(The Wall Street Journal, Monday June 12, 1995, p A1)

MANAMA, Bahrain — On Friday, armored vehicles rolled through the streets of this offshore-banking capital, as thousands of troops staged a show of force to keep angry Bahrainis at bay.

The crowds were gathered for Ashura, an occasion when Shiite Muslims flagellate themselves in public to mourn the martyrdom of the prophet Mohammed’s grandson. The day passed peacefully. But the transformation of downtown Manama into an armed camp was a grim reminder that this tiny island has recently been the site of the worst civil unrest to hit any of the Gulf Arab monarchies in years

In the past six months, Shiite youths have been rampaging through their villages, setting electricity substations on fire and igniting canisters of cooking gas in giant fireballs. On Saturday night, three cars were burned near Bahrain’s big U.S. military base, headquarters of U.S. naval operations in the Persian Gulf. The ruling family has responded by unleashing their foreign mercenaries, who have pulled young people off streets at random, beaten and jailed them.

For U.S. policy makers worried about security in the Persian Gulf, the strife in Bahrain could be a harbinger of turmoil to come. The island is connected to much larger and richer Saudi Arabia by the King Fahd causeway, and perhaps more. The same conditions that have spawned instability here — economic decline, uneven distribution of wealth, a hated monarchy — are also serious problems in Saudi Arabia, which has a large, disadvantaged Shiite population in its oil-rich Eastern Province.
[Read more →]

Repression in Bahrain
Ghazi Farhan
The Economist

Jun 10th 2011, 14:23 by N.P. | MANAMA

TO APPRECIATE how all-encompassing the dragnet sweeping Bahrain to quash the island’s Arab awakening has been, consider Ghazi Farhan. A dapper 31-year-old property executive, Mr Farhan manages three restaurants and a set of stables. Amid his pictures on Facebook is one of him at a tea party with Prince Charles.

On April 12th, plain-clothes police blindfolded him in his office car park, and took him for interrogation. This, he told his wife, was punctuated by whippings with a damp hose. Two days later, he was locked in “Dry Dock” jail with hundreds of other suspected demonstrators and given sun-tan lotion and told to rest in the sun to heal the scars. He seemed confident he would be out within 60 days—the period the state is allowed to hold suspects without charge. His wife said she did not want to hire a lawyer, for fear that might provoke the authorities. The announcement of the lifting of the State of National Safety, official-speak for emergency law, on June 1st gave all hope of a mass release.

But on May 31st, after 48 days inside and the day before the lifting of martial law, Mr Farhan was accused of “participating in an illegal gathering of more than five persons”, a charge carrying a three-year prison term. Like tens of thousands of others in this small archipelago of 600,000 nationals, he had occasionally stopped by Pearl Roundabout to observe the largest protest in Bahrain’s history. Driven by the blustery winds blowing from North Africa, opposition demands had escalated. Alongside calls for an elected government to replace the current one, largely filled with the ruling family’s princes, were growing cries for the downfall of the Sunni monarchy.

Mr Farhan was not among those protesting. The closest he came to activism, says a foreign observer, was organising charity galas at the Rotary Club. A month before his arrest, he had opened his latest café, Speed, on the racetrack that the crown prince had built for Formula One racing. But in the crackdown that followed, he came under pressure to sell his shares. On Twitter, a self-professed anonymous policeman sent a series of messages with the hashtag Haraqhum (“burn them”) calling for a boycott of another of his cafés where Bahrain’s streetwise go to smoke shishas. …more

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Martyr Hani Abdul Aziz was announced as a new martyr of Bahrain. He was kidnapped by Saudi forces from hospital. He martyred yesterday, March 24th, after being shot by Saudi forces, appeared the effects of heavy wounds all over his body especially the face and hands and feet. There is a pictures that shows parts of the bones of the hand and leg scattering as a result he was shot from a short distance and within the room in one of the buildings.

Take a look at Photos Washing Hani A.Aziz

President Obama said in his speech on May 17, 2011, “Bahrain is a longstanding partner, and we are committed to its security. We recognize[no evidence of this other than Iranian Rhetoric] that Iran has tried to take advantage of the turmoil there, and that the Bahraini government has a legitimate interest in the rule of law. ”

Hani Abdul Aziz was neither Iranian or a protester when he was assaulted, kidnapped form hospital and then murdered by Saud and Bahraini security forces, in an apparent bid to cover up their crime. This is the kind of brutal Crime Against Humanity that al Khalifa and Saud commit in the name of National Security for Bahrain. President Obama is well aware of the “real situation” but refuses to intervene and demand cessation to Bahrain’s terror and repression of it’s own people.

[watch for more privacy and surveillance on “security aware page”]

What privacy risks are presented by Gmail?

a. Non-Subscribers Do Not Consent to “Content Extraction.”Subscribers consent to “content extraction” and analysis of their e-mail (“We serve highly relevant ads and other information as part of the service using our unique content-targeting technology,” according to the privacy policy). But non-subscribers who are e-mailing a Gmail user have not consented, and indeed may not even be aware that their communications are being analyzed or that a profile may being compiled on him or her. (See 2.3 “Will Google Build Profiles of Subscribers and/or Non-subscribers?”)

b. Unlimited Data Retention.While the prospect of never having to delete or file an e-mail is an attractive feature for space-hungry users, the implications of indefinite storage of e-mail communications presents several serious implications. Although Google has is held in high esteem by the public as a good corporate citizen, past performance is no guarantee of future behavior — especially following Google’s IPO when the company will have a legal duty to maximize shareholder wealth. Although Google currently saysthat they will not record the “concepts” extracted from scanned e-mails, they could decide to do so in the future and thereby create detailed profiles of users. Building such profiles on years of past communication in addition to current communications is made easier if users never delete e-mails. Additionally, communications stored for more than 180 days are exposed to lower protectionsfrom law enforcement access; with Gmail, many such e-mails could be made easily available. …more

Bahrain:Student is in danger because of her hunger strike in solidarity with her brother in custody
June 11th, 2011

A 20-year-old Bahraini student is on the eighth day of a hunger strike.

Miss.Asma Darwish, better known as “eagertobefree” on Twitter, a business student who studies at Bahrain Polytechnic, began an open hunger strike on Saturday the 4th of June.

“I am demanding freedom for my brother, Mohamed Ghuloom Darwish (23 years old), my uncle and my cousin. I had to take this decision because nothing else is left for me to do. I don’t know where my brother is, and I have not heard from him for more than 20 days”. She informed the BYSHR

Mr.Darwish, a professional photographer who owns Abulphoto Photography, was arrested at 2 am on the 22nd of May; masked men and riot police first burst into his parents’ house, and when they did not find him they took his eldest brother , and later released him when they found him in his sister’s house in Sanad.

Miss.Darwish,stated to the BYSHR: “When the riot police break into our house, I was sleeping. I woke up with shock, and my legs started to shake, I was afraid. One of the masked men was yelling at me and threatening me of arrest as well. They have insulted every religious symbol in the house by removing them and throwing them disrespectfully on the floor. My mom got really sick at that moment as she suffers from a heart disease”

She is one of the brightest students in Bahrain Polytechnic. Although she is on a hunger strike, but that did not stop her from attending all her classes, and passing all her exams.

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) expresses its deep concern regarding the medical condition of Miss.Asma Darwish, and requests international organizations to immediately intervene to determine the conditions of prisoners in Bahrain. …more

Published on Saturday, June 11, 2011 by Associated Press
US Defense Sales to Bahrain Rose Before Crackdown

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government approved $200 million in military sales from American firms to Bahrain in 2010, months before the autocratic regime was rocked by instability amid a harsh crackdown on protesters, according to a State Department report.

Bahraini Shiite Muslims chant slogans to free prisoners during a sermon Friday, June 10, 2011, in Diraz, Bahrain, when Sheik Issa Qassem, Bahrain’s top Shiite cleric, said Bahrain should free political prisoners and that the nation’s reputation is being damaged by prosecuting doctors, teachers, youths, women, clerics and other professionals arrested during the crackdown on anti-government protesters. Many Shiite Muslim clerics, including Sheik Ali Salman, leader of the largest opposition party, attended midday prayers in Diraz, an unusual move to show their solidarity with Qassem. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali) The annual report, which provides totals of U.S.-authorized arms sale agreements between American defense firms and foreign governments, showed a $112 million rise in licensed defense sales to Bahrain between the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years. The U.S. had green-lighted $88 million in military exports to Bahrain in 2009.

Much of the flow of military hardware to Bahrain was for aircraft and military electronics, but the U.S. also licensed $760,000 in exports of rifles, shotguns and assault weapons in 2010. Since mid-February of this year, the Persian Gulf kingdom has confronted demonstrators with cordons of armed military and police firing live ammunition. At least 31 people have died and hundreds more injured in the clashes. …more

Anti-government protesters flee after riot police fire rounds of tear gas to disperse them in the mainly Shi’ite village of Diraz, west of Manama, March 25, 2011. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

By Erika Solomon

MANAMA | Sat Jun 11, 2011 4:00pm EDT

(Reuters) – Thousands of Bahrainis shouting “we are victorious” gathered for a rally for political reform on Saturday, in the first large demonstration since the Gulf Arab state crushed a democracy protest movement in March.

Bahrain brought in troops from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in March and introduced martial law, which ended last week, to stop the protests against the Sunni Al-Khalifa family that rules over a Shi’ite majority population.

The government said the protests had a sectarian agenda and help from Shi’ite power Iran, just across the Gulf waters. The opposition denies this.

“Some try to manipulate our demands, to make them Shi’ite demands. This is not true. We are not calling for an Iran, but to build up our political reforms together, Shi’ite and Sunni, which will benefit all Bahrainis,” said Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the Wefaq opposition group which organized the event.

“We will continue peacefully and we will continue our peaceful demonstrations,” he said, as the crowd roared back: “Peaceful, peaceful!”

The rally will likely be seen as a show of strength by Wefaq, Bahrain’s leading Shi’ite opposition group, as it heads to a national dialogue called by the king for next month.

“Wefaq wants to encourage people to get back out after months of fear. It’s a good sign ,” said protester Fatima.

The government said it granted permission for the rally, held in a large square in the Shi’ite district of Saar, west of the capital and away from central Pearl Roundabout, epicenter of the earlier protests inspired by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

Protesters waving Bahraini flags spilled out into the streets and dozens watched from nearby rooftops.

People drove in from around the city, causing traffic jams of more than 2 km long. State helicopters buzzed over crowds raising signs that read “The nation is for everyone.”

Opposition figures more than 10,000 people attended the rally. The Interior Ministry said 4,000 people were gathered.

NATIONAL DIALOGUE

Barbed wire and armored vehicles guard Pearl Roundabout in Manama, where protesters camped out for about six weeks, to prevent it from becoming a focal point for protests again.

But protesters in Saar described a new sense of optimism.

“I think the crowd speaks for itself,” said Fadel, carrying his small son, wrapped in a Bahraini flag. “Hopefully, this will be the next Pearl Roundabout.”

King Hamad bin Isa has offered a new dialogue with opposition groups starting in July. Wefaq said it would organize more rallies until then, and may plan a march for next week.

“The dialogue should offer real political solutions, it should not be cosmetic talk. We are serious about this dialogue,” Salman said in his 30-minute speech.

“They say the Shi’ites want a special government for themselves. No, we want a civilian state and an elected government for all… This is what we demanded in Pearl Roundabout and it is what we will again call for here.”

Wefaq organizers quietened those in the crowd who tried to chant “Down with the government,” frustrating some protesters.

“I think the people want the fall of this regime. After the repression and the killings, how can we go back?” said protester Amal, swathed in a black veil.

The government appointed its parliament speaker on Saturday to lead the national dialogue, the state news agency said, but the opposition said Crown Prince Salman — seen as leader of a moderate wing of the ruling family — should head the talks.

Khalifa al-Dhahrani, speaker of the Council of Representatives, said he hoped to bring “all parties concerned with matters of the state” into the dialogue.

Wefaq’s Khalil al-Marzooq said Dhahrani was opposed to many of the opposition’s core demands.

“He has previously objected to discussing reforms over elections, constitutional amendments and the issue of discrimination,” he said. “Genuine dialogue must be with the prince or the king because we need to discuss the central issues which are between the people and the ruling family.”

Bahrain’s cabinet is dominated by the ruling family and the king also appoints all members of an upper assembly, minimizing the powers of the elected parliament.

At the rally, Shi’ites said they broke a barrier of fear after over two months of military rule, when hundreds were detained or dismissed from their jobs and dozens were put on trial on charges from incitement to trying to overthrow the system.

“This needed to happen. The government thought they could suppress everything with the state of emergency. It seems they did not,” one protester said.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon, writing by Andrew Hammond and Erika Solomon, editing by Alison Williams)
…source