…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

Bahrain’s Denial of Visas to Rights Activists Underscores Contempt for Human and Worker Rights
2 October, 2012 – Huntington Post – Cathy Feingold – Director, AFL-CIO’s International Department

What is the best way for the United States to stand against violent repression, the quashing of dissent, show trials, torture and other egregious violations of human and civil rights?

In the case of Bahrain, apparently, it is to include the country in a new U.S. trade and investment plan and offer mostly silence as the regime crushes its opposition, invests heavily in a public relations campaign and closes off the country to human rights and social justice activists.

Two weeks ago, the AFL-CIO awarded a human rights award to the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions (GFBTU) and their Tunisian counterparts, the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), for the courageous role they played during the Arab uprisings of early 2011. The two countries offer a stark contrast in outcomes, with the people of Bahrain seeing their chances for a more democratic and just society dimming by the day.

The GFBTU — a nonsectarian organization whose membership includes 60 unions and workers from industrial, textile, construction, petroleum, insurance and other sectors — has consistently advocated for social and economic justice through dialogue with all social partners. Its commitment to this agenda and to a broader dialogue that would allow for the democratic participation of all Bahrainis has proved threatening to powerful elements of the royal family who runs the country.

Once the only union federation in Bahrain, the GFBTU is being undermined by a new, government-allied federation ironically named the Bahrain Labor Union Free Federation, or BLUFF. After accepting the award in Washington, D.C., GFBTU leaders — and other human rights activists from Bahrain — flew to Geneva and spoke critically at a United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting regarding their government’s torture and imprisonment of opposition leaders, attacks on workers and their fundamental rights, and failure to implement many recommendations resulting from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI). The BICI, established to study the unrest and the government’s response to it, was critical of the government and recommended a variety of actions for the government to take to address its violation of international human and labor rights.

In response, the government has accused activists of tarnishing its reputation. Their names and photos — circled in red — were published in Al Watan newspaper, a clear threat with chilling consequences for any Bahraini citizen who values freedom of speech. Even less subtle, the very GFBTU leaders who accepted a humanitarian award have told us that they receive regular and threatening calls and messages. …more

Large Protests in Saudi Arabia after Activists Killed
1 October, 2012 – POMED

At least three activists were killed in the Eastern Saudi governorate of Qatif on September 26, sparking large protests over the weekend among the majority Shi’a population there. The unrest came on the heels of separate protests and dozens of arrests around Riyadh in an unusually volatile week for Saudi Arabia. Government sources said the violence in al-Awamiya, a town 10 minutes north of the city of Qatif, started [Ar.] when “gunmen” opened fire against security forces who were trying to arrest a man in connection with previous Qatif protests. Security forces “responded as necessary,” killing the activist Abdel-Karim Hassan al-Labad and an unnamed man who was with him. A 16-year-old boy, Hasan Zahiri, died four days later from wounds sustained in the firefight. Activists disputed the government’s account of the events in al-Awamiya, insisting that al-Labad and the others were unarmed.

News reports [Ar.] and videos posted to Youtube indicate that thousands of protesters rallied in al-Awamiya and Qatif on Sunday, calling for justice and “death to the House of Saud.” Qatif has been the site of several large protests over the last year as the Saudi government moved aggressively to clamp down on dissent in the East.

In southern Saudi Arabia, a human rights activist launched a hunger strike to protest being held without charges for more than two weeks. The man, Eisa al-Marzouq al-Nakhifi, “had campaigned on behalf of villagers evacuated from their homes near the border during a brief conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Al Houthi rebels in late 2009,” many of whom have not been allowed to return. …source

Bahrain: Summary executions of protesters continue with western arms and under the impunity policy
29 September, 2012 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights

Bahrain Center for Human Rights express in the strongest terms the condemnation of the murder of the child Ali Hussain Neamah (17 years old) with the shotgun of the riot police, 40 days after the killing of Hussam AlHaddad (16 years old) exactly in the same way[1] , a result of the continued use of excessive force and deadly weapons in dealing with peaceful protesters, and the spread of culture of impunity.

Ali Neamah died with a deadly shot of a shotgun by the riot police from a close range at a late hour on 28 Sep 2012 in the village of Saddad, northwest of the Bahraini capital Manama, after a peaceful protest was attacked by riot police. The shotgun injuries were seen all over Ali’s back. The Death certificate confirms that death was caused with shotgun injuries on the back. The ministry of interior confirmed the death and its responsibility for shooting Ali in a statement[2] , however it claimed that the police patrol was attacked with Molotov and the “police responded using only necessary and proportionate force to restore order”. The injuries on Ali’s back is evidence that killing Al Hadad was not an act of self-defence as indicated in MOI’s statement. …more photos

Teenager killed as police fire birdshot
30 September, 2012 – scotsman.com

BAHRAINI riot police killed a teenager when they fired shotgun pellets during clashes with protesters following a demonstration on Friday, the country’s opposition said yesterday.

Thousands rallied in an authorised protest called by the main opposition group al-Wefaq, but as the event ended around 100 people clashed with police.

Witnesses said riot police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the breakaway group, who, the authorities said, were throwing petrol bombs and wielding iron bars.

The police described the incident as a “terrorist attack” on a security patrol that “targeted the lives of members of the patrol”.

The police had defended themselves “according to their legal authority”, a statement said, confirming a protester had died.

Al-Wefaq named the dead protester as 17-year-old Ali Hussain Nima and photographs show a body covered in blood and flecked with birdshot wounds.

He is the second protester in six weeks to die at the hands of Bahraini police.

Bahrain, headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been in turmoil since mass demonstrations started at the height of Arab Spring unrest last year, led by its Shia Muslim majority. The protests were put down by the Sunni monarchy, which imposed martial law and asked Saudi Arabia to send troops in support.

In mid-August, a 16-year-old protester was killed in a similar incident, when ­police opened fire with birdshot during clashes after a demonstration, opposition activists said.

The opposition said more than 45 people have been killed in protests since martial law was lifted in June 2011. The interior ministry said protesters have injured more than 700 police officers and that the authorities have exercised restraint.

The latest death comes a day after the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed a Bahraini as the Asia representative to its advisory committee. …source

Bahraini wins human rights seat amid protests, teen’s death
CNN – 30 September, 2012

(CNN) — A Bahraini man won a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council Advisory Committee the same day a young protester in the country was killed, officials and a human rights group said Saturday.

King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa expressed support for Said Al-Faihani on his unanimous election Friday as the Asian group representative, Bahrain’s Information Affairs Authority said.

The nomination “represents the international community’s confidence in Bahrain’s progress in the human rights’ field,” the authority said in a statement.

A 17-year-old protester died Friday in clashes with security forces in the village of Sadad.

The interior ministry said a mob armed with Molotov cocktails and iron rods attacked a police patrol, prompting officers to defend themselves. The attacker was killed, the ministry said.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights decried the incident as an example of “summary executions.”

In a statement, the center said that Ali Neamah was taking part in a peaceful protest, and that he was killed by a “deadly shot of a shotgun by the riot police from a close range.” It posted photographs of wounds to Neamah’s back.

Bahraini activists posted online photographs and videos of the clashes on Friday and Saturday. In them, protesters chanted “Down with Hamad,” referring to the king, while police shoot tear gas canisters.

CNN cannot verify the authenticity of the images.

Demonstrations in Bahrain failed to gain the traction of other Arab Spring uprisings after a crackdown by authorities in the island state, backed by troops from nearby Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Last November, Bahrain’s Independent Commission of Inquiry issued a report critical of authorities’ reactions to the protests, which began in February 2011, spurred by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. …source

Cuba, Syria accuse U.S., others of aggression, terrorism in Damascus
2 October, 2012 – The Guardian Nigeria

CUBA’S Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, yesterday said the United States (U.S.) is guilty of “military aggression” in Syria in a speech to the United Nations (UN) that also accused Western governments of seeking to topple the Syrian government.

The speech to the UN General Assembly, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported, was a rare show of diplomatic support for Syria’s increasingly isolated President Bashar al-Assad, whose attempt to suppress an armed rebellion has led to full-scale civil war.

Moreso, the Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem also accused the U.S. and its allies yesterday of supporting terrorism in Syria but said his government remains open to a political settlement of its civil war.

Speaking to the UN General Assembly in New York, Muallem said France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States “clearly induce and support terrorism in Syria with money, weapons and foreign fighters.”

However, he also said that President Bashar al-Assad is open to reforms if the violence stops. “We still believe in a political solution as an essential way out of the crisis,” he said.

For this to happen, he said UN members should press for an end to the “arming, financing, harbouring and training of terrorist groups.”

Washington and many of its allies accuse Syria’s government of mass human rights abuses in the ongoing struggle to put down the armed rebellion.

To Parrilla, the U.S. and European backing for the rebels amounted to “foreign military aggression which will have serious consequences for the entire Middle East region.”

“The U.S. and some European governments have decided to overthrow the Syrian government, for which they have armed, financed and trained opposition groups. They have even resorted to the use of mercenaries,” he said.

The communist island’s minister applauded Russia and China for blocking measures against Assad’s government in the UN Security Council.

“It has been impossible to manipulate the Security Council to impose the interventionist formula applied in recent warmongering adventures,” he said. …source

Iran warns against outside interference in Syria
2 October, 2012 Agence France Presse

SYDNEY: Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Tuesday described Tehran as a “strong ally of the people of Syria” and warned outside powers not to interfere in the conflict.

But in an interview with Australia’s SBS television, Salehi also said the Syrian government needed to recognise the opposition that has been waging an 18-month-old rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“When it comes to outside interference, and to the internal affairs of Syria, and when outside powers dictate upon the Syrian people that ‘Look, your president should step down, and this should happen’, this is not the right way to do things,” he told the broadcaster’s Dateline programme.

“What we are saying is that both sides have to recognise the other side. In other words, the government has to recognise the opposition, and the opposition has to recognise the government.”

The United States charges that Iran is arming the Syrian government in the brutal repression of its opponents but Salehi insisted his Islamic republic was working for peace.

“What we can do is to facilitate this, to facilitate sitting between the government and the opposition, so that they find a way out from this crisis,” he added in the interview in New York, where he was attending the UN General Assembly.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week said Tehran was working to set up a contact group on the conflict in Syria.

He refused to divulge which nations had been approached by Iran to join the group, saying he was hopeful the Iranian foreign ministry would make an announcement in the coming days.

Tehran is already included in another so-called “contact group,” involving Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and has called for observers to be sent to Syria to try to end the violence there.

At least 30,000 people, including more than 2,000 children, have died in the conflict since it erupted in March 2011, according to figures supplied by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
…more

Russia tells NATO to stay away from Syria
2 October, 2012 – Reuters

MOSCOW, Oct 2 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) – Russia told NATO and world powers on Tuesday they should not seek ways to intervene in the Syrian war or set up buffer zones between rebels and government forces.

The statements from Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was one of Moscow’s most specific warnings yet to the West and Gulf Arab leaders to keep out of the 18-month-old conflict.

“In our contacts with partners in NATO and in the region, we are calling on them not to seek pretexts for carrying out a military scenario or to introduce initiatives such as humanitarian corridors or buffer zones,” Gatilov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia and China have vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions condemning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and blocked attempts to impose sanctions on the country or intervene more directly in its conflict.

Syria’s neighbour Turkey has floated the idea of setting up “safe zones” inside Syria to protect civilians but that would also have to be approved by the Security Council.

Gatilov urged restraint between Syria and NATO-member Turkey, one of Assad’s harshest critics. Ankara has repeatedly complained of artillery and gunfire spilling over its border and last week it signalled it would take action if there was a repeat of a mortar strike on its territory from inside Syria.

“We believe both Syrian and Turkish authorities should exercise maximum restraint in this situation, taking into account the risings number of radicals among the Syrian opposition who can intentionally provoke conflicts on the border,” Gatilov was quoted as saying. …source

Bahrain: Arrests of Medics after Security Forces Stormed their Houses
2 October, 2012 – Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights

The Security forces have arrested five medics in a series of dawn raids on Tuesday ( October 2) morning, just one day after the highest court dismissed their appeals.

On Monday ( October 1) , The court of cassation has rejected the appeals and upheld the previous court’s convictions and sentences of the nine medics.

Medics who have been arrested:

1–Dr. Ali Al-Ekri ( 5 Years imprisonment)

2-Dr. Mahmoud Asghar ( 6 Months imprisonment)

3-Dr. Ghassan Dhaif ( 1 Year imprisonment)

4-Dheya Ibrahim AbuIdris ( 2 Months imprisonment)

5-Ibrahim Abdullah Ibrahim ( 3 Years imprisonment)

6- Dr. Saeed Al-Samahiji ( 1 Year imprisonment)

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) demanded the immediate release of the doctors who treated the injured in peaceful protests last year (Feb 2011). …source

US urges Europe to block Abbas’ UN bid: leaked memo
2 October, 2012 – Al Akhbar

The United States urged European nations not to support the Palestinian Authority’s bid to upgrade its status at the United Nations, according to documents obtained by The Guardian in a report published Monday.

In a memo seen by the UK-based newspaper, the United States warned European governments “to support [US] efforts” to block the bid, and threatened “significant negative consequences” including financial sanctions if Palestine secured an upgrade to its UN status.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly on Thursday he would seek “observer state” membership at the world body, a downgrade from the full membership he requested last year.

The 2011 bid was staunchly opposed by Israel and the United States, and failed to pass the Security Council.

Washington holds veto power at the Security Council but not in the 193-member General Assembly, where a vote for “observer state” membership would likely be supported.

The US memo, which was communicated to representatives of European governments, said the upgrade “would have significant negative consequences, for the peace process itself, for the UN system, as well as our ability to maintain our significant financial support for the Palestinian Authority.”

It noted that “observer state” membership of the UN would allow Palestine access to the International Criminal Court. At the ICC, Palestine could challenge Israel’s settlement building, occupation and blockade on Gaza, which breach international law.

“We hope you are willing to support our efforts … We would appreciate knowing where your government stands on this issue. We would also be interested in knowing whether you have been approached on this matter by Palestinian representatives,” the US document said.

The Guardian reported that the US State Department declined to comment on the issue. …more

In final loving act father of the Ali Mushaima digs his son’s grave

Bahraini Pro-Democracy Detainee ‘Mohammed Mushaima’ Martyred Tuesday Morning
ABNA – 2 October, 2012

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Mohammed Mushaima has passed away in custody today, 2.10.2012, while serving a 7 year sentence for participating in pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain where a peaceful revolution has started twenty months ago.

Only two days ago, the 17 year old Ali Neama was killed by the regime forces which targeted him at close range, during his participation in pro-democracy protests, riddling his body with Birdshot pellets.

Many Bahraini men, women and children have been killed in different ways, since the start of the mass revolution. The use of excessive force by the authority has also caused a number of deaths between foreign workers in the country.

Hundreds of men, women and human rights activists are still detained in the Bahraini prisons which are known for their disproportionate torture that has led to a number of deaths in custody. …more

BAHRAIN: Ongoing judicial harassment and arbitrary detention of Nabeel Rajab, as criminalisation and threats against human rights defenders go unabated
2 October, 2012 – FIDH

Paris-Geneva, October 2, 2012 – The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), deplores the decision to further delay the trial on appeal of Mr. Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and FIDH Deputy Secretary General. Such ongoing judicial harassment and arbitrary detention is one more evidence of the continued criminalisation of human rights defenders’ activities.

On September 27, 2012, the Bahrain Appeals Court once more refused to release Mr. Nabeel Rajab on bail and further postponed the ruling on his appeal to October 16, 2012[1]. The Bahrain Appeals Court was seized by Mr. Rajab’s lawyers to contest the decision taken on August 16, 2012 by the Lower Criminal Court to sentence him to three years’ imprisonment for three cases related to his participation in peaceful gatherings in favour of fundamental freedoms and democracy. In addition, during yesterday’s hearing, the court continued to deal with the three cases as separate cases, rejecting once more the request of the defence to merge them. Mr. Rajab has been detained since last July 9 and has been continuously denied release since then[2].

Moreover, during the hearing, the judge reportedly showed a DVD containing images of Mr. Nabeel Rajab at peaceful demonstrations arguing with an officer on the legality of the protest, as well as images of young people throwing Molotov cocktails during what the judge alleged was one of these protests. Mr. Rajab’s lawyers insisted that this last part did not take place at the same location nor time as those of the said peaceful protest. Mr. Rajab further recalled that none of the protests he attended had witnessed violence. Mr. Rajab’s lawyers s well as some observers who attended the hearing, consider that this part of the DVD consist in clear montages.

The Observatory is thus extremely concerned over the new postponement decided by the judge, as it aims at sanctioning Mr. Rajab’s human rights activities by keeping him in arbitrary detention. The Observatory further strongly denounces the montages broadcast in court, which clearly aim at discrediting Mr. Rajab and legitimate peaceful protests in general.

In addition, the Observatory deplores that, notwithstanding the commitments expressed on several occasion by the Bahraini authorities to make NGOs’ access to Bahrain easier, the visa request which was submitted by the Observatory on September 19, 2012 to the relevant authorities on behalf of an Observatory-mandated trial observer, was accepted only a few hours before the planned flight departure of the said observer, making it impossible for him to travel to Bahrain.

…more

32 face trial in Bahrain for police station attack
1 October 2012 – Khaleej Times

Thirty-two people accused of mounting a terror attack on Bahrain’s Sitra Police Station will appear before the Higher Criminal Court on October 18. Out of these 32, 15 will be tried in absentia.

Bahrain’s Public Prosecutor has charged them with setting fire to public properties, rioting, possessing Molotov cocktail bombs and unlicensed explosives and white weapons (knives).

“An arrest warrant has been issued to track down the 15 people who are at large and bring them to justice,” Prosecutor Mohammed Al Dosary said on Sunday.

Over 100 vandals had attacked the Sitra Police Station, hurling Molotov cocktail bombs, iron rods and stones, and tried to set it ablaze and assault policemen on duty. The terror attack had left one policeman injured while the station suffered damages.

Police identified some of the perpetrators and confiscated explosives, knives from their houses. Appearing before the Public Prosecution, they confessed to taking part in the attack. …more

Palestinians in Israel mark 12th anniversary of Intifada killings
1 October, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Palestinians in Israel on Monday called for justice over the killing of 13 civilians by Israeli forces in 2000 on the 12th anniversary of the massacre.

At least 2,000 marched in the Galilee town of Sakhnin, carrying Palestinian flags and pictures of the 13 killed in October 2000 during the Second Palestinian Intifada which had just begun, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.

Rallies were also held in Umm el-Fahm, Nazareth, Kfar Kana and other Palestinian villages in the Galilee.

“Twelve years have passed and as far as we are concerned it is as if the incident happened yesterday,” a spokesman for the families of the victims Ibrahim Siam said, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

Demonstrators chanted slogans and demanded that those responsible for the killings be indicted.

The Orr Commission, established following the deaths, found Israeli police incompetence and a history of discrimination against Palestinians in Israel.

Rights group Adalah represented the families of the victims before an official commission of inquiry, but in 2008 the attorney general issued a decision not to indict any of the Israeli police officers responsible for the deaths.

The killings took place during a series of Palestinian protests in northern Israel at the onset of the Second Intifada cultivated by decades of Israeli repression of Palestinians.

The uprising was triggered when then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the holy Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque which was taken as a provocation.

Around 20 percent, or 1.3 million people, of Israel’s population are Palestinian.

They are largely the descendants of Palestinians that managed to remain during the 1948 war, when an estimated 700,000 were expelled from or fled their homes during fighting that would see the establishment of the state of Israel.

Rights groups say that Palestinians living in Israel face discrimination in employment, education and public funding within Israel.

The Israeli government estimates that just over 50 percent of Palestinian families in Israel live under the poverty line. …more

Delisting MKO: U.S. Officially Taking up Arms against Iran
30 September, 2012 – Kourosh Ziabari -Iran Review

In an act of unequivocal and explicit hostility toward Iran, the United States took the name of Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) off its list of foreign terrorist organizations on Friday, September 28, showing its unconditional support to the sworn enemies of the Iranian nation straight from the shoulder.

The U.S. government announced the decision a few days after the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton submitted a file of classified information about the terrorist cult to the Congress.

The decision was made under the pretext that MKO has not carried out any terrorist operation over the past 10 years. This controversial announcement which bespeaks of the United States’ undeniable animosity with the Iranian people comes while there are several reliable documents confirming that the MKO is responsible for the killing of more than 40,000 Iranians during the 1980s war between Iran and Iraq. This gang has also assassinated Iran’s former President Mohammad Ali Rajaei, Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar and judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti in the first years of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Since 2010, it has also assisted Israel’s Mossad to kill four high-ranking Iranian nuclear scientists in a bid to thwart Iran’s scientific progress.

Immediately after the announcement by the U.S. government, the Paris-based leader of the terrorist group Maryam Rajavi made a statement, hailing the decision: “this has been the correct decision, albeit long overdue, in order to remove a major obstacle in the path of the Iranian people’s efforts for democracy.” Rajavi promised that her group will step up pressure on Iran, and one may easily visualize what devilish and malicious plans they have in mind for the people of Iran.

New York Times says that MKO bribed some of the influential U.S. politicians in the Department of State and some lawmakers in the Congress to convince them to uphold the anti-Iranian bid. Some of the high-ranking U.S. officials supporting MKO include former CIA Directors, R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; former FBI director Louis J. Freeh; former U.S. President George W. Bush’s homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge; Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey; and President Barack Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones.

The MKO which receives underground funding from Israel and some of the Western governments had invested a lot in attracting the support of high-ranking American politicians and is said to have paid fees amounting from $15,000 to $30,000 to these people as an incentive to compel them to attend their rallies and give speeches in support of their anti-Iranian activities.

The former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Edward G. Rendell, admitted in March that he had received a total of $150,000 from the group to support their cause.

One day after the U.S. government de-listed MKO, Lord Ken Maginnis, a neo-conservative member of the House of Lords and a former UK parliamentarian called it a “landmark decision by U.S. State Department” and “a victory for justice.”

“Now, the best way to ease the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran is to facilitate a regime change in Tehran. And that is on the horizon. The Iranian resistance doesn’t need troops or arms; it needs the support of freedom-loving people and of governments that eschew tyranny,” he wrote in an article.

There are credible reports, indicating that MKO members have received considerable amounts of money, military training and equipments from the states which are hostile to Iran and fear of its growing influence in the Middle East, including the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In an article published in New Yorker on April 6, 2012, the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed that how the U.S. government has furtively supported the MKO terrorists. The article entitled “Our Men in Iran?” documented that members of the MKO were trained in communications, cryptography, small-unit tactics and weaponry by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at a base in Nevada starting in 2005.

“JSOC instructed MEK operatives on how to penetrate major Iranian communications systems, allowing the group to intercept telephone calls and text messages inside Iran for the purpose of sharing them with American intelligence,” wrote Nile Bowie in a research article published on Global Research on April 16, 2012. The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is a component command of the United States Special Operations Command and is known to have carried out clandestine operations in Iran with the direct authorization of George W. Bush. …more

Contradictions and Hypocrisy
Professor Obama Lectures The Muslim World
28 September, 2012 – CounterPunch – By Esam Al-Amin

On Sept. 25, Professor-turned President Barack Obama lectured the Muslim World and world leaders during his annual address before the United Nations.

The beautifully crafted speech of the Nobel peace laureate would have been believed – and better received—had it simply been genuine. The president’s appeal for rejecting violence, spreading peace among nations, while emphasizing the vital use of diplomacy in international relations, as well as his call for respecting the rule of law, due process, and cultural understanding were remarkable. But unfortunately, they were simply not credible.

In his speech, the president admonished the Muslim World by underscoring the important belief that people must “resolve their differences peacefully” and that “diplomacy” should take “the place of war.” Laudable words, but only if America practiced what it preaches.

In his seminal work “A Century of U.S. Interventions,” based on the Congressional Records and the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Services, Zoltan Grossman chronicled 133 U.S. military interventions by the most active military in the history of the world, between 1890 and 2001. Similarly, William Blum’s study “A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower,” covered 67 interventions between 1945 and 2000 that, according to him, resulted in the deaths of 13-17 million people. In his book “The Fall of the U.S. Empire – And Then What?,” European intellectual Johan Galtung listed 161 incidents of American overt political violence between 1945 and 2001, including 67 military interventions, 25 bombings, 35 political assassinations (or attempted ones), 11 foreign countries that were assisted with torture, and 23 interferences with elections or the political process abroad. And all that was before the 9/11 attacks.

Since then, the U.S. military has been extremely busy, invading Iraq in 2003 under false pretenses and causing hundreds of thousands of casualties while creating millions of refugees. Before that, it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, causing tens of thousands of casualties in the longest war in U.S. history while still maintaining to this date over 70,000 soldiers on the ground. The U.S. has also been waging open warfare with the whole world as its theater of operations in the so-called “war on terror.” This endless war allowed the U.S. military to engage in undeclared military operations, violating the sovereignty of many countries in Asia and Africa including Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti, and numerous Sub-Saharan and West African countries. So much for peaceful conflict resolution and mutual respect between nations.

During that period, the Bush administration allowed (and the Obama administration has since refused to prosecute) the CIA to violate the sovereignty of allied countries including in Europe by authorizing the use of prison black sites, rendition, and torture. In one case, Italy tried and convicted in absentia twenty-three CIA operatives who violated its sovereignty when they kidnapped and rendered an Egyptian cleric to be tortured by the former Egyptian regime. Likewise, Germany condemned the U.S. intelligence agency for kidnapping and torturing one of its citizens of Lebanese descent. While Canada regretted and apologized for its role in rendering one of its citizens of Syrian descent, the U.S. – the country that actually carried out the rendition knowing that the subject would be tortured by the Syrian regime that it now enthusiastically condemns- still refuses to acknowledge its role, let alone apologize for the gross violation of its human rights obligations under international treaties.

Moreover, no American senior officials were ever held accountable for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and torture in Iraq, or for waterboarding and other “harsh interrogation techniques” (read: torture) used against Muslim prisoners (the overwhelming number of whom were innocent bystanders according to legal and human rights organizations) at Guantanamo, Bagram, or elsewhere.

President Obama further stated in his scolding of Muslim world leaders that they needed to emulate the behavior of civilized nations that respect “the rule of law and due process that guarantees the rights of all people.” But such lofty rhetoric from the president might be very difficult to accept since he himself acted as prosecutor, judge, and executioner when he ordered the murder of several American citizens, including a cleric of Yemini descent and a magazine editor of Pakistani descent with a drone attack in Yemen. People across the Muslim world wondered why the rule of law was absent in these cases and why their due process rights did not apply. Even two weeks after their death, the cleric’s sixteen-year old son, also an American citizen with supposedly constitutional protections, and a child by international standards, was also assassinated in a separate drone attack. So much for due process or respect for human rights.

In fact, since Obama became president in 2009, dozens of innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and else where have been killed each year. But rarely does the civilized nation apologize for killing innocent Muslim civilians because “America does not apologize” as many American politicians repeatedly love to say.

Furthermore, Obama’s commendable call for mutual respect among nations may have fallen on deaf ears because it was considered by many as disingenuous. As noted above, for years the U.S. has disrespected the sovereignty of Pakistan and Yemen as it assassinated many individuals, including U.S. citizens, on their soil without any regard for the national sovereignty of the host countries, which are not at war with the U.S. But Obama could not have dared to use a drone attack in the U.K. to kill a cleric of Egyptian descent, who the U.S. has been after for years. In the U.K., the U.S. simply asked the British to extradite him so that he could be tried on U.S. soil. So the U.K. gets every consideration while the administration only shows contempt for Yemen or Pakistan.

In his speech, the president lauded the “enshrined” American values of constitutional protections and freedom of speech, as he reminded his world audience that “citizens cannot be thrown in jail because of what they believe,” and that they should be allowed to “speak their minds and assemble without fear.” He then emphatically stated that in the U.S. “our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech.”

Yet Muslims around the world wondered where were these protections of freedom of speech when several American Muslims were indicted and sentenced to as much as life in prison in the U.S. for exercising First Amendment activities, including an American Muslim pharmacist of Egyptian descent in Boston who was sentenced to seventeen years in 2012 for translating passages and uploading videos to the internet, and a cable operator of Pakistani descent who was sentenced to almost six years in 2004 for connecting his New York customers to Hezbollah’s satellite channel.

In many of these cases, government prosecutors speculated that the speech of the Muslim defendants was not protected because it could have led to violence even though no evidence was ever presented to support such a theory. Contrast that with the proven record of hate speech spewed by numerous American Islamophobes, many of whom were quoted extensively by anti-Muslim extremist Anders Breivik, who deliberately killed in cold blood 77 people in Norway in July 2011. In his 1500-page manifesto, Breivik cited many American anti-Muslim haters such as Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Pamela Geller, Martin Kramer, and others. They apparently inspired him to commit the atrocious killings, though none were ever held, even morally, accountable, or subsequently condemned for their hateful inciting anti-Muslim speech.

Moreover, President Obama proudly affirmed his belief in “freedom and self-determination” and expounded that such concepts are “not unique to one culture,” since they are “not simply American values or Western values; they are universal values.” But these words ring hollow as the American president failed to explain to peoples around the world why the U.S. and its Western allies while steadfastly declaring that they “believe in these values” have continuously blocked freedom and self-determination, even symbolically at the United Nations, to the Palestinian people who have been suffering for over six decades either under brutal military occupation or in squalid refugee camps.

He further failed to justify why America has continued to fully arm and finance the tools that maintain and sustain the Israeli military occupation for decades, while shielding Israel’s atrocious policies against the unarmed Palestinian civilian population. Or why it protects Israel from any accountability for its illegal settlement activities and occupation in flagrant violations of international law and the Geneva conventions.

Towards the end of the speech, President Obama accused the Iranian government of supporting “terrorist groups” in the Middle East (none of which is known to have targeted the U.S.), while his administration has just delisted the Iranian terrorist group MEK, which has a bloody history and in recent years has been responsible for many terrorist attacks and assassinations inside Iran including the targeting of government officials, scientists, and academics.

Overlooking the fact that he started his speech by emphasizing peace and diplomacy, the president ended it by implicitly threatening Iran with war unless it accepts the dictates of the West as he stated that “the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” since “it has failed to take the opportunity to demonstrate that its nuclear program is peaceful.”

Most Americans might simply be deceived by Israeli propaganda in regard to the Iranian nuclear program, but most of the citizens of the world are not oblivious to the facts or the double standard applied to this issue by the American administration and its Israeli ally. So here are the facts that the president is fully aware of but conveniently decided to totally ignore.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East that actually possesses nuclear weapons- over 300 nuclear heads along with their delivery systems. Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while Iran is. Under the NPT, Iran not only has the right to have a robust civilian nuclear program, but the five recognized nuclear power countries have the obligation to help Iran develop one.

Moreover, Iran’s nuclear facilities have been fully and are currently under the IAEA inspection regime. Iran has repeatedly disavowed the use of nuclear arms and has only enriched its uranium stockpile to the civilian use level of twenty percent- not the ninety eight percent needed for weaponization. Moreover, since at least 2007 the consensus of the sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies has been that Iran abandoned any steps towards building a nuclear arms program. Finally, it was Iran that accepted the conditions set by President Obama in 2010 in his communication with the president of Brazil and prime minister of Turkey for Iran to prove its civilian use intentions. But it was Obama who subsequently backed away from the diplomatic solution as soon as Iran agreed to it, the same plan that he himself outlined to the world leaders.

When Obama arrived on the world stage in 2009, people the world over including many in the Muslim World had high hopes for real and genuine change. People were ready to turn the page on the painful years of the arrogant behavior of George W. Bush. But apparently the empire’s inertia overpowers the raised hopes of any false prophets.

Regrettably, with such self-aggrandizing posture, Obama’s tenure, whether it ends in four months or four years, will not conclude in celebration or optimism. Rather, in all likelihood its ending may follow T. S. Eliot’s words: “This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.” …source

Esam Al-Amin can be contacted at alamin1919@gmail.com

Ali Naema murdered by Bahrain Security Forces with illegal and negligent of Shotgun using lethal rounds. 17 year old Ali was shot in the back at very close range. Ali is from Sadad Village. Another tragic loss of life at the hands by US supported “friends” in the al Khalifa Regime. Shotguns have become another tool of misery and weapon of choice in the murder of young men since US Security Consultant and “head bashing”, US Chief John Timoney and Scotland Yards, ‘phone scandal cover-up man’, John Yates signed on to help regime. The US State Department praised their role last year as they showed up with US and UK Public Relation firms, expert in spinning tyranny as Western Market Opportunity and transforming the image of torturous regimes into ‘favored Western Trading Partners’.

The murder of Ali is just another in a continuous pattern of murder of young men by the Security Forces. Today, under pressure from Western Governments, a Bahrain Policeman was sentenced to 7 years for murdering another protester in a separate incident. It has become a recognizable pattern of abuse from regime Security Forces and MOI leaders to use violent and bloody methods of retaliation when they are pressured by Western governments to Stop Human Rights Abuse. This is a clear and predictable response from police in retaliation for the conviction of one of their own.

According to an eye witness, Martyr Ali Neama was kicked and dragged on the road after getting shot by shotgun”. The same abuse has been reported in other Security Force Murders. A Physician has verified bruising was visible on young Ali’s body.

Security Forces are expected to assault the funeral at the time of his burial. Police routinely attack funerals of the Bahrain Martyrs and a means of desecration and intimidation.

6 January, 2012

Upon The Occasion of the Appeals Trial for Nabeel Rajab
28 September,2012

SumayaRajab ‏@binmrajab

First, officer Abdulla Dha’en stopped us in the sun on the door of the court &appears to have been implementing superior orders 2 provoke us

After Abdulla &his masters failed to provoke us, prevention news spread & foreigners arrival, they let us in out of fear of scandal #Bahrain

Ironically the killer of martyr Hani AbdulAziz was sitting in the same courtroom and was free while HRD Nabeel Rajab was detained ! #Bahrain

Presenting a HRD to a trial detained and a killer loose! Proved to foreigners what we’ve been saying to them about the #Bahrain’i judiciary

The comparison between the view of Nabeel Rajab in court and the loose killer became a place of laughter and ridicule by attendants #Bahrain

I wish the Minister of Justice attended the trial yesterday to see foreigners laughing on this farce trial #Bahrain

The killer was moving between the police and chatting with them and going out to smoke, while Nabeel was surrounded with police #Bahrain

The defense has pointed out bringing Nabeel to court imprisoned and the killer is loose, but the judge acted as if he did not know! #Bahrain

Judge failed to provide any evidence to convict Nabeel and movies that he used to convict Nabeel was great and had adversely impact #Bahrain

The judge’s violation of the laws and procedures and trying to cram new evidence (2/2) #Bahrain

Because of poor fabricated cases against Nabeel Rajab, the court and with the complicity of P.prosecution manipulated the file #Bahrain

Manipulated the case file and entered new evidence in clear violation of the law #Bahrain

The funny great misfortune that the judge displayed a tape of a speech by Nabeel and immediately the defense revealed that it’s fabricated !

Just imagine a judge in the Court displays fabricated tapes to convict the accused, you know why? Coz his argument is weak and wants an exit

In the first section of the tape, Nabeel in #Manama march raises the V sign &second section pasted, youth throwing Molotov in another area

Second tape displayed by the judge in the court is another huge scandal and the fabrication in it is clear even to the blind ! #Bahrain

It was an attempt to convince the audience that the first section and the second section of the tape is the same protest #Bahrain

Although the cutting and pasting is clear and the sections were in different areas ! #Bahrain

Government is trying desperately to accuse Nabeel w violence to justify his continued imprisonment, but whenever they try they fail #Bahrain

A third tape was displayed by the judge only to Nabeel &lawyers w/o the audience &foreigners on the pretext that screens don’t work #Bahrain

Apparently the tape didn’t help the judge #Bahrain

Skills of the defense team won a victory yesterday in court and Nabeel succeeded again (1/2) #Bahrain

And Nabeel Rajab succeeded again and as usual to turn his trial into a court condemnation of the regime (2/2) #Bahrain

End – Source, Twitter 28 September, 2012

21 April, 2011

UN’s Ban Ki-moon Has No Comment on Bahrain Jailing Zainab al-Khawaja
By Matthew Russell Lee – Inner City Press

UNITED NATIONS, September 27 — With all the talk at the UN General Assembly about the Arab Spring and freedom of expression, the UN’s and others’ failure to speak out again Bahrain jailing Zainab al-Khawaja for tearing up a photo of the King, even when asked, is noteworthy.

On September 26, the day after US President Obama’s speech about freedom of expression and after months of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon statements about the right to non-violent protest, Inner City Press asked Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky:

Inner City Press: The daughter of a very prominent Bahrain activist — the daughter’s name is Zainab al-Khawaja — has been sentenced to two months in jail for tearing up the picture of a Bahraini royal, and I am wondering, does the Secretary-General or the Secretariat have any view of this arrest in terms of freedom of speech, or in terms of the right to oppose one’s Government?

Spokesperson Nesirky: No specific comment on this specific case. If that changes, I will let you know.

Twenty-one hours later, no statement had been issued. Nesirky went on to point backward:

Spokesperson Nesirky: But you will have seen that the Secretary-General met already with the Foreign Minister from Bahrain. And I would refer you to the readout that we gave on that.

But here was that readout:

The Secretary-General today met with H. E. Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The Secretary-General and the Foreign Minister reviewed the situation in the region. They also discussed current developments in Bahrain, including the human rights situation. The Secretary-General welcomed the commitment made by His Majesty King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa, to dialogue, good governance and genuine democracy and called on the Government to complete the implementations of the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry and the recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review. He also emphasized that a genuine, all-inclusive dialogue that addresses the legitimate aspirations of all Bahraini communities is the best way to promote lasting peace, stability, justice and economic progress in Bahrain.

And days after Ban “welcomed the commitment made by His Majesty King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa, to dialogue, good governance and genuine democracy,” a prominent democracy activist was sentences to prison for tearing up the King’s photograph. Now Ban, and others, have “no specific comment on this specific case.” So it goes at the UN. ..source

Systemic Destabilization as “A Strategy of Tension”: 9/11, the JFK Assassination, and the Oklahoma City Bombing
By Prof Peter Dale Scott – Global Research – 24 September, 2012

Introduction: Structural Deep Events and the Strategy of Tension in Italy

From an American standpoint, it is easy to see clearly how Italian history was systematically destabilized in the second half of the 20th century, by a series of what I call structural deep events. I have defined these as “events, like the JFK assassination, the Watergate break-in, or 9/11, which violate the … social structure, have a major impact on … society, repeatedly involve law-breaking or violence, and in many cases proceed from an unknown dark force.”2

The examples in Italy, well known to Italians, include the Piazza Fontana bombing of 1969, the Piazza della Loggia bombing of 1974, and the Bologna railway bombing of 1980.

These bombings, in which over one hundred civilians were killed and many more wounded, were attributed at the time to marginal left-wing elements of society. However, thanks chiefly to a series of investigations and judicial proceedings, it is now clearly established that the bombings were the work of right-wing elements in collusion with Italian military intelligence, as part of an on-going “strategy of tension” to discredit the Italian left, encourage support for a corrupt status quo, and perhaps move beyond democracy altogether.3 As one of the conspirators, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, later stated, “The December 1969 explosion was supposed to be the detonator which would have convinced the political and military authorities to declare a state of emergency.”4

Vinciguerra also revealed that he and others had also been members of a paramilitary “stay-behind” network originally organized at the end of World War II by the CIA and NATO as “Operation Gladio.”

In 1984, questioned by judges about the 1980 Bologna station bombing, Vinciguerra said: “With the massacre of Peteano, and with all those that have followed, the knowledge should by now be clear that there existed a real live structure, occult and hidden, with the capacity of giving a strategic direction to the outrages…[it] lies within the state itself…There exists in Italy a secret force parallel to the armed forces, composed of civilians and military men, in an anti-Soviet capacity that is, to organise a resistance on Italian soil against a Russian army…A secret organisation, a super-organisation with a network of communications, arms and explosives, and men trained to use them…A super-organisation which, lacking a Soviet military invasion which might not happen, took up the task, on Nato’s behalf, of preventing a slip to the left in the political balance of the country. This they did, with the assistance of the official secret services and the political and military forces.5

Gladio connections to sustained false-flag violence, again involving NATO and the CIA, were subsequently revealed in other countries, notably Belgium and Turkey.6

The original purpose of Gladio was to consolidate resistance in the event of a Soviet takeover. But many of the senior Italians involved in the bombings implicated the CIA and NATO in them as well:

General Vito Miceli, the Italian head of military intelligence, after his arrest in 1974 on a charge of conspiring to overthrow the government, testified “that the incriminated organization, … was formed under a secret agreement with the United States and within the framework of NATO.” Former Italian defense minister Paulo Taviani told Magistrate Casson during a 1990 investigation “that during his time in office (1955-58), the Italian secret services were bossed and financed by ‘the boys in Via Veneto’—i.e. the CIA agents in the U.S. Embassy in the heart of Rome.” In 2000 “an Italian secret service general [Giandelio Maletti] said . . . that the CIA gave its tacit approval to a series of bombings in Italy in the 1970s to sow instability and keep communists from taking power. . . . ‘The CIA wanted, through the birth of an extreme nationalism and the contribution of the far right, particularly Ordine Nuovo, to stop (Italy) sliding to the left,’ he said.”7

Another conspirator, Carlo Digilio, “described how he passed on details of planned bomb attacks to his CIA contact, Captain David Carret, who had told him that the bombing campaign was part of a US plan to create a state of emergency.”8 Daniele Ganser, in his important book Nato’s Secret Armies, has endorsed a Spanish report that in 1990 NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner (a German politician and diplomat) secretly confirmed that NATO’s headquarters, SHAPE, was indeed responsible:

The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), directing organ of NATO’s military apparatus, coordinated the actions of Gladio, according to the revelations of Gladio Secretary-General Manfred Wörner during a reunion with the NATO ambassadors of the 16 allied nations.9

Extrapolating from such testimony, Ola Tunander has compared the strategy of tension in Italy, with its false-flag bombing attacks, to “what the Turkish military elite might describe as the correction of the course of democracy by the ‘deep state’ [a Turkish term].”10 …more

48 hours in Sanabis
Matthew Cassel – 28 September, 2012 – AlJazeera

“We need supplies,” said the doctor, “Who can go get them?” One activist, a computer engineer in his 20s, quickly volunteered and invited me to go with him. It was nearly midnight and the injuries were piling into the makeshift medical clinic in a home in the Sanabis village, a suburb of Manama, the Bahraini capital. Injured protesters couldn’t be brought to hospitals or medical centres where they’d likely be arrested, so they were treated inside the villages. Volunteer medics were out of burn ointment and IV syringes, and needed someone to bring them from another makeshift clinic on the other side of the village.

There was a rare silence outside on the street. The protesters, mostly shabab (youth), had been dispersed only minutes earlier when dozens of police stormed through firing tear gas, rubber bullets and bird shot. The stench of gas still lingered; it never really disappeared fully from Sanabis during the two days of protests there.

We left the house into the streets. Some stone-carrying shabab were starting to return to the main crossings in central Sanabis, standing over broken glass and spent tear gas cartridges – all clearly marked “made in USA” – waiting for the police to return.

We passed through the narrow alleyways, some barely wide enough for a car to pass through. Some parts were well lit with the bright orange glow of the street lights, others pitch black. Some areas were tight giving a sense of protection, while others were more open, leaving us completely exposed for a number of seconds when anything could happen. We could only hope as we approached the next street corner that there wouldn’t be any police waiting around it, while we kept looking backwards to make sure there were none there either. Too fast and we would come upon them with no place to run, too slow and we’d get caught from behind.

In the chance that we did see police, which was more likely than not, we knew it’d already be too late. Their uniforms are unmistakable: blue bodysuits topped with bright white helmets. We had seen their weapons cause countless injuries all day long, and if we were spotted they’d fire at us. Up ahead atop a roof a couple of shabab on lookout waved to let us know the coast is clear. At the next crossing another group motioned for a signal to know if there are any white hats from where we just came.

As we continued to creep along in the shadows an abaya-clad woman peaked through the crack of her front door. “Come in,” she whispered waving her arms for us to get off the street, “do you need anything?” “Thank you, hajjiyyah, we are okay,” the runner whispered back, continuing his mission.

More than seven months after it began with marches of tens of thousands to Manama and sit-ins at the now-destroyed Pearl roundabout, this is what the Bahrain uprising has become.

After a brutal crackdown followed by months of martial law, the uprising is now largely confined to the numerous predominantly Shia villages around the country. It’s an increasingly organised and (still unarmed) guerilla resistance movement against the police force armed with “non-lethal weaponry”. …more

Pugnacious Prick, Patrick Clawson of Washing Institute speaks of provoking War with Iran at US expense…