Month: February 2011

Bahrain Uprising

Press TV: Bahrain has been the latest country to feel, what can safely be described as, the domino effect of Tunisia’s revolution. Egypt received so much attention, as it was followed second by second. We have seen less focus on the uprising in other regional countries in the mainstream media, including Bahrain. This small country, a cluster of 33 tiny islands, is geo-strategically important and a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, it is home to the US navy’s 5th fleet. But right now it has been hit by protests, and has responded with a violent crackdown.

To discuss Bahrain uprising, Nargess Moballeghi is joined by Rania al-Masri, Christopher Walker and Nabeel Rajab.

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The fall of Mubarak

Final installment of Al Jazeera’s excellent Egypt Burning series.

As the calls for regime change move into their third week, Egyptians have broken down the barrier of fear. Cracks between the protesters have started to show, but resolute protesters are standing firm on their call for the president to resign.

Massacre in Benghazi

An update from our freedom-loving friend in Tripoli.

Internet is restored in Libya after 6 hours offline. Kaddafi’s regime is circulating messages to people in Benghazi saying: ‘’Mercenaries in east Libya are killing people and water has been poisoned by unidentified source’’. Gaddafi is facing the fight of his life; not only he is violently responding to protesters, but he is taking advantages of those mercenaries coming from African poor countries – who barely understand or are aware of what’s going on inside Libya and tempt them with small amount of money to KILL Libyans. Around 100 martyrs were killed in 4 days only!

Today, I called my friend in Benghazi. She told me: ‘’We are hungry, no food supplies for us; people are dying more and more everyday, women and children are amongst the dead in the horrific Benghazi massacre, we are isolated from the media coverage.” She also told me that yesterday three tanks tried to roll in but the soldiers abandoned them and citizens burned them. And yesterday night, the hospitals announced 40 dead martyrs including children (one child died- 13 years old), and this morning saw the death of 15 martyrs. Hospitals are running out of medical supplies & are calling for urgent need of medical aid; gun shots barely stop, and helicopters are firing and throwing bombs on protestors. Yet beyond all this mess, she is proud that people in east Libya are doing their best to recover from the virus that has been ruling Libya for over 40 years.

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US vetoes UN resolution on Israeli settlements

Al Jazeera English — Despite receiving the backing of 14 out of 15 members of the United Nations’ security council, an Arab-sponsored UN resolution branding Israeli settlements illegal was vetoed by the United States.

Meanwhile AIPAC is pleased with the Obama administration’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year which slates 5.6 billion US tax dollars for Israel, 3.1 billion of which will be military aid.

That same budget proposal continues US military aid for Egypt, but with room for alterations depending on developments…

Syria Speeding Up

Three weeks ago I wrote that Syria was not about to experience a popular revolution. Although I’m no longer sure of anything after the events in Tunisia and Egypt (and Libya, Algeria, Jordan, Yemen and Bahrain) – and although it’s made me unpopular in certain quarters – I’m sticking to my original judgement. No revolution in Syria just yet.

Until a month ago, I would have have agreed with Joshua Landis (quoted here) that many, perhaps a comfortable majority of Syrians were not particularly interested in ‘democracy.’ Before either I or Landis is accused of orientalism, let me say that human and civil rights are not identical with democracy. Any Syrian who knows he’s alive wants his (or her) human and civil rights respected, but many fear that ‘democracy’ would lead to sectarian fragmentation. This is an entirely logical fear: the ‘democracies’ to the west and east of Syria – Lebanon and Iraq – are strife-torn sectarian democracies. Sectarian identification remains a problem in Syria. A freedom-loving Alawi friend of mine was put off the failed ‘day of rage’ facebook group because he found so many anti-Alawi comments posted there. Other Syrians were put off when they realised that many of the posts came from Hariri groups in Lebanon.

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Latest from Libya

Our friend in Tripoli reports:
It was only one day and it has already witnessed the burial service of 30 martyrs in Hawari cemetery in Benghazi. A source from al-Jalaa hospital in Benghazi confirmed that most of the dead people are between the ages of 13 to 36 years old, including 40 to 50 injured people. The number of martyrs and injured people are growing all around the cities of east Libya and hospitals in Benghazi issued urgent calls for all types of blood.

Today I believe things are getting worse, Gaddafi’s regime has cut all means of communication (land lines, cell phones, internet), water, electricity and gas services from Benghazi, Darna, Zentan, and several cities in east Libya, yet Benghazi is winning by keeping its highly increased courageous spirits and the determination to put an end to the 42 years of oppression.

Today some people from different corners of Tripoli (like Fashloom & Joumhouriya Street) are repeatedly trying to go on demonstrations against the regime but they were immediately oppressed by the backbones of Gaddafi’s regime, who are paid and armed to stop by all means any chance of peaceful demonstrations.

Not forget to mention that on the 16th of February, the night before the Day of Rage’ in Libya, the Libyana company, a Libyan mobile phone company owned by Saif El Islam (one of Geddafi‘s sons) circulated messages to people’s cell phones warning them against crossing ” The Four Red Lines”:

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Clinton’s goons assault a 71-year-old veteran even as she berates Iran for violence against protesters

There is of course the further irony of the fact that she is speaking at a conference on Internet Freedom even as her government has spent the past few months trying to suppress websites associated with Wikileaks and to have its founder extradited. As the great Ray McGovern says: straight out of Kafka!

The Trials of Bradley Manning: A Defense

For the past seven months, US Army Private First Class Manning has been held in solitary confinement in the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. Twenty-five thousand other Americans are also in prolonged solitary confinement, but the conditions of Manning’s pre-trial detention have been sufficiently brutal for the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on Torture to announce an investigation.

Pfc. Manning is alleged to have obtained documents, both classified and unclassified, from the Department of Defense and the State Department via the Internet and provided them to WikiLeaks.  (That “alleged” is important because the federal informant who fingered Manning, Adrian Lamo, is a felon convicted of computer-hacking crimes. He was also involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution in the month before he levelled his accusation.  All of this makes him a less than reliable witness.)  At any rate, the records allegedly downloaded by Manning revealed clear instances of war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, widespread torture committed by the Iraqi authorities with the full knowledge of the U.S. military, previously unknown estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed at U.S. military checkpoints, and the massive Iraqi civilian death toll caused by the American invasion.

For bringing to light this critical but long-suppressed information, Pfc. Manning has been treated not as a whistleblower, but as a criminal and a spy.  He is charged with violating not only Army regulations but also the Espionage Act of 1917, making him the fifth American to be charged under the act for leaking classified documents to the media.  A court-martial will likely be convened in the spring or summer.

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Blood in Libya

bread, freedom, human dignity

A report from a friend in Tripoli. She must remain nameless.

I’m here and safe for now, al-hamdullah. There is no internet in Libya, and maybe there will be no electricity in the coming days. I uploaded software late at night to get the internet, and very few have access to this software.

The death toll in Benghazi is growing, almost 80 are dead just in 3 days. It’s getting dirty here and the media coverage is too little. We are not getting the international attention and I am afraid if the Libyan protesters are ignored, this murderer will seal Libya off from the world and ruthlessly kill any protest before they even have the chance to begin.

Yesterday, I left work and I went to Sahat el-Ghadra, where all his thugs were supporting him. They got all kids out of schools and forced them to carry posters of his pictures and everyone to hang the stupid Libyan flag inside their cars and … the number of flags around Tripoli are more than the number of bloody flags you can see in the US.

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