Arbitary arrest and detention of Bahraini rights defender Naji Fateel
8 May, 2013 – Bahrain Freedom Movement

Human rights activists Zaynab al-Khawaja (L), Yousif al-Mahafdhah (C) and Naji Fateel march towards al-Eker village before being detained by police, south of Manama on 21 October 2012

The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) call for urgent action by the international community to stop the ongoing attacks against human rights activists in Bahrain, to immediately release human rights defenders, Naji Fateel who was arrested at dawn on 2 May 2013, and to stop the judicial harassment of Zainab Al-Khawaja who is currently serving a three-month prison sentence and expecting more prison verdicts this month.

Naji Fateel

Human rights defender, Naji Fateel, board member of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR), has been arrested without warrant by security men in civilian clothes at his home in the village of Bani-Jamra at dawn on 2 May 2013. His lawyer, Mohammed Al-Mahdi requested information from the Public Prosecutor’s office about his client, however the office declared that they have no information about him and are not aware of any charges against him. As of then, there has been no information as to his whereabouts.

Fateel was arrested last year on 14 February 2012 while he was participating in a peaceful march heading to the Pearl Roundabout area, the now restricted center of the 2011 protests for rights and democracy. Before that, he was detained between December 2007 and April 2009, and has been reportedly tortured. He has also been subjected to death threats since March 2011 due to his work in the defense of human rights.

Fateel suffers from damage to his spine and his current incommunicado detention raises concerns for his well-being.

GCHR and BCHR believe that the arbitrary arrest of rights defender Naji Fateel has taken place solely because of his activity and work in the defense of human rights.

Zainab Al-Khawaja

The authorities have taken human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja to court for charges in more than 10 cases, at least four of them are still active and the verdict is expected in relation to two cases on 9 and 15 May, 2013. Al-Khawaja has been in prison since 27 February 2013 when she was sentenced for “participating in an unauthorized demonstration and entering a restricted zone”. BCHR and GCHR fear that Zainab will be sentenced to further periods of imprisonment.

Zainab Al-Khawaja, a renowned Bahraini activist, has had an active role in the human rights and pro-democracy movement in Bahrain. She has helped since February 2011 in telling the world of the protesters’ demands and exposing the Bahraini authorities’ crimes. She has been arrested several times, detained for months and has at least 10 active cases in court against her for charges related to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. …more

Opposition Figure: Bahrainis Determined to Topple Al-Khalifa Dynasty
8 May, 2013 – Bahrain Freedom Movement

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Bahraini opposition figure dismissed talks between the al-Khalifa regime and the country’s dissidents as meaningless, and said the Bahraini people are determined to end the rule of the al-Khalifa dynasty.

“The Bahraini people’s revolution is a revolution of major change to overthrow the al-Khalifa regime and it doesn’t accept compromise,” Secretary-General of Bahrain Freedom Movement Saeed al-Shahabi told FNA on Tuesday.

He described talks between the al-Khalifa regime and opposition forces as useless and meaningless due to the continued imprisonment of Bahraini activists in the al-Khalifa jails, and rejected the proposal for the Bahraini crown prince’s succession to the thrown to replace his father.

“The Bahraini people will not accept the crown prince as the ruler of the country since he has collaborated with his father and uncle in the suppression of the people,” Shahabi underlined.

Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February 2011, calling for an end to the al-Khalifa dynasty’s over-40-year rule, end of discrimination, establishment of justice and a democratically-elected government as well as freedom of detained protesters.

Violence against the defenseless people escalated after a Saudi-led conglomerate of police, security and military forces from the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member states – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar – were dispatched to the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom on March 13, 2011, to help Manama crack down on peaceful protestors.

So far, tens of people have been killed, hundreds have gone missing and thousands of others have been injured. …more

Bahrain: Prisoners Denied Medical Attention, Family, Lawyer and Consular Visits
08 May, 2013 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights is seriously concerned for the health and well being of imprisoned activists, human rights leaders and political leaders who are currently being denied access to adequate healthcare and denied their right to receive visits from family members, their lawyers, and denied consular services. Members of the ‘Bahrain 13’ and Zainab Al-Khawaja are being denied these rights because of their refusal to wear a prison uniform. Members of the Bahrain 13 are currently being denied access to sanitary items, such as shampoo, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, and laundry detergent. In Bahrain, prisoners are required to buy these essential items in a prison store. All members of the Bahrain 13 are currently denied access to this store because they refuse to wear the prison uniform. They are therefore unable to maintain appropriate hygiene. A doctor working closely with the BCHR stated that “denying the prisoners from buying sanitary and hygienic items will promote the spreading of skin diseases such as scabies, body lice and other contagious diseases and risks an epidemic within in the jail”. The BCHR reiterates that healthcare and hygiene are non-negotiable human rights, and under no conditions should they be withheld from prisoners as punishment. The United Nations standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners clearly states that “prisoners shall be required to keep their persons clean, and to this end they shall be provided with water and with such toilet articles as are necessary for health and cleanliness.” …source

Iranian MP: New Political, Social Crises Awaiting Saudi Arabia
12 March, 2013 – FARS

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian legislator said that the political and social crises in Saudi Arabia will soon deepen due to the absence of democracy in the Arab country.

“New rifts will soon surface in Saudi Arabia’s social and political structures due to the absence of democratic freedoms in the kingdom,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Abbasali Mansouri Arani said.

“Given the structure of the ruling system, we will witness rifts in Saudi Arabia’s ruling system and social strata in the near future,” he added.

The senior Iranian lawmaker called on Al Saud government to implement fundamental changes in its ruling system in a bid to survive a popular revolution that will lead to its downfall as was the case with the former regimes in Egypt and Libya.

There have been numerous demonstrations in the oil-rich Eastern Province since February 2011, with protestors primarily calling for political reform and an end to widespread discrimination.

Anti-government protests intensified, however, since November 2011, when security forces opened fire on protestors in Qatif, killing five people and leaving scores more injured.

In October 2012, Amnesty International called on Saudi authorities to stop using excessive force against the protestors.

Saudi forces have also arrested dozens of people including prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nemr al-Nemr.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Saudi regime “routinely represses expression critical of the government”.

Also in October, the Saudi Interior Ministry warned the public against staging demonstrations in support of the prisoners in the kingdom and pledged to deal “firmly” with those participating in such protest rallies. …source

ADHRB Asks UNESCO to Reevaluate Funding Source and Name of UNESCO-King Hamad Prize
8 MAy, 2013 – ADHRB

On May 8, Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) sent a letter to Ms. Irina Bokova, Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), expressing concern regarding UNESCO’s acceptance of funds from the king of Bahrain in support of the UNESCO-King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education.

The purpose of this prize is to “reward projects and activities of individuals, institutions, other entities or non-governmental organizations for excellent models, best practice, and creative use of ICTs [information and communications technology] to enhance learning, teaching and overall educational performance.” Despite the noble aims of this prize, the actions of the award’s namesake fail to demonstrate respect for the enhancement of learning and teaching in Bahrain.

The kingdom of Bahrain has suffered from significant ongoing human rights violations since the outbreak of protests there in 2011. More than 100 people are estimated to have been killed—nearly all of them civilians—in the more than two years since the protests began. In addition, thousands of people have been injured in attacks by Bahraini security forces.

Unfortunately, teachers and students have also been the subject of persecution by the Bahrain government since 2011. Top leaders of the Bahrain Teachers’ Association were arrested, abused and tortured in detention, and sentenced to jail terms for exercising their rights to free speech by participating in peaceful protests. Teachers who joined them were arrested and beaten by security forces. In many cases, the Ministry of Education punished teachers who had dared to peacefully exercise their rights by reducing their salaries, suspending them, or firing from their jobs. Those teachers have yet to be compensated for their unlawful detention, or for back pay owed as a result of their salary reductions, suspensions, and firings.

Students who joined in the protests also came under attack. They were interrogated, arrested, detained, and tortured; suspended or expelled from school; and threatened with revocation of their student scholarships by the Ministry of Education. They were also forced to sign “loyalty pledges” proclaiming allegiance to the regime and promising not to participate in any future protests—in short, a pledge to renounce their rights to free expression and association.

All of these abuses were done with the full knowledge and acquiescence of King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa, the individual whose namesake has been given to support a prize in education. ADHRB urged UNESCO to reevaluate the prudence in associating this highly-respected body with such condemnable human rights violations which fly in the face of UNESCO’s mission. Specifically, ADHRB asked UNESCO to reconsider its source of funding for this prize and to rename the prize to more accurately reflect the aims of the prize and UNESCO’s mission in support of education. …more

‘Capital of torture’: Bahraini Shiite majority demands democratic rule
11 Maym 2013 – RT

Thousands of anti-government activists flocked to the streets of the Shiite village of Daih in Bahrain to protest against the torture of victims arrested by the minority Sunni-ruled monarchy.

The frustrated mob held up signs that read: “Manama, capital of torture,” and waved the national flag.

“Torture is a practice rooted in the security agencies,” in Bahrain, the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq said in a statement. It added that these practice were “embedded in the security doctrine – corrupt and hostile to the citizens.”

The organization also highlighted the rift between Sunni-ruled monarchy and Shiites saying “a political majority demanding a democratic transition and a hard core dictatorship that refuses any change and respond to the popular will.”

The demonstration comes just days after the start of the international campaign under the title “Bahrain capital of torture.”

On Wednesday, Bahrain Forum for Human Rights in Beirut announced the details of the international campaign against torture in prisons on the island.

It also accused the authorities of arresting 120 people during the period between 16 – April 22.

Human rights delegates condemned the use of force on citizens and the media blackout on the repression.

Also on Wednesday, the parliament in Bahrain was presented with a bill that would impose further restrictions on demonstrations. The new law would require organizers to submit a warranty check of more than $50,000 before holding a rally. It would also allow any resident to block a petition. …more

Blogger Emerges From Hiding After Fleeing Bahrain
By CHRISTINE HAUSER – 13 May, 2013 – Bahrain Freedom Movement

After months of secret plans that involved disguises, code names and a body double, a prominent blogger who had been sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison for his activism in Bahrain has fled the country by hiding in a compartment in a car, according to media reports and human rights groups.

On Friday, The Atlantic published an account of elaborate plans to help the blogger, Ali Abdulemam, to escape. The narrative, written by Thor Halvorssen, the president of the Human Rights Foundation, detailed the roles the foundation and others planned to play to whisk Mr. Abdulemam out of Bahrain.

We were hoping to sneak Abdulemam out of the country in plain view and with the cooperation of his would-be captors. Meanwhile, a look-alike would stay behind with me in Bahrain, and we would leave on a commercial airliner with a duplicate passport.

The plan was suddenly aborted when the blogger was given an unrelated, surprise opportunity to hide in a car. He was then taken over the border into Saudi Arabia, and eventually made his way to Europe, Mr. Halvorssen wrote.

After several arrests over the years, Mr. Abdulemam had gone into hiding and in 2011 was sentenced in absentia, along with other activists, to 15 years behind bars for their work seeking political change in Bahrain.

A response from the Bahraini government to e-mailed questions on Friday about its reaction to the reports that he had fled the country, and its views on other details about Mr. Abdulemam’s activities, was not immediately available.

But after one of his previous arrests in 2010, the Ministry of the Interior in Bahrain said, “Any assumption that Mr. Abdulemam has been arrested purely on the basis of any political views he may hold is entirely inaccurate and is connected solely to evidence of his involvement with senior members of the terrorist network.”

In 2006, my colleague Neil MacFarquhar profiled Mr. Abdulemam as part of a broader piece in The Times that also looked at how activism on the Internet was taking on the ruling elite in the Gulf kingdom. It focused on how the establishment of Mr. Abdulemam’s groundbreaking Web site, BahrainOnline.org, was intended to give Bahrainis a place to share ideas and develop plans to deepen political change.

Mr. Abdulemam, who has since sought political asylum in Britain, is scheduled to be a speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum starting Monday next week in Norway.

Excerpts from the account in The Atlantic reveal an ambitious plan by the Human Rights Foundation and others to help Mr. Abdulemam secretly leave Bahrain.

In the end, the most outlandish plan was the one approved by a member of the Denmark’s Jaeger Corps, the elite Special Forces unit who volunteered to consult on the project. Over dinner in New York, the Jaeger Corpsman agreed with a plan in which the Bahrainis themselves would serve an unknowing role in Abdulemam’s escape. We would try to find a way in which the monarchy’s authorities would treat our rescue team as V.I.P.’s and untouchable guests.

A Los Angeles-based artist, Tyler Ramsey, agreed to operate as the cover during the Bahrain trip. Famous for his drip-paint technique and for decorating 50,000 Toms Shoes in his signature style, Ramsey would go to Bahrain and do what he does best: performance art. “Make sure I don’t end up in a jail cell,” he told us.

The plan was that a member of our crew would switch places with Abdulemam at a fast-food restaurant, and we would depart on a private plane from an airport runway usually reserved for VIPs. Ramsey’s entourage would include two Abdulemam look-alikes. The TV host and actress Elizabeth Chambers would also join the crew as a faux correspondent for Ramsey, knowing how to juggle the circus environment we sought to create while keeping the maneuver on point.

We reserved a chartered jet to fly us from Cyprus’s Larnaca airport to Bahrain and to fly our faux celebrity team back to Cyprus. The visit to Bahrain would take three days, and the switch would happen in a fast-food eatery on the way to the departure plane. We would invite Abdulemam to switch clothes with his double and allow us to perform some minor aesthetic transformations to make him pass muster at the airport. In Bahrain, people on private planes and in a V.I.P. delegation don’t get their fingerprints scanned or subjected to interviews. They simply go from limo to jet without pesky security checks.

The Human Rights Foundation had also consulted with Nasser Weddady , a human rights advocate working at the Boston-based American Islamic Congress, to help with Mr. Abdulemam’s escape. Mr. Weddady, who was Mr. Abdulemam’s “only conduit” in the past two years, was the one who used the code names for Mr. Abdulemam and Bahrain that ultimately informed the escape team that Mr. Abdulemam had, in fact, managed to flee by other means:

“Abort plan, Bjorn has left Fiji.”

On Friday, Mr. Halvorssen said in a telephone interview that Mr. Abdulemam later told him that he had fled Bahrain by car. In his statement he wrote:

As luck would have it, Abdulemam was given a “now or never” chance by someone in Bahrain to exit through Saudi Arabia in a car with a secret compartment. Passport control did not inspect the car. From Saudi, he went to Kuwait by land through a sparsely patrolled area, where fishermen smuggled Abdulemam into Iraq by sea. From a port near Basra, he traveled to Najaf, where he took an Iraqi Airways flight to connect and eventually arrive in London.

The wife and two children of Mr. Abdulemam, 35, are still in Bahrain and efforts are under way for them to join him in Britain, Mr. Halvorssen said in the phone interview.

“I have just been waiting for the moment I could be reunited with them,” Mr. Abdulemam said in an interview with The Guardian in an undisclosed location in Britain on Friday.

The news network Al Jazeera also spoke to Mr. Abdulemam in an interview. There, he was quoted on Friday as saying the “time came” for him to help people in Bahrain publicly instead of in hiding.”

He added, “I will not be able to work and to support the uprising in Bahrain if I’m inside the jail.” …more

Handshakes and diplomacy belie America’s new Cold War
Finian Cunningham – 12 May, 2013 – Strategic Culture Foundation

US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Russia seems to herald renewed cordial relations between the former archrivals of Washington and Moscow.

The agreement to broker a peace conference on Syria appeared to signal that the two powers were prepared to bury the hatchet over a major geopolitical conflict. But, beneath the patina of diplomatic smiles and handshakes conveyed by Kerry to President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the ominous signs are that Washington is in fact ratcheting up a new Cold War of antagonism.

Within days of leaving his Russian hosts, Kerry was already undermining the supposed peace proposal on Syria. While the initial agreement in Moscow talked about convening a conference between the Syrian government of President Bashar al Assad and various opposition groups to chart a transition from that country’s 26-month-old conflict, Kerry is now telling other world leaders and media that Assad cannot be part of any solution.

For a start, who is Washington to dictate anything about the sovereign internal affairs of Syria? Especially given its genocidal warmongering credentials newly minted from Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

But that basic moral point aside, the immediate backsliding by America over Syria to set up stumbling preconditions is a disturbing echo of the Geneva accord signed by all members of the UN Security Council last June, which also called then for a transition process involving the participation of Assad; the Americans promptly reneged on that deal, thus fuelling months of more violence.

This American duplicity over Syria, no doubt reinforced by British premier David Cameron’s follow-up sniveling visit to Russia, should sound alarm bells about the supposed renewed cordial relations between Washington and Moscow.

Recent events need to be interpreted in a bigger historical picture in order to fully appreciate the underlying dynamic of diplomatic overtures.

Shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing last month, one apparent positive outcome from the mayhem was the reported cooperation between Russian and American security intelligence over the incident.

That outcome was partly because the two suspected bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, were reportedly of Chechen origin and were being linked in much Western media coverage to Chechen militant groups. Moscow has been battling Chechen armed separatists in its Caucasus region on and off for more than two decades. Thus it appeared that the US and Russia were finding common cause in the much-vaunted «war on terror». In gratitude for Russian intelligence cooperation, US President Barack Obama said that «old suspicions» between the rival powers were giving way to a new era of mutual assistance.

The precise motivation of the alleged Boston bombers is not known. They could well turn out to be unwitting pawns in an elaborate false flag event masterminded by the CIA, FBI and so-called Homeland Security to justify further police-state powers in the US.

However, in the fallout from Boston, Washington seems to be using that event and alleged Chechen circumstances to inveigle Moscow into warmer diplomatic relations. The purpose for those warmer relations would appear to be Washington attempting to undermine Russia’s alliance with Syria and to isolate the Assad government in Damascus. That objective has taken on greater urgency especially since the US-led criminal proxy war in Syria seems to be foundering in its aim for regime change.

But let’s step back a bit. The purported rationale of renewed US cooperation with Russia as a result of alleged Boston terrorism does not bear up to closer scrutiny in the light of more ominous developments – developments that indicate that Washington, far from trying to bury a hatchet with Russia, is in reality embarking on a new Cold War of hostility. …more

Cornel West: Obama ‘Is a War Criminal’
May 13, 2013 by Common Dreams – Jacob Chamberlain

In an interview with the Guardian published on Sunday, renowned professor and prolific critic of the “military-industrial-complex” and rampant “plutocracy” in the U.S. and around the world, Dr. Cornel West explained his views on the state of America today and his fall from grace, by design, with President Barack Obama: “He’s just too tied to Wall Street. And at this point he is a war criminal.”

Cornel West (Photo: David Levene / the Guardian) “They say I’m un-American,” West told interviewer Hugh Muir, referring to Obama’s team.

But from someone who actively campaigned for the man, only to be quickly and vastly disappointed, West sees in Obama the epitome of Washington corruption:

“He talked about Martin Luther King over and over again as he ran,” West said of their campaign stops together, adding later, “You can’t just invoke Martin Luther King like that and not follow through on his priorities in some way.”

“King died fighting not just against poverty but against carpet-bombing in Vietnam; the war crimes under Nixon and Kissinger.”

West goes on:

You can’t meet every Tuesday with a killer list and continually have drones drop bombs. You can do that once or twice and say: ‘I shouldn’t have done that, I’ve got to stop.’ But when you do it month in, month out, year in, year out – that’s a pattern of behavior.” […]

I think there is a chance of a snowball in hell that he will ever be tried, but I think he should be tried and I said the same about George Bush. These are war crimes. We suffer in this age from an indifference toward criminality and a callousness to catastrophe when it comes to poor and working people.” […]

“I knew he would have rightwing opposition, but he hasn’t tried,” West said of Obama’s unwillingness to curb Wall Street’s hold on Washington. “When he came in, he brought in Wall Street-friendly people – Tim Geithner, Larry Summers – and made it clear he had no intention of bailing out homeowners, supporting trade unions.”

And later:

And he hasn’t said a mumbling word about the institutions that have destroyed two generations of young black and brown youth, the new Jim Crow, the prison industrial complex. It’s not about race. It is about commitment to justice. He should be able to say that in the last few years, with the shift from 300,000 inmates to 2.5 million today, there have been unjust polices and I intend to do all I can. Maybe he couldn’t do that much. But at least tell the truth. I would rather have a white president fundamentally dedicated to eradicating poverty and enhancing the plight of working people than a black president tied to Wall Street and drones.” …source