Bahrain: 651 Citizens Sentenced in Security Cases During 2013
6 January, 2014 – Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights stated today that during the year 2013 the Bahraini Courts issued imprisonment verdicts against 651 citizens based on security charges related to the protests that kicked off on 14 February 2011.

The BYSHR confirmed that he Bahraini Courts had issued verdicts in 95 cases, and the charge “assembling and riot” was the most common in 2013.

The BYSHR explained that 10 citizens were sentenced with life imprisonment, and 153 citizens were imprisoned with 15 years.

The BYSHR indicated that 120 citizens were sentenced with 10 years and 219 citizens were sentenced with 3 to 5 years in prison, while 149 citizens were sentenced with 1 month to 2 years in prison.

Mr Mohammed Al-Maskati – president of the BYSHR – stated that the Bahraini Courts used freedom restricting laws to punish the protestors.

Mr Al-Maskati explained that since 14 February 2011 the Bahraini Authorities have been arresting and trialling citizens with charges related to freedom of opinion and expression.

Worth mentioning, Judge Sheikh Mohammed bin Ali Al-Khalifa – from the ruling family – was the most to issue verdicts during 2013. …more

SEE FULL REPORT HERE

Today Hussain Hubail, 21, a photographer detained since July 31st, had a medical appointment at the hospital with him mum.

Hubail collapsed last Thursday, as he suffered from a heart spasm, and was taken to Salmaniya Hospital for treatment, where he remained in the intensive care unit for several hours and then in the short intensive care unit.

When his condition got stable he was transferred to the Dry Dock Prison again. Hubail stayed in Salmaniya hospital complex for nearly 12 hours and was unconscious.

Hubail suffered several months ago from beams contraction of the heart muscle, shortness of breath, high blood pressure and fainted several times in prison. He told officials about his condition, but they largely ignored it for two months before they allowed his visit to the doctors at the Salmaniya Medical Complex for treatment.The prison administration don’t give him his medication to reduce blood pressure, which he needs once a day, but only once a week.

The regime use the lack of medical care to control the prisoners which has lead to a number of deaths. Hubail goes to court on January 27th and we would like to get him out on bail immediately.

We’re looking at precedents for release due to illness. Nabil Taman was released because of cancer, and Naser Bader El Raas, for his heart condition. Ali Al Awani was released today because of cancer also.

I’m contacting Irish and British medics to get support. Please contact your Congressman to take action for Hussain.

Bahrain accuses Tehran of training opposition militants
4 January, 2014 – The Peninsula

Protesters carrying Bahraini flags and photos of Shia scholar Isa Qassim march during an anti-government rally organised by main opposition group Al Wefaq in Budaiya, west of Manama, yesterday.

DUBAI: Bahrain accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guards yesterday of providing opposition militants with explosives training in order to carry out attacks in the Gulf kingdom, announcing that it had arrested five suspects.

Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni Muslim dynasty but has a population that is majority Shia. The government crushed a mostly Shia-led uprising in 2011 and has long accused predominantly Shiite Iran of meddling in its affairs.

Chief prosecutor Osama Al Oufi said the intelligence service reported last month that “Bahraini Ahmed Mahfuz Mussawi, currently living in Iran, had planned terrorist bombing operations targeting institutions and places vital to the sovereignty and security of the kingdom.”

Quoted by state news agency BNA, he added that five people had been arrested and “admitted joining a group to carry out terrorist attacks… and travelled to Iran to receive training in Revolutionary Guards camps and then received sums of money.”

On Monday, Bahraini authorities said they had seized a boat smuggling explosives made in Iran and Syria into the country.

Since the 2011 uprising, which called for democratic reforms, demonstrations have regularly been held in Shia villages around the capital, often sparking clashes with security forces. At least 89 people have been killed in Bahrain since the protests began, according to the International Federation for Human Rights.

Several bomb attacks have taken place in recent months, including one that targeted a Sunni mosque close to the royal court in July but caused no casualties.

Tensions escalated over the weekend as authorities interrogated top Shia opposition leader Ali Salman.

The head of the main Shia bloc Al Wefaq was released after a day of questioning, but was charged with incitement to religious hatred and spreading false news endangering national security. …more

Bahraini riot police attack on Imam Redha Mosque
5 January, 2014 – Shia Post

Security forces in Bahrain have attacked on a Shia Mosque and Hussainia in Sanabis village on Sunday evening, The Shia Post reported.

The extensive and persistent use of tear gas against civilians by Bahrain’s security forces since over two years was unprecedented in the 100-year history of its use throughout the world.

The Bahraini government has resorted to the policy of “collective punishment” of the nation by regular crack downs on the people who peacefully protest against government’s discriminatory policies.

Bahrainis have been staging demonstrations since mid-February 2011, calling for political reforms and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following the regime’s brutal crackdown on popular protests.

Scores have been killed, many of them under torture while in custody, and thousands more detained since the popular uprising began in the Persian Gulf state.

Protesters say they will continue holding anti-regime demonstrations until their demands for the establishment of a democratically-elected government and an end to the rights violations are met. …more

West, Saudi Arabia relieved at death of al-Majed
5 January, 2014 – By Finian Cunningham – PressTV

One thing is for sure about the death of al-Qaeda commander Majed al-Majed in a Beirut hospital this weekend – Western and Saudi intelligence will be relieved at his demise.

Dead men don’t talk, as they say, and that fact may spare the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia from incriminating disclosures that could have surfaced if he had stayed alive – disclosures that would expose their collusion in terrorist violence raging across the Middle East.

Inevitably, there will be suspicions that al-Majed – a Saudi national – was killed while in Lebanese custody. He was arrested by Lebanese intelligence personnel reportedly in the southern port city of Sidon only days before his death was announced on Saturday. During his brief period in custody he was undergoing questioning while suffering from chronic kidney disease.

Al-Majed’s career as a terrorist certainly gained him enough enemies seeking revenge. But keeping him alive would have been of more advantage to the Lebanese – and to his Hezbollah, Syrian and Iranian enemies – for the valuable information that could have been obtained about his al-Qaeda group, known as the Abdullah Azzam Brigade.

This so-called brigade was involved in terror attacks across the region, including Lebanon and Syria. While al-Majed’s outfit was on official terror lists of the US and Saudi Arabia, there is evidence that the group was less of an outlaw to these states and more of an agency for their covert aims.

Al-Majed’s group claimed responsibility for the deadly bomb attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut on November 19. That attack killed at least 25 people, including the Iranian cultural attaché, Hojjatoleslam Ebrahim Ansari, and injured more than 150 others.

Of pressing interest about al-Majed’s organization are the covert links between his group and al-Qaeda generally, and its Western and Saudi sponsors. Any disclosures would have been acutely damaging to US, British and Saudi state intelligence.

Such information could have shed more light on the shadowy role of Saudi and Western intelligence in their covert support of the al-Qaeda terror network, not just in Lebanon, but also in neighboring Syria and Iraq. Violence in these countries has been escalating over the past three years, with a combined death toll well over 100,000.

For nearly three years, Western governments and the corporate media have been hawking a narrative that Syria’s violence is the result of the government forces of President Bashar al-Assad cracking down on a pro-democracy movement. Somehow, mysteriously in the Western version, the anti-government forces in Syria have now become dominated by “extremist jihadists”, whose violence is, in turn, “spilling over” into Iraq and Lebanon.

The Western narrative also lays blame on Iran and Russia for supporting Assad, as well as Shia Hezbollah as a factor provoking violence inside Lebanon.

However, despite this threadbare Western depiction, an increasingly more plausible account for the upsurge in regional violence is that systematic covert Western support for al-Qaeda affiliates has fuelled the growth of a Frankenstein terrorist monster, which is now running amok. …more