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

Human Rights Defender Abdulhadi AlKhawaja Strike Reaches 29 Days – 9 March Protest in Manama Surge

Imprisoned HRD AlKhawaja: My hunger strike is a part of my human rights defence inside jailAs Received from AlKhawaja’s lawyer, Mr Mohamed AlJishi: In a one-hour private visit, I met Abdulhadi Al Khawaja today in Jaw Central Prison. Signs of fatigue were clearly shown on Al Khawaja. He was pale and lost lots of weight. I sent him all the people’s plea to stop the strike as they need him alive to struggle for Bahrain, and for his own risk.

Abdulhadi Al Khawaja told the lawyer: “I thank who ever stand in solidarity with me and people of Bahrain outside and inside the country. The case is not only about me. It’s about all wrongfully detainees in Bahrain. My hungerstrike is a part of my Human rights defence inside jail. It’s very important to focus on all detainees as I’m just a part of them. I will continue with my hunger strike till I reach my demands despite the consequences. I’m aware that freedom is expensive and we must sacrifice to gain it.”

According to the lawyer, although Al Khawaja is really tired after 2 weeks of hunger strike, he is still holding his head high and smiling. …more

Security ‘in tune with openness’
Gulf Daily News – 21 February, 2012

MANAMA: Political and economic openness should not be detrimental to Bahrain’s national security. “Regulations enforcing security should be in tune with the requirements of openness,” His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander, yesterday said.

They described national security and economy as inseparable and complimenting each other. Bahrain, they said, will always remain an open country, attracting investments and providing streamlined measures.

They stressed the government’s responsibility to protect residents from any misuse of political openness.

..source

Don’t look away from Bahrain’s revolution
9 March, 2012 – Egypt Independent

[excerpt] – Over the past year, as cameras turned away, the Bahraini regime carried out some of the worst atrocities in its history. Much like the brutal killing of Khaled Saeed under police torture, an incident that ignited the fury in the Egyptian street leading up to the 25 January revolution, systematic torture in Bahrain has become common place. Many protesters are beaten, jailed, tortured and continue to die in police custody. Two activists, Yousif Almuwali and Muntathar Fakhar, have died in custody this past January alone. Similar to Egyptian state security fabricating Khaled Saeed’s forensic examination report to make the claim that he had died because he swallowed a packet of marijuana, the Bahraini Ministry of Interior claims that those who were tortured to death in custody died of “sickle-cell anemia,” when they were actually healthy prior to their arrests.

Despite the similarities between the state security’s crackdown on protesters in Bahrain and other Arab uprisings, the former is often overlooked. The reason lies in how Arab media, specifically Gulf-owned satellite channels, have justified this crackdown on activists by inaccurately portraying the Bahraini uprising as an Iran-backed Shia insurrection against Sunni rulers. This is, of course, a misrepresentation of the whole story, since the uprising initially called for reforming the system of governance through establishing a constitutional monarchy. It was only after security forces killed and maimed people on the streets that the protesters’ demands naturally rose, as they did everywhere else, to eventually call for the downfall of the regime. But, of course, the foreign conspiracy card, manifested in the claim pertaining to Iran’s tampering in Bahrain’s domestic affairs, has been conveniently used by the regime to delegitimize the uprising. Arab tyrants, Mubarak among them, were quick to resort to this foreign threat propaganda in order to sustain their authoritarian rule.

We, Egyptians and Bahrainis, have both learned that authoritarian rulers will go to no end to stay in power, even if this means igniting anarchy and sectarian discord. Egyptians should be well aware by now that whether it is through bombing churches or igniting football fanaticism, the idea is simple: play on people’s prejudices to turn them against each other and to distract them from the revolution. The Bahraini regime insists on framing the Bahraini uprising in sectarian terms in order to fuel divisions between Sunnis and Shias both inside the kingdom, and also outside by turning Sunnis in the Arab world against the legitimate struggle of the Bahraini protesters. …more

Bahrain prepares for “biggest ever” protest
8 March, 2012 – Al-Akhbar

Thousands of protesters are set to take to the streets of Bahrain’s capital Manama on Friday in what is expected to be the biggest protest against the country’s rulers since last year’s uprising was brutally crushed.

Event organizers estimate that up to half of the country’s 1.2 million people will take to the streets to call for democracy, civil rights, and equal citizenship.

Last February tens of thousands of Bahrainis took to the streets to demand reform from the ruling Khalifa family.

Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf states sent in troops to help Bahraini authorities crush the protests, fearing the spread of the pro-democracy Arab Spring.

The crackdown resulted in hundreds of activists being detained and jailed, while at least 35 were killed.

Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said that Friday’s protests would be a major turning point for the campaign.

“I am hopeful that half of the population will be there. Not less than 300,000 people for sure,” he said.

Activists raised awareness of the protest on Thursday night on the social networking site Twitter using the hashtag #BahrainWantsDemocracy.

Former opposition MP Jawad Fairooz added that the streets for the 5km march are expected to be full.

“We can expect this to be the largest march in the history of Bahrain,” he added.

Al-Akhbar will be running a live blog on the protests from 11 GMT tomorrow. …more

Russia says 15,000 foreign “terrorists” in Syria
8 March, 2012 – Tom Miles – Reuter

GENEVA: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is battling al Qaeda-backed “terrorists” including at least 15,000 foreign fighters who will seize towns across Syria if government troops withdraw, a Russian diplomat said on Thursday.

Russia is a staunch defender of Syria despite international condemnation of the crackdown by Assad’s forces and evidence of human rights abuses against unarmed civilians.

Addressing a one-day humanitarian forum on Syria at the United Nations in Geneva, Russia’s deputy ambassador Mikhail Lebedev said rebels had recently committed large-scale attacks against Syrian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.

“Rebel groups attack, kill, torture and intimidate the civilian population. The flow of all kind of terrorists from some neighboring countries is always increasing,” Lebedev told the forum.

Asked by Reuters how many foreign fighters were believed to be in Syria, he said: “How many got in through illegal routes? The border there is not demarcated, not delimited, so nobody knows. But at least 15,000.”

On Thursday, Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, said he would urge Assad and his foes to stop fighting and seek a political solution, drawing angry rebukes from dissidents.

Russia wants a ceasefire by all parties and an inclusive political dialogue. Lebedev told the U.N. meeting criticism of Assad was overdone.

“We urge our partners not to yield to temptation to exaggerate things but to expedite a balanced and professional approach to delivering help to all segments of the Syrian population with no exception,” he said.

“Most of the militants are indeed directly or closely affiliated with al Qaeda.”

COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
Lebedev told Reuters the information about al Qaeda links in Syria was an “unambiguous fact” but declined to say if Russia would provide the U.N. with evidence to back its allegation Syrian rebels were committing torture.

“All I know is that all the way through (the wars in the Russian region of) Chechnya nobody believed us when we said the Islamic underground, including terrorist organisations, was developing its operations on our soil,” he said.

“It’s just that five years later there’s a recognition that we did everything right.”

Lebedev said attempts to force Assad to rein in his troops unilaterally would be counterproductive.

…more

“If people actually knew what was happening, they would be really pissed off.” -Barbara Brenner, former BCAction Executive Director in the new documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc.

Pink Ribbons, Inc.: The Movie
by Caitlin – 23 February, 2012 – Think Before You Pink

Billions of dollars have been raised through the tireless efforts of women and men devoted to putting an end to breast cancer. Yet, breast cancer rates in North America have risen to 1 in 8. “What’s going on?” asks our former Executive Director Barbara Brenner in Pink Ribbons, Inc. a new film now playing across Canada and debuting in the U.S. this year.

The Toronto International Film Festival says: “Léa Pool’s devastating documentary about the industry and “culture” around breast cancer, addresses the rise of corporate involvement in fund-raising for charities … and the impact it has had on research into the disease. Powerful and incendiary, the film is an important and timely piece from one of our finest filmmakers.”

Thank you, Léa Pool, from the bottom of our pink ribbon-fatigued hearts, for making this movie. We need powerful. We need incendiary.

This film has been a long time coming. Based on Samantha King’s brilliant book of the same name, Pink Ribbons, Inc. pulls back the pink curtain on why we aren’t making progress in ending this epidemic. It’s a curtain we’ve been tugging on for over a decade through our Think Before You Pink® campaign, where we encourage people to ask critical questions about breast cancer fundraising. We are thrilled to see this message go mainstream.

Pink Ribbons, Inc. also shines a much-needed spotlight on pinkwashing, a coin we termed to describe when a company or organization claims to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon product, but at the same time produces, manufactures and/or sells products that are linked to the disease.

Breast cancer has become big business—corporations look good by associating themselves with breast cancer, but how much does their involvement benefit women? As one woman living with metastatic breast cancer says in the film, “Our disease is being used for people to profit. And that’s not OK.”

This movie is a potential game-changer, showing just how much the shiny pink status quo has cost us—and how little we’ve gained from it. As an advocate says in the film, “For people to finally rise up and object, they have to be aware of the lies they’re being fed.”

Pink Ribbons, Inc. is debuting at film festivals in the U.S. this spring and we’ll keep you posted on where and when you can see it in theatres. In the meantime, get your free copy of our brand new Think Before You Pink Toolkit, which is a perfect companion to the film and, says, Samantha King, “gives both seasoned agitators and newcomers to breast cancer activism vital resources to change the conversation about breast cancer. Download it today and start changing the world, one pinkwasher at a time.”

When it comes to breast cancer, profits far too often are priority number one. This toolkit helps advocates like you challenge the status quo and make sure women at risk of and living with breast cancer come first. …Screenings

The Purpose of U.S. Soft Power Themed Revolutions: Disunity and Power Projection
Wayne MADSEN – 14 February, 2012 – Strategic Culture Foundation

A U.S. “alphabet soup” agency-sponsored themed revolution in the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean comprising twenty-six atolls, stands to plunge the nation, heretofore considered a tropical paradise for tourists, into the same kind of chaos and civil unrest now seen on the streets of Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Maldives is smaller in comparison to the nations of the Middle East where the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), and George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI) have sponsored themed revolutions that have all resulted in civil unrest and a entrance of extremist Wahhabi Salafists into political power. However, the small size of Maldives provides a much clearer picture of how the aforementioned Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-sponsored “soft power” aggressors managed to turn paradise into another center of unrest in the Muslim world.

In the case of the Maldives, the road to civil strife began in 2005 when USAID- and OSI-sponsored democracy” manipulation groups took root in the country upon the legalization of opposition political parties by the government of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Serving as president for thirty years, Gayoom was seen by the international human rights network of non-governmental organizations as a dictator ripe for removal. The Western-sponsored NGOs settled on Mohamed Nasheed, a Maldivian opposition leader who had lived in exile in Britain – with the support of the British government — and Sri Lanka and who returned to Maldives in 2005, as their favorite candidate for president.

In preparation for the first direct presidential election for president in 2008, outside “democracy manipulators” descended on Maldives, a country that had become popular with the Soros network because of global climate change. Maldives, which is threatened by rising sea levels, became a cause célèbre for the carbon tax and carbon cap-and-trade advocates.

Nasheed was the 2008 presidential candidate of the Maldivian Democratic Party against President Gayoom’s Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party. In the first round of voting, Gayoom received a little over 40 percent of the vote in the first round to the 24 percent of Nasheed’s and his vice presidential running mate, Mohammed Waheed Hassan. To defeat Gayoom in the second round, Nasheed, obviously with the encouragement of his foreign “democracy” advisers, sought and received the endorsement of four other opposition parties, including the Saudi- and United Arab Emirates-financed Salafist Adhaalath (Justice) Party. Adhaalath is an ideological partner of the Muslim Brotherhoods of Egypt and Syria. In the second round of the election, Nasheed, with the support of the other four opposition presidential candidates, defeated Gayoom 54 percent to 46 percent. …more

Mossad, CIA and Blackwater operate in Syria – report
08 March, 2012 – Strategic Culture Foundation

A security operation in Homs reveals Mossad, CIA and Blackwater are involved in the military violence in this part of Syria, as over 700 Arab and Western gunmen and Israeli, American and European-made weapons were detained in Baba Amr district.

­Syrian security forces got yet further proof of Western powers’ military involvement in Syria’s internal conflict, reports Al-Manar, a news agency, affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group and political party.

Around 700 gunmen were recently arrested in the former rebel stronghold of Babar Amr.

“The captured gunmen held Arab nationalities, including Gulf, Iraqi, and Lebanese. Among them were also Qatari intelligence agents and non-Arab fighters from Afghanistan, Turkey, and some European countries like France,” the agency quotes Syrian expert in strategic affairs Salim Harba as saying.

Harba also confirmed to the agency that “a coordination office was established in Qatar under American-Gulf sponsorship. The office includes American, French, and Gulf – specifically from Qatar and Saudi Arabia – intelligence agents, as well as CIA, Mossad, and Blackwater agents and members of the Syrian Transitional Council.”

The Syrian expert also added the security forces have also seized Israeli-, European- and American-made weapons.

“The Syrian army also uncovered tunnels and equipments there,” he told to the agency, “advanced Israeli, European, and American arms that have not yet been tested in the countries of manufacture, in addition to Israeli grenades, night binoculars, and communication systems were confiscated by the security forces.”

Salim Harba however said the Syrian authorities are not planning to reveal all the obtained information now, but assured all the evidence is of high value.

“The Syrian security forces have documents and confessions that could harm everyone who conspired against Syria, and could make a security and political change, not just on the internal Syrian level, but also on the regional level,” he said.

The recent Stratfor leak and hacked email of the company’s director of analysis also suggest undercover NATO troops are already on the ground in Syria. …more