, no member of the state security forces has been found guilty of torture or murder, and no high-level government officials have been questioned for their complicity in the crackdown.

Following the ‘democratic’ reforms of 2001, Royal Decree 56 absolved any of the state security forces from being prosecuted for crimes committed during the brutal crackdown of the 1990s Intifada. Indeed the ruling elite in Bahrain has always found a way to engineer means of escaping accountability. This tradition of impunity is rooted in Bahrain’s history, yet even in excellent academic scholarship there remains the perpetuation of erroneous facts that understate the degree of impunity that the Ruling Family has enjoyed.

This is particularly true with regards to the trial of Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa and his sons Khalid and Salman, who were found guilty of instigating and carrying out two attacks on the village of Sitra in 1923 (Khalid bin Ali was the nephew of the previous ruler, Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa). The attack left several Shia villagers dead, including women and children. The trial of the Khalids, (who are sometimes referred to as the Khawalid), recently featured in a front-page article on the Wall Street Journal:

When Shiites sought greater rights in the early 1920s, Khaled Ben Ali led the crackdown. At British prodding, he was tried for murder and jailed. The trial left wounds that festered for decades.

The writer of the article, Charles Levinson, may have been a little over zealous in his assertion that the jailing of the Khalids left a festering wound that lasted decades. In actual fact, Khalid bin Ali was never jailed. He was fined and his property confiscated. It was his sons Ali and Salman who were exiled to India. However, before they could be deported, Ali and Salman escaped to mainland Arabia. …more

Angelina Jolie: Bimbo and the Beast
Finian Cunningham – 31 March, 2013 – Strategic Culture Foundation

Angelina Jolie, the American screen idol and one of the highest paid actors ever, is famous for her sultry looks and a femme fatale presence. She’s a dangerous woman, the embodiment of smoldering, mercurial menace.

Which, when you think about it, sounds a lot like her real life role as UN Special Envoy on human rights. In her latest «starring role», she is cast alongside British Foreign Minister William Hague. The «location»’ is the Democratic Republic of Congo. Both travelled to the war-ravaged Central African country this week to highlight the harrowing crime of rape against women as a result of conflicts.

This is not the first time that the unlikely pair has teamed up for this purpose. Previously, actress Jolie and Britain’s most senior diplomat have collaborated to ‘focus public attention’ on violence against women in Libya, Mali and Syria, among other international war zones.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper while onboard a RAF aircraft courtesy of Mr Hague, the Hollywood star said: “There were hundreds of thousands of women raped during the Rwandan genocide. There are hundreds of thousands of people being raped in the Congo. Tens of thousands of women raped in Bosnia. God knows how many people raped in Syria».

Asked what she wanted to achieve by working with the British government to champion this appeal, the action-movie siren replied: “An end to impunity».

At which point Angelina Jolie, if she really understood the causes of these conflicts and the violence against women, should have reached over to slap handcuffs on the British foreign secretary and make a citizen’s arrest of a top war criminal.

In every instance of war that the actress cited, the British government has had a hand in either fomenting or fuelling. William Hague, in particular, has personally overseen British-sponsored terrorism in Libya, Mali and Syria.

It was Hague’s British regime that led the NATO blitzkrieg during 2011 in Libya to topple the government of Muammar Gaddafi. For seven months, British Typhoon fighter bombers engaged in over 10,000 sorties along with other NATO forces, to demolish that North African country. As many as 50,000 people were killed during the aerial bombardment. Countless numbers among Libya’s six-million nation were turned into refugees and now live under an anarchic regime of extremists and deprivation that NATO installed.

The same brand of Al Qaeda bandits and cut-throats that NATO warplanes paved the way for in Libya is being armed, trained, funded and directed in Syria by Britain and its allies.

As with Libya, Britain has taken a lead role in Syria along with France in arming a terror network – that the Western media euphemistically call «rebels» – to overthrow the sovereign government of Bashar Al Assad. British Special Forces have long-established training camps in Jordan from where graduated death squads can then ply their terror trade across the border in Syria.

Up to five million people have been displaced in the violence unleashed over the past two years in Syria by Britain and its NATO allies, the US and France, and their proxies, Turkey and the Gulf Arab dictatorships. In fleeing British-sponsored death squads and car bombers, up to a million Syrian civilians now reside in tents along the borders with Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. Rape, of course, has been used as a weapon of terror by the militants in Syria to sow fear and dislodge popular support for the Damascus government. …more

As two more Afghan children are liberated (from their lives) by NATO this weekend, a new film examines the effects of endless US aggression

The message sent by America’s invisible victims
Glenn Greenwald – 29 March, 2013

Yesterday I had the privilege to watch Dirty Wars, an upcoming film directed by Richard Rowley that chronicles the investigations of journalist Jeremy Scahill into America’s global covert war under President Obama and specifically his ever-growing kill lists. I will write comprehensively about this film closer to the date when it and the book by the same name will be released. For now, it will suffice to say that the film is one of the most important I’ve seen in years: gripping and emotionally affecting in the extreme, with remarkable, news-breaking revelations even for those of us who have intensely followed these issues. The film won awards at Sundance and rave reviews in unlikely places such as Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. But for now, I want to focus on just one small aspect of what makes the film so crucial.

The most propagandistic aspect of the US War on Terror has been, and remains, that its victims are rendered invisible and voiceless. They are almost never named by newspapers. They and their surviving family members are virtually never heard from on television. The Bush and Obama DOJs have collaborated with federal judges to ensure that even those who everyone admits are completely innocent have no access to American courts and thus no means of having their stories heard or their rights vindicated. Radical secrecy theories and escalating attacks on whistleblowers push these victims further into the dark.

It is the ultimate tactic of Othering: concealing their humanity, enabling their dehumanization, by simply relegating them to nonexistence. As Ashleigh Banfield put it her 2003 speech denouncing US media coverage of the Iraq war just months before she was demoted and then fired by MSNBC: US media reports systematically exclude both the perspectives of “the other side” and the victims of American violence. Media outlets in predominantly Muslim countries certainly report on their plight, but US media outlets simply do not, which is one major reason for the disparity in worldviews between the two populations. They know what the US does in their part of the world, but Americans are kept deliberately ignorant of it.

What makes Dirty Wars so important is that it viscerally conveys the effects of US militarism on these invisible victims: by letting them speak for themselves. Scahill and his crew travel to the places most US journalists are unwilling or unable to go: to remote and dangerous provinces in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, all to give voice to the victims of US aggression. We hear from the Afghans whose family members (including two pregnant women) were slaughtered by US Special Forces in 2010 in the Paktia Province, despite being part of the Afghan Police, only for NATO to outright lie and claim the women were already dead from “honor killings” by the time they arrived (lies uncritically repeated, of course, by leading US media outlets).

Scahill interviews the still-traumatized survivors of the US cruise missile and cluster bomb attack in Southern Yemen that killed 35 women and children just weeks after Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. We see the widespread anger in Yemen over the fact that the Yemeni journalist who first exposed US responsibility for that attack, Abdulelah Haider Shaye, was not only arrested by the US puppet regime but, as Scahill first reported, has been kept imprisoned to this very day at the direct insistence of President Obama. We hear from the grandfather of 16-year-old American teenager Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (he is also the father of US cleric Anwar al-Awlaki) – both before and after a CIA drone killed his son and then (two weeks later) his teenaged grandson who everyone acknowledges had nothing to do with terrorism. We hear boastful tales of summary executions from US-funded-and-directed Somali warlords.

There is an unmistakable and singular message sent by these disparate groups and events. It’s one particularly worth thinking about with news reports this morning that two more Afghan children have been killed by a NATO air attack.

The message is that the US is viewed as the greatest threat and that it is US aggression and violence far more than any other cause that motivates support for al-Qaida and anti-American sentiment. The son of the slain Afghan police commander (who is the husband of one of the killed pregnant woman and brother of the other) says that villagers refer to US Special Forces as the “American Taliban” and that he refrained from putting on a suicide belt and attacking US soldiers with it only because of the pleas of his grieving siblings. An influential Southern Yemeni cleric explains that he never heard of al-Qaida sympathizers in his country until that 2009 cruise missile attack and subsequent drone killings, including the one that ended the life of Abdulrahman (a claim supported by all sorts of data). The brutal Somali warlord explains that the Americans are the “masters of war” who taught him everything he knows and who fuel ongoing conflict. Anwar Awlaki’s transformation from moderate and peace-preaching American cleric to angry critic of the US is shown to have begun with the US attack on Iraq and then rapidly intensifying with Obama’s drone attacks and kill lists. Meanwhile, US military officials and officers interviewed by Scahill exhibit a sociopathic indifference to their victims, while Awlaki’s increasingly angry sermons in defense of jihad are juxtaposed with the very similar-sounding justifications of endless war from Obama. …more

Security Forces Abduct, Severely Beat and Verbally Assault 5 Citizens, Including 3 Minors
31 March, 2013 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) expresses its grave concern over the security forces’ continuation in the practice of abducting and beating of citizens, including minors.
The BCHR’s Head of Monitoring and Documentation Unit, Said Yousif Al-Muhafdha, documented disturbing incidents that took place in different areas within the same week which involved abducting civilians from the street or private homes, subjecting them to severe beatings and verbal assaults, including attacks on their sect and religious beliefs.

Three minors under the age of 14 informed Al-Muhafdha that they were abducted on the 28th of March 2013 at around 11 pm. They stated that there was a protest in the village and security forces started collectively punishing the village by shooting excessive teargas. This caused them to suffocate and therefore seek shelter in one of the houses nearby. Police forces noticed them and raided the house, abducted them and they were reportedly severely beaten inside the police vehicle with batons and gun butts while being verbally assaulted by the security forces by insulting their religious sect. One of the abducted showed cigarette burn marks on his arm stating that it was done by security forces. …more

Father dies after hearing his son’s arrest, torture, screaming
Shia Post – 30 March, 2013

A 66-years-old Bahrain man AbdulGhani AlRayyes, father of detained Ahmed AbdulGhani AlRayyes (36-years-old) has been died after he was not allowed to see his son who he heard screaming, and fell unconscious inside the local police station, The Shia Post reported.

AbdulGhani AlRayyes (66 years old) went to Budaiya police station at 11:24pm (Bahrain Local Time) on Sunday to ask about his son, reportedly heard him screaming inside and being beaten.

He was not allowed to see Ahmed, and forced out of the police station. He fell unconscious and was moved to the International Hospital of Bahrain.

The death certificate stated “dead on arrival” as the immediate cause of death without mentioning the fact that he has hypertension.

Ahmed AlRayyes was shortly released after news of his fathers death. AbdulGhani AlRayyes’s daughter fainted after hearing news of her fathers death, and had to be moved to the hospital.

Ahmed AbdulGhani AlRayyes (born in 1986) was arrested from his home in Duraz during a house raid on 31 March 2013, his brother, Hussain, had recently been injured with pellets due to use of excessive force by security forces.

He was shot in the abdomen approximately two months ago by security forces and left bleeding; he has so far needed two operations.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses its grave concern at the continuation of beatings inside police stations, excessive use of force and the effect it has on the families of victims. …source

Family Friend Consoles one of AbdulGhani AlRayyes Sons

Bahrain: 16, Including Minors, Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison in Unfair Trial
29 March, 2013

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses grave concern over the detention and sentencing of 16 Bahraini citizens to 15 years imprisonment without clear evidence of the charges brought against them. The authorities in Bahrain have been arbitrarily arresting, detaining and sentencing citizens from protest areas in sham trials.

The Ministry of Interior claims that in July 2012 a police patrol was attacked in an attempt to kill policemen.

A MOI vehicle was burned and no causalities or injuries were announced by the ministry. The event was followed by an arrest campaign in a nearby village and many were taken into custody.

On 21 March 2013, the higher criminal court sentenced 16, some of them minors, to 15 years’ imprisonment and BD10,508 fine after charging them with attempted murder of policemen while on duty, arson of a vehicle owned by the MOI, illegal gathering and possession of Molotov cocktails.

The BCHR documentation and monitoring team met with some of the families of the 16 sentenced to document their cases:

Ahmed Yousif is only 16 years old. He was arrested after his house was raided early morning on 15 July 2012. Ahmed was reportedly beaten and tortured during arrest and interrogation in roundabout 17 – Hamad Town police station.

Hussain Mohammed, 17 years old, was kidnapped by a civilian car on 10 July 2012 when he was with his friend in their neighborhood. His family searched for him but did not hear from him until many hours later. According to his family, Hussain was tortured at the police station and in a prison visit he told them not to talk about the political situation because they record the conversations and whoever discusses such topics is then reportedly subjected to beatings and torture. …more

Bahraini court refuses to drop charges against two medic
28 March, 20130 – Islamic Invitation Turkey

A Bahraini court has refused to drop the charges against two medical personnel over their participation in protest rallies against the ruling Al Khalifa regime.

Defense lawyer Abdullah al-Shamlawi said the pair did not appear in court on Thursday.

He added that the court ordered charges against 21 other medical staffers to be dropped.

Last October, five doctors lost their appeals against convictions of protest-related offenses.

Dozens of doctors and nurses, mostly from Salmaniya Hospital, have been arrested by Bahraini forces for treating wounded protesters and taking part in anti-regime demonstrations.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights says authorities have denied medical help to jailed nurse, Haleema al-Sabagh.

Sabagh was sentenced to one year in prison after being arrested in Salmaniya Hospital.

The Bahraini uprising began in mid-February 2011. The Bahraini government promptly launched a brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring states.

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

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 crackdown and accused Manama of torturing political activists, politicians, and protesters.

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

Bahraini Protests starts Paying Off , as 21 Medics convictions reversed By Court , Pledges to get others freed
30 March, 2013 – Jafria News

Bahriani Medic Released from JailJNN 30 Mar 2013 Manama , An appeals court in Bahrain has reversed the convictions of 21 medics arrested in connection to anti-government protests in 2011. Along with dozens of others, some of whom are still jailed, they helped treat the wounded in the mass unrest.

The physicians, nurses and other hospital workers were convicted last November on misdemeanor charges over their treatment of injured protesters, and for participating in “illegal assemblies.” Some of the accused said their convictions were based on false confessions extracted under torture.

They are now cleared from having to spend three months in prison or paying 200 dinars ($530). Two more similar cases remain open, as the suspects failed to appear in court.

The international medic community hailed the decision as a victory, but said the fight for justice is not yet over.

“The kingdom must now demonstrate a renewed commitment to civil and human rights by compensating the health professionals who were wrongly arrested, mistreated, and convicted; restoring all of those wrongly dismissed to their jobs; freeing others still serving prison sentences on similarly spurious convictions; and fairly prosecuting the officials responsible for these outrageous rights violations,” Dr. Deborah D. Ascheim, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) board chair said.

“We need to see the accountability established. And those who are responsible of torturing the doctors and arresting the doctors and putting forth charges and crimes against the doctors and giving them all this pain, they should be brought to justice. This is the priority,” Dr. Nada Dhaif, one of the acquitted doctors told RT.

Dr. Nabeel Tammam, a surgeon at Salmaniya Medical Complex in Manama, is one of the 21 whose conviction was overturned. “We will continue our pressure until we gain the freedom of all the rest of the medics still in jail,” Dr. Tammam told PHR, “because we believe that they are innocent and that all they did was to perform their humanitarian duty.”

The acquitted medics were among the 82 workers arrested between February and March 2011 for providing medical treatment to protesters. The charges against them went as far as claiming they attempted to overthrow the regime.

In September 2011, 20 of the medics were sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. However, in 2012 they were retried by a civilian court. Nine of them had their sentences reduced to 1 to 3 years in jail; two, who remain at large, had their sentences sustained; nine were acquitted after being found innocent.

Anti-government protests have rocked Bahrain since February 2011, as demonstrators call for an end to the Al-Khalifa monarchy, which has ruled the country since 1974. Hundreds have been arrested, and thousands have lost their jobs. Scores of people have also testified that they were tortured during their arrest.

Bahraini human rights activists have unsuccessfully called on the international community to intervene, over what they have called a suppression of the country’s opposition. A common thread of discontent among protesters is over discrimination against the country’s Shiite majority at the hands of the predominantly Saudi Backed Wahabi government.

Nearly 100 people have been killed since the start of the uprising. ..source