Saudi Court Ups Gang-Rape Victim Sentence To 200 Lashes After Her Lawyer Protests Original 90-Lash Penalty
By Jonathan Vankin, 28 September, 2013

The Saudi justice system is based on the Islamic religious legal code known as Sharia, but if a case that burst onto the international scene this week is any example, the word “justice” is a misnomer.

In 2007, A Saudi court sentenced a gang-rape victim to a 90-lash whipping for violating the ban on women having contact with men who are not their relatives.

When the woman’s defense lawyer protested the sentence, calling for some compassion for this teenager who was sexually assaulted by seven men, the Saudi General Court increased her punishment to 200 lashes and a six-month jail term.

The incident happened in 2006 in the Eastern Province city of Qatif. The “Qatif Girl,” as she has become known in Saudi Arabia — her identity has not been made public — was then 19 years old. She got into a car with a teenage boy she knew in high school, intending to retreive a picture of herself from him.

She was soon to marry someone else, and she couldn’t have this former high school flame carrying her picture around.

That was her offense. What happened next was irrelevant to the court, at least as far as the Qatif’s girl’s punishment was concerned. Seven men kidnapped the pair, assaulting and raping both the woman and her male acquaintance.

The male rape victim was also sentenced to 90 lashes. The rapists received varying sentences, the harshest being five years in prison and 1,000 lashes.

Whipping is a common sentence in Saudi Arabia for crimes ranging from consuming alcohol to homosexuality.

The court cited the fact that the woman’s lawyer went to the media as a reason that her sentence was increased. But there may be other factors. Her attorney, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, is a human rights activist who has defended critics of Saudi Arabia’s ruling royal family.

Also, the “Qatif Girl” belongs to the Shiite Muslim minority in a country dominated by Sunni Muslims.

Even the original sentence of 90 lashes was considered excessive within Saudi Arabia. The 200-lash sentence has set off international protests.

According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, this sentence “not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators.” …source

The New Cold War, Analysis and Opinion Round-up
by Wassim Raad – VoltaireNet.com, 29 September, 2013

LISTEN TO AUDIO HERE

The new Cold War

By Ghaleb Kandil

What happened in recent days on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly clearly illustrates the emergence of new international relations, characterized by the end of American hegemony and the emergence of new realities. These suggest the beginning of a different world than the one that has been experienced during the second half of the twentieth century Cold War.

Some analysts believe that the end of the unilateral American hegemony inevitably lead to the emergence of a multipolar world. But a closer look at what happened shows the following observation: the emerging powers, including the axis of the resistance led by Russia, with a key role to Iran, managed to impose new balances through a process of accumulation of victories, especially against Israel in Lebanon, and thanks to the strength of Syria in the universal war against it. These new realities have forced the U.S. and its British and French allies to accept the new rules, which resulted, in the Security Council, by reciprocity in the use of vetoes, which was in recent decades, the monopoly the West.

This new balance of power is characterized by the end of the great wars and invasions, but it will not prevent the continuation of political conflicts and crises. There is a vital issue for Russia: the recovery of its historic role in Slavic and Orthodox Europe, controlled by the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A multipolar world means a global change of rules and relationships within the UN. However, the administrative and political structures of the organization and its executive arm, remain totally under American hegemony. This means that the imbalance will continue until the emerging forces that dismantled the unipolar world, are able to reconstruct the institutions of the United Nations to impose a change in their operating rules, such as the integration of new permanent members to the Security Council, like Brazil, South Africa and later on Iran.

The new world order will be the fall of the unilateral hegemony of America, which has used the past three decades its military power to attack and subjugate other Nations. Throughout this period, Washington has used the UN and its institutions as if they were an extension to its diplomacy. Russia and China were in a waiting period and were satisfied, at most, to protest politically, until the victory of the resistance against Israel, in 2006, laid the foundations of great change.

Many contentious issues remain between America on one side, Russia, China, Iran and the members of Brics, on the other side. Open competition for control of energy resources and markets will continue and will continue to cause biases in the international arena. But the new realities will prevent the United States have recourse to war to impose their will.

If the Yalta conference resulted in a division of the world into two spheres of influence, on which were deployed armies of the two great powers of the time, today, there are no lines of demarcation between very specific areas of influence. Instead, the lines are tangled and no compromise is possible. According to these new rules of engagement, the contemporary cold war will take place.

The scope of Iranian victory

By Ghaleb Kandil

Iran crowned 33 years of resistance against the US-Western blockade by obliging the United States to recognize it as an independent power. Thanks to the wisdom of his leadership, Tehran has managed to wrest this recognition both in terms of form and substance.

Thus, Washington has recognized the power of Iran and is resigned to accept its entry into the club of world leaders. It also acknowledged its right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy without Iran makes any concession.

We are witnessing the beginning of the rise of Iran, which has resisted all this time to complex wars launched by implacable enemies, who used all their weapons: pressures, threats, embargoes, blockades, sanctions, state terrorism, assassinations of scientists, terrorist attacks, secret wars, economic wars, subversion etc. …

But despite the huge resources thrown into battle by the United States, Israel and their auxiliaries, they lost in front of the determination of the Iranian people and its commitment to independence.

Faced with these wars, Iran has relied on its own resources and has significantly expanded its military and technological capabilities, even managing to launch the conquest of space. In cooperation with Russia, China, Korea, Brazil, Venezuela and India, the Islamic Republic has made great strides, becoming a model for developing countries.

Iranian citizens have made huge sacrifices to save the independence of their country. Now they can finally see the realization of the objectives designed by great leaders and strategists from the beginning of the revolution: build an independent state, provide the means to defend its independence and force the colonialist West to recognize it. All plans and all efforts have been made, the last 33 years in this direction.

American recognition of Iran’s power is a consecration of the new balance in the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf. In this region, the presence and the Iranian role in the political and economic fields will be crucial.

At the strategic level, it is important to emphasize the importance of the Syrian-Iranian alliance, which has promoted and covered the Resistance. This alliance greatly helped Iran build its independence model on the world stage. If the resistance of Syria and its president offered the people of the world the chance to break the unilateral American hegemony, the alliance between Damascus and Tehran has laid the foundation for deterrence against Israel.

Today, the leader of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is entitled to the skeptics, and they are less numerous in Iran, the bet made by his country on the Resistance and Syria was winner. It was a valuable strategic asset that has helped make many achievements.

Bahrain: a Prominent Activist Naji fateel Facing 15 years in Prison
September 29th, 2013, Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights

AUDIO LISTEN HERE

Human Rights Defender Naji Fateel was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after the decision of the criminal court on Sunday, September 29.

Naji Fateel has been subjected to severe torture during interrogation in the notorious Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID). Among the allegations are that he has received electrical shocks to his genitals, left foot, and back, and been subjected to simulated drowning, severe beatings, threats to publish photographs of his wife (taken from her camera which was confiscated when security forces raided the family home), verbal abuse using uncivilized words, hanging by his hands from the ceiling, sexual harassment and threats to rape him, standing for long hours, and sleep deprivation.

Mr.Naji Fateel: is a board member of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) and blogger who has been active in reporting human rights violations in Bahrain.He used his account on Twitter for dissemination of human rights information. He was previously detained between Dec 2007 and April 2009, and has been reportedly tortured.His house was stormed in search for him several times last year following the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) demands:

1.The immediate release of the prominent human rights activist Naji Fateel.
2.Drop all charges against Naji Fateel.
3.The immediate and urgent investigation in the torture allegations Naji Fateel was subjected to in the Criminal Investigation Department.
4.Bring those responsible for torture to fair trials.

For more information on the case of Naji Fateel: HERE

Additional information on the trial today:

1-The court issued a verdict on all the defendants in the case (a coalition of 14 February).

2-Number of defendants : 50 people ( Including one woman)

3-Ms. Rehana Moussaoui was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.

4- 16 people have been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

5- 4 people have been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

6- 30 people have been sentenced to 5 years in prison.

7-20 people (from total 50) has been sentenced in absentia.
…Source

While the General Assembly was discussing the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it is another matter altogether that concerned the diplomats: are the United States still the superpower they have claimed to be since the demise of the Soviet Union or has the time come to break free of their tutelage?.

The United States Feared No More.
by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 30 September, 2013.

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In 1991, the United States had considered that the end of their rival had freed their military budget and allowed them to develop their prosperity. President George H. Bush (the father) had, after Operation Desert Storm, begun to reduce the size of the armed forces. His successor, Bill Clinton, reinforced this trend. However, the Republican Congress elected in 1995 questioned this choice and imposed rearmament without an enemy to fight. The neo-conservatives lauched their country into world assault mode to create the first global empire.

It was only on the occasion of the attacks of September 11th, 2001 that President George W. Bush (the son) decided to invade successively Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya and Syria and Somalia and Sudan and to end with Iran before turning to China.

The military budget of the United States reached more than 40% of world military expenditures. However, this extravagance had an ending: the economic crisis forced Washington to cut back. In one year, the Pentagon has dismissed a fifth of its army and halted several of its research programs. This sharp decline is just beginning and it has already disrupted the whole system. It is clear that the United States, despite having power greater than the twenty largest countries of the world, including Russia and China, is not currently able to engage in large conventional wars.

Washington thus gave up on attacking Syria when the Russian fleet was deployed along the Mediterranean coast. The Pentagon would then have had to launch its Tomawak missiles from the Red Sea over Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Syria and its non-state allies would have answered with a regional war, plunging the United States into a conflict too big for it.

In an article published by the New York Times, President Putin opened fire. He stressed that “American exceptionalism” is an insult to the equality of humans and can only lead to catastrophy. At the podium of the United Nations, President Obama answered that no other nation, not even Russia, wanted to shoulder the burden of the United States. And if they were the police of the world, it was precisely to ensure equality of humans.

This intervention is not reassuring : the United States asserting itself as superior to the rest of the world and considering the equality of humans only as their subjects.

But the spell is broken. The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, drew ​​applause by demanding an apology from Washington for its universal espionage, while the President of the Swiss Confederation denounced the U.S. policy of force. The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, evoqued the trying of his U.S. counterpart under international justice for crimes against humanity, while the Serbian President, Tomislav Nikolic, denounced the masquerade of international courts which prosecute only the enemies of the Empire etc. It has thus gone from criticism from a few anti-imperialist states to widespread revolt including Washington’s allies.

Never before has the authority of the masters of the world been so publicly challenged – a sign that after their Syrian retreat, they are no longer to be feared. …source

Bahrain GP suitability ‘could be investigated’ says FIA candidate
By Andrew Benson Chief F1 writer, 30 September, 2013, BBC.

FIA presidential candidate David Ward would set up an investigation to establish whether Bahrain should hold a grand prix, if he is elected.

The event was cancelled in 2011 after civil unrest, but was reinstated last year by the current head of motorsport’s governing body, Jean Todt.

But Ward said Todt was guilty of “poor decision-making”.

“The important thing is to be neutral. What is merited is an investigatory visit,” he said.

“Look at things on the ground, talk to all sides as far as is possible and make a judgement based on that.”

The Bahrain GP was cancelled two years ago after the unrest led to a violent suppression of protests and accusations that authorities had engaged in torture and other human rights abuses.

Todt sent the head of the Spanish motorsport federation on a fact-finding mission to the troubled Gulf state ahead of the reinstatement of the race in 2012 but his report was widely criticised.

Ward and Todt are the only candidates to have declared so far for the 6 December FIA election.

Speaking in an interview with BBC Sport, 58-year-old Englishman Ward said: “I think he was rather badly served in that mission. I felt sorry for him, actually.”

Ward, a long-time adviser of former FIA president Max Mosley, said he would send “someone with expertise in the area” to Bahrain, citing as an example Edwin Glasgow QC, who chaired the Bloody Sunday inquiry into the actions of British security forces in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
The Bahrain Grand Prix was cancelled in 2011 after civil unrest

He said it was a mistake to run the Bahrain race in 2012 and that the FIA and F1 “crossed over a line” in their facilitation of the Bahrain authorities.

“If it looks like the situation is deteriorating or not improving, what there should be – because this could happen tomorrow in another part of the world – is a standard process to handle this, that is immune from suggestions that one place is being treated differently from another,” Ward added.

He said that if the FIA put “appropriate processes in place, it would minimise the reputational damage you can get from poor decision-making on the hoof”.

He added: “Bahrain had all the hallmarks of decision-making on the hoof right up to 24 hours before the race”.

Ward admitted Mosley is an “old friend”, but says the controversial former FIA president is not supporting his campaign. “I am doing this entirely for my own reasons,” he said.

When Mosley indicated he would not stand again, Ward backed Todt’s campaign for the FIA presidency in 2009, and wrote the Frenchman’s manifesto.

But now Ward, who worked with former Labour Party leader John Smith until his death in 1994, is standing against Todt, saying the FIA needed fundamental reform because its structure is “not fit for purpose”.
Electing a new president

Challenger David Ward and incumbent Jean Todt are the only two candidates to have declared so far in the FIA presidential election, which will take place on 6 December.

There was a report in the Times last week that former rally driver Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the president of the Automobile and Touring Club of the United Arab Emirates was considering running but he has not done so officially as yet.

Ward told BBC Sport he would welcome more candidates running.

The FIA has 183 members with a right to vote, although anyone who has not paid their membership dues within a specified time frame is barred.

The voting is by secret ballot at the FIA General Assembly in Paris and victory requires an absolute majority.

If no candidate wins 50% of the votes in the first round, the two with the highest number of votes go to a second round.

He described the FIA as “amateur, antiquated and rather archaic” and says it should appoint a paid chief executive and a special commissioner to deal with F1 on a daily basis.

Ward said he would press for the FIA to “strengthen its provisions” on corruption and bribery, by ensuring the sporting code “would be clear about the requirements we would have in terms of partners”.

This, he admitted, would “very likely” mean F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone would fall foul of that code if he is convicted of the bribery charges he is facing in Germany.

Ward said the failure to set up a tender process for the sport’s tyre supplier next year – as required by the F1 regulations – could potentially put the FIA at risk of failing in its obligations to the European Commission under competition law.

And he is critical of Todt’s decision to have only a fax vote of the FIA World Council – its legislative body – to approve the outline of a new Concorde Agreement, the document that governs F1.

He said it was “rather odd” and “quite strange” not to submit it to the discussion of a full meeting of the World Council.

Describing himself as a “terrible governance geek”, Ward said the issues on which he was campaigning “may seem intensely boring but are actually really, really important”.

He said: “The reasons I’m running is I can see failures going on in terms of governance that I think are quite serious.”

Ward added that the role of the FIA president was too wide for one person to do effectively and that the organisation needed “robust decision-making processes with separation of powers between executive and legislative and judicial”. …source

US seeking to fight terrorism at grassroots
30 September, 2013 – Saudi Gazette

NEW YORK CITY — US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday unveiled a new drive to tackle the root causes of violent extremism, as he condemned a series of “heinous” attacks, including the Kenya mall siege.

“It is fair to say that unspeakable evil still exists in our world. We have to find a way to prevent, to preempt, to act ahead of these kinds of obscenities,” Kerry told a global forum in New York.

He denounced recent attacks including the massacre in a Nairobi mall by Somali militants and Sunday’s devastating double suicide attack on a church in northwest Pakistan which left 82 dead.

“Cowardly attacks like these cannot be allowed to change who we are, or shake our resolve to find peace and justice for all,” the top US diplomat said. He announced that the Global Counterterrorism Forum set up two years ago with other nations around the world had already mobilized some $200 million to help train people in fighting terror attacks.

Two training centers are underway, one already open in Abu Dhabi, with a second to open in Malta next year.

Kerry said the United States was planning to put an additional $30 million into the fund, and was hoping to launch a new arm of the forum specifically to tackle terrorism at grassroots level.

“From Kenya to Pakistan from Mali to Yemen the threat that we face is more diffused, centralized, geographically dispersed than ever before,” he said.

“Addressing this threat will require every tool in our arsenal, political, economical, diplomatic, military — and perhaps most importantly, the power of our ideas.”

But Kerry stressed that “getting this right is not just about taking terrorists off the street, it’s about providing more economic opportunities for marginalized youth at risk of recruitment.” “It’s about challenging the narrative of violence that is used to justify the slaughtering of innocent people.” …source

Bahrain said to sentence 50 Anti-Government Activists
29 September, 2013 – Al Jazeera America

A Bahrain court sentenced 50 people to prison Sunday after a mass trial for alleged links to a militant group blamed for bombings and other antigovernment attacks in the Gulf nation, a rights activist said.

“A group of Feb. 14 activists were sentenced to between five and 15 years in jail,” Yousif al-Muhafda of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights told Reuters.

The center said there were human-rights campaigners among those convicted “under the internationally criticized and vague terrorism law” and that the sentences added up to more than 400 years.

“This was a sham trial with a political verdict. They should be released immediately,” the center’s acting president, Maryam al-Khawaja, said in a statement.

The defendants are accused of forming an illegal group opposing the political system, “training elements to commit violence and vandalism” and “attacking security men,” according to the charge sheet.

The convictions mark the broadest blow yet to backers of the almost daily protests by the Feb. 14 movement, named after the date in 2011 when Bahrain’s Shia majority began an uprising seeking greater political rights from the country’s Sunni rulers and the deposal of the kingdom’s al-Khalifa dynasty.

Bahrain’s head of public prosecution described the Feb. 14 group as a terrorist organization.

The verdicts could stir more unrest in the nation, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

The main Shia opposition party, Al Wefaq, called it a “black day for justice.”

Mohamed al-Maskati, head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, said 20 suspects were convicted in absentia. Charges included seeking to topple the ruling system.

Thousands of people have been arrested in Bahrain’s crackdowns.

Asked for comment, an official told Reuters a government statement on the matter was being prepared.
…source