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

More detainees join Bahrain hunger strike
Protest aimed at ongoing trials from the crackdown on demonstrations by the Gulf nation’s Shia majority.
Last Modified: 03 Sep 2011 18:07

A rights group in Bahrain says more detainees are joining a hunger strike to protest ongoing trials from the crackdown on demonstrations for greater rights by the Gulf nation’s Shia majority.

A statement on Saturday by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said the strike now includes nearly 20 doctors who are jailed and face anti-state charges linked to the protests against Bahrain’s ruling Sunni dynasty.
The rights group said at least two other prominent activists, Abdul Jalil al-Singace and Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, have also begun hunger strikes in solidarity. The activists were sentenced to life in prison in June.
Nabeel Rajab, a spokesman for the group, told Al Jazeera the detainees are insisting that a trial, if any, should take place in a civil court not a military tribunal.

The trials are scheduled to resume on Wednesday.
Rajab said because little change has come into effect despite promises of reform from the government, there are now renewed protests in the prisons and in the streets.

Zainab al-Khawaja says her father, Abdulhadi, and al-Singace, opposition Haq movement member, stopped eating on Tuesday in solidarity with detainees held at Bahrain’s Dry Dock prison.

She said the detainees, who were arrested as part of a March crackdown on pro-democracy protests, went on hunger strike against the government’s failure to honour promises to release them.

“I am concerned about my father’s health,” al-Khawaja said. “He was beaten when detained and his jaw was broken.

“He has already lost too much weight in prison and yesterday he called me and said his blood sugar level has dropped,” she added.

Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who also holds Danish citizenship, was jailed for life along with Singace and six other opposition activists in June.

Bahrain’s interior ministry says 24 people, including four policemen, were killed in the month-long protests that erupted in mid-February.

Security forces backed by troops from Bahrain’s Gulf neighbours crushed the protest movement.

The opposition says that scores of people were arrested, and many of them tortured. Hundreds more were dismissed from their jobs.

Four people have been sentenced to death and three to life imprisonment after being convicted of the killing of two policemen during the protests.

Nine others were jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of abducting a policeman. …more

Youth protest of Jordanian Forces ‘presence’ in Bahrain
Posted on September 5, 2011 by mat – Signal Fire

AMMONNEWS – near 50 of Jordanian youth staged a protest on Sunday in front of the Bahraini embassy in Amman to protest what they said Jordanian Gendarmerie Forces ‘presence’ in Bahrain.

The protest was held amidst heavy security presence, with various police, and gendarmerie forces surrounding the area, and closed the roads around.

Several media outlets reported that hundreds of Jordanian security forces were sent to Bahrain to help the Bahraini security forces to handle the protesters.

The protesters expressed solidarity with Bahraini peaceful demonstrations, and denounced the use of force to disperse the protesters by Bahraini Forces, and the destruction of “ Loaloa” circle where the Bahraini protesters staged their sit-ins.

Earlier many youth Movements canceled their participation in the protest. …more

recent tweet from @Free AlKhawaja – lawyers from the international federation for human rights banned from entering Bahrain tonight to monitor the doctors and activists trial

200 Bahrain detainees on hunger strike
September 05, 2011 08:37 PM – Agence France Presse – The Daily Star

DUBAI: More than 200 Shiite Bahrainis jailed for their role in a month of pro-democracy protests in the Sunni-ruled kingdom have joined a hunger strike, a rights and opposition activist said on Monday.

The strike was started last week ago by 12 doctors arrested in the wake of a mid-March deadly crackdown on the Shiite-led protests, said Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.

He said the number of prisoners on strike has climbed to more than 200, adding that some of the medics have been hospitalised.

The report could not be verified through independent sources.

The 12 doctors were among 47 doctors and nurses from Salmaniya central hospital accused of incitement to overthrow the regime of the Al-Khalifa ruling family. The others were freed on bail, and their trial resumes Wednesday.

Human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and opposition Haq movement member Abduljalil al-Singace, both jailed for life, joined the strike a week ago, Khawaja’s daughter Zainab told AFP on Saturday.

She said they stopped eating on July 26 in solidarity with other detainees.

Despite the heavy-handed clampdown by security forces in March, which was followed by mass arrests and dismissals from jobs for thousands of Shiites, the majority community has taken to the streets again.

Candle-lit processions and vigils are being held on a daily basis, according to images posted on the Facebook page of Al-Wefaq, the main Shiite opposition formation.

Al-Wefaq led the political front of youth protests which broke out in February, inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. The opposition has demanded major political reforms.

Bahraini security forces backed by Saudi-led Gulf troops in mid-March drove protesters out of central Manama’s Pearl Square, where they had camped out for a month. Authorities shortly after razed the roundabout.

Authorities say 24 people were killed in the unrest, including four policemen. The opposition puts the toll at 30. …source

“I wouldn’t stay here at the Center and wait for the wounded to come here dead. I’m going where they are. I wouldn’t wait for dead bodies to come”. She went to one of the paramedics. “I couldn’t bear that, take me now, take me there immediately”. The paramedic was smoking his cigarette nervously, he took a deep breath, looked at her insisting eyes, and said “Get in”.

Bahraini Doctors: A Thorn to the Regime- part 6- Sitra’s Long Day
Bahrain Mirror

“We were at the Health Center. We were treating the wounded who were brought in hundreds. We heard terrible screams coming from outside the Health Center. We got ready for something important. A young man came in carrying one of the injured. His steps were heavy. His face was bloodless. His countenance could not fully express the shock on his face. As he entered, screams exploded in the center. I was standing away from the entrance, I only noticed trail of blood that was spilling on his walking line. When the man passed by anyone, that one would cry, slap their chest, curse, beat their head with their hands or against a wall. Still, he was far from me. I got a glimpse of a piece of something dangling behind the injured’s head. I didn’t figure out what it was. The young man got closer to me. I approached him to treat the injured. He looked at me momentarily in despair. He continued his way to the other door toward the ambulance. The place got hysteric. No one was able to believe what they saw, neither able to contain themselves. The victim’s head was then directly in front of me. I saw the horrible view. I hadn’t imagined I would see such a view for my entire life, a head was burst open by bullets. His brain was spilt out. Only skin remained. I totally collapsed”A female doctor remembered.

This scene took place in Sitra, and specifically in Sitra Health Center. It was March 15, 2011. The first day of the martial law (National Security Law). The particular event which preceded the scenes at the Health Center was the besieging of Sitra and attacking it by the security forces. To be more specific, the event was the incursion of Peninsula Shield troops into Bahrain. The martyr was Ahmed Farhan (30 years) whose brain spattered. He was shot directly in the head. The young man who carried his body was Monem Mansoor. Monem would be sentenced for three years in prison because he carried Farhan’s body.

The ambulance arrived at Salmaniya Hospital with Farhan’s body at around 3:00 PM(1). The receiving of the body was not different from that at Sitra Health Center. The same shock, self-beating and bewilderment. A female doctor recalled: “We were in a state of mourning. Even the male doctors collapsed and cried loudly. Some women fainted. Nobody dared to see the horrific and ugly scene. Dr. Ali AlEkri shouted hysterically: Treat him, why are you just looking at him? Another replied: Oh, doctor, how can we treat him while he’s without a brain”.

Appreciation of Another Sort
The medical staff were no longer outside the event. They became part of it. It was not because the killed and the wounded passed through them, but because they became subjected to dangers in the same way as the peaceful protesters. In the previous part of this report we saw what the medical staff were subjected to; beating and threats for exercising their humanitarian and professional role in treating the wounded and injured. In this part we will see more of punishment, harassment and torture.

Jailed nurse Rulla Al-Saffar hugs Dr.Haneen Al-Bosta

Haneen Albosta was a young female doctor. She loved here profession. During her university study she scored the third among young scientists(2) in a competition that was held by the University of Medicine in Ukraine. That is how the international community acclaimed her talents while she was still a student. However, on March 15, 2011, and as a full-fledged doctor, she was waiting for a prize of another sort. The prize was from her own country.

Haneen recounted what she had gone through to the Bahraini daily “Al-Wasat”, which published her testimony the following day(9). She documented it on the police records when she would be interrogated later. “Bahrain Mirror” got more details from one of Dr. Haneen’s relatives.

Haneen was at home, she had just come from the medical tent at the Pearl Roundabout. She slept for only few hours. It was 10:30 in the morning. A paramedic phoned her: “Come now, they have attacked Sitra Area”. She got up immediately, put on her dress. Her mother tried to stop her, her brother tried too. They yelled at her not to go. She did not care. She prepared her things to leave. The last she heard was her mother’s voice calling her. She would know later that her mother lost her conscious after she left. In Salmaniya Hospital she stood waiting for an ambulance to take her to Sitra. A minibus with a wounded entered the hospital. Haneen helped in removing the wounded from the minibus. She got on the minibus, closed the door, and headed to Sitra.

When the minibus approached Sitra, she saw that garbage containers and rocks were scattered on the road at the entrance of the area. Those acted a deterrent for security forces when trying to enter. At the Health Center, she saw the wounded lying on the ground, some of them suffering from tear gas suffocation, and some were wounded by gunshots(3). Haneen quickly set to work treating the gunshot cases and moving the ones with larger wounds to the nursing section. A large crowd(4) of people gathered at the entrance of the Center, orming a human chain to organize and facilitate the entry of the cases being received. At the entrance, there was a doctor who quickly triaged the incoming injuries and directed them to the appropriate section of the Center(5).

I wouldn’t wait for dead bodies to come
“It was about noon time, the number of wounded was increasing quickly, we started to smell blood and see more of it. We felt that things started to warm up. We expected the worst” A member of the medical said. It was not long after the mid-day, before the devastating arrival of Farhan’s body, that shook the Center and the people who witnessed that arrival. The ambulance left to Salmaniya Hospital with Farhan’s body to issue a Death Certificate . For fifteen minutes after that the medical staff were still in a state of bewilderment. Screams prevailed over talk. The shock shrouded the place.

Farhan’s body kept Haneen shocked for a while. She was silent. Then she screamed: “I wouldn’t stay here at the Center and wait for the wounded to come here dead. I’m going where they are. I wouldn’t wait for dead bodies to come”. She went to one of the paramedics. “I couldn’t bear that, take me now, take me there immediately”. The paramedic was smoking his cigarette nervously, he took a deep breath, looked at her insisting eyes, and said “Get in”.

They proceeded toward where the clashes were raging. They were behind the first row of the bare-handed protesters who were face-to-face with the anti-riot police. They started showering rubber bullets. Some of the bullets hit the garbage containers. frightening sounds were heard. The youths kept on shouting: “God is Great”. They were increasing in numbers, not decreasing, while advancing closer to the police. The tear gas became denser. Fainting cases increased. The youths dragged the injured toward Haneen. The shooting became more violent and the police aimed their rubber bullets and birds gunshots directly at the protesters(8). With each round of attack the youths jumped into the houses, but then kept returning. “Those young men didn’t break, they didn’t get tired, attack and retreat” An eyewitness said. …more

A second letter was leaked from the Dry Dock prison to “Bahrain Mirror” by Ebrahim Al-Demistani the Secretary General of Bahrain Nursing Society

Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive):A second letter was leaked from the Dry Dock prison to “Bahrain Mirror”. It was written by Ebrahim Al-Demistani the Secretary General of Bahrain Nursing Society. It was written on 9th August 2011.

Al-Demistani was born in 1970. A Chief Nurse in Aluminium Bahrain Company(Alba) and a certified international trainer of trainers from the American First Aid organisation since 2007. He trained hundreds of paramedics from Bahrain and the GCC countries. He carried out scores of workshops in safety and first aids and sprots injuries for Ministry of Education employees. He presented scores of lectures for the school students in their various stages.

During March events, Al-Demistani lost his 17 year old son. In the evening of March 13, 2011, an

unidentified car deliberately ran over the young man on the bridge that overlooked the Pearl Roundabout. It fled quickly. That day witnessed volatile events, in the morning the sit-in at the Financial Harbour was attacked, then the Roundabout, and what the university saw of armed people attack. All of that coincided with the spread of organised armed gangs in all the regions of Bahrain. They were labelled Baltagiya (thugs or bullies).

That painful and tragic loss did not stop the regime from arresting Ebrahim Al-Demistani in a systematic intensive campaign that targeted the medical staff who were a thorn in the regime throat that was hard to remove. In his leaked letter, Al-Demistani asked that his letter to be published to tell of the detainees ordeal in the Dry Dock prison, the deliberate negligence of their health care citing what he suffered personally of health care negligence, stressing that others suffered similarly. That was shown in a way or another in the first leaked letter of the psychological, health and physical deterioration that the medical staff experience in the prison.

Al-Demistani explains: “I was beaten directly on the vertebral column and the coccyx bone for seven continuous days since the start of my arrest on 3rd April 2011. I felt horrible pain. After I was taken to the Dry Dock prison on 8th April I was checked up by the clinic doctor there who is a resident doctor. He continued treating me by tranquillisers; Cataflam, Voltaren and PrednIsolone. I felt numbness and tingling in the soles of my feet”. Al-Demistani’s excruciating pain was not alleviated. So he frequented the prison clinic.

But did the treatment plan change? Al-Demistani says in his letter: “I continued to visit that doctor for about 15 to 18 times, without x-raying me or transferring me to a specialist”. He remained all the time suffering pain that he did no identify its cause exactly except he felt it after the torture and harsh beating that he suffered in the first days of his detention. However, the doctor did not bother to make any move to reveal the cause of the pain and the tingling that persisted for about fours months.

Al-Demistani added: “Just three weeks ago, I was transferred by the resident doctor in the Dry Dock prison clinic. Today I went for my first physiotherapy session in the hospital at the Fortress. The session took only 15 minutes from 9:00-9:15, then I sat waiting for the bus to go back to the Dry Dock prison. I waited for four complete hours. I asked to lie down because of the severe pain that I was not able to sit any more. I was allowed to lie down in a bed in a ward where a number of hunger strikers detainees from the Central Region were kept”. Al-Demistani added in his letter: “After the doctor in charge came he asked me why am I lying in the bed? I told him of the pain I felt, and that I asked the doctor in the Dry Dock prison clinic to transfer me to an orthopaedic four months ago and till now I was not transferred. The doctor asked the appointments employee to book me an appointment for the following day which was Wednesday 10th August 2011. I was booked that appointment, but after 15 minutes he told me I could see the consultant. I saw Dr. Adel Al-Sheikh an orthopaedic and told him the whole story. He verified the number of my visits to the Dry Dock prison clinic from the computer that numbered 18 visits. After that he ordered an x-ray for me whose result was a fracture in the coccyx bone”.

Now, after four months Al-Demistani came to know that the excruciating pain he endured for four months was because of a fracture in his vertebra. All that time the resident doctor in the Dry Dock prison clinic did not bother to do any check-up to diagnose the cause of the pain that the detainee suffered despite his repetitive visits to no avail.

Al-Demistani wrote that the doctor: “told me at present they can’t perform surgically for fear of complications, and he will depend on tranquillisers (Olfer) and physiotherapy, and the fracture needs nine months”. Al-Demstrani colleagues in the prison tell that he cannot sit because of the fracture and he suffers severe pain when sitting or praying.

So Al-Demistani finds himself back-broken twice. The first time when the thugs murdered his young son and he picked his rose a martyr in his hands. The second time when the torturers broke his back and did not care to treat him. …source

[cb editor: thanks for your courage Mohamed and the well needed smile as I watched you running with the colors! It’s simply poetic when an act of patriotism, parading the flag, becomes a crime. It makes clear the People have Won the Nation! ]

Local activists gear up for G8, NATO summits planned for city
Chicago Tribune – August 28, 2011 – By Andy Grimm Tribune reporter

Activists are planning massive demonstrations to coincide with the G8 and NATO summits in Chicago scheduled for spring 2012, with crowds of protesters likely to reach “tens of thousands,” organizers said.

More than 160 members representing about 50 groups from across the U.S. and Canada gathered Sunday at the Chicago-Kent College of Law to discuss strategy and start planning two large-scale protests and a march that during the week-long joint summit, which is set for mid-May.

The G8 and similar economic forums have for more than a decade drawn thousands of demonstrators. With the world economy in turmoil and NATO leaders set to discuss Afghanistan war policy, the joint summit should draw protesters on behalf of a wide array of causes, activists said.

Chicago could see crowds of protesters similar to the 35,000 or so activists who descended on St. Paul, Minn., during the 2008 Republican National Convention, said Joe Lombardo, co-coordinator for the New York-based United National Anti-War Committee.

“With the war (and) the global economy as they are, and the (U.S. presidential) election in full swing next spring, I think it will have the potential to be bigger than the protests in Minnesota,” said Lombardo, a retired New York state government worker who has participated in demonstrations since the 1960s. “Those issues are not going to go away (by May) and Chicago is a larger city than some of the other places they’ve had these summits recently.”

Chicago activist Joe Iosbaker, who helped organize the RNC protests in 2008 and whose home was raided by FBI agents last October, said he applied for permits to hold demonstrations in Daley Plaza and Federal Plaza downtown the day the White House announced the city would host the summits. …more

Welcome to Bahrain, the Empire’s Torture Island
written by Tom Burghardt – Pacific Free Press

Torture Island: Where Offshore Meets the National Surveillance State
by Tom Burghardt l Antifascist Calling…
From shady Wall Street banks and investment firms that rob people blind, to Western governments that prattle on about “democracy” and “human rights” while their favorite butchers torture and kill their own citizens, it’s a sick, sad world growing sicker and sadder by the hour.

It certainly can’t hurt when the U.S. Fifth Fleet has the back of those doing the killing, or when the killers are pampered ne’er-do-wells, a fabulously wealthy clique of hereditary princes for whom the word “medieval” was invented, who just so happen to lord over one of the planet’s financial bolt holes.

Last month, Bloomberg Markets Magazine revealed that when “Bahraini jailers armed with stiff rubber hoses” beat 39-year-old school administrator and human rights activist Abdul Ghani Al Khanjar in a windowless dungeon in Manama, his jailers were armed “with another kind of weapon: transcripts of his text messages and details from personal mobile phone conversations.”

“It was amazing,” Al Khanjar told investigative journalists Vernon Silver and Ben Elgin. “How did they know about these?”

The answer is simple: from computers loaded with spy kit sold to Bahraini royals “by Siemens AG (SIE), and maintained by Nokia Siemens Networks and NSN’s divested unit, Trovicor GmbH, according to two people whose positions at the companies gave them direct knowledge of the installations.”

Back in February, political floodgates opened across the Middle East as American-allied dictators were toppled by enraged citizens in Tunisia and Egypt, and threatened to do the same in Bahrain when pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets across the island nation.

The Al Khalifa clan responded as royals are wont to do: with brute force and considerable help from U.S. and Saudi “friends.” Scores were killed and many hundreds of others, including medical personnel, were seized and “disappeared” into regime black holes.

As The Guardian reported, while “Bahrain’s security forces are the backbone of the Al Khalifa regime,” in recent years “large numbers of their personnel are recruited from other countries, including Jordan, Pakistan and Yemen” and “are reviled as mercenaries by Bahrainis.”

But what of the gaggle of Western firms who hit the “sweet spot” selling despotic potentates everything from high-tech spy gear to machine guns and lethal gases: will they be “reviled as mercenaries” by media in the “democratic” West?

‘Institutionalized Corruption’

It’s hardly surprising that one of Siemens offloaded intelligence units, Trovicor, did a brisk business with Bahrain’s secret state. After all, considering the firm’s dubious track record and a corporate culture where “bribery was just a line item” according to The New York Times, why wouldn’t they?

More than two years ago when a spate of corruption prosecutions were settled, Siemens wound up paying some $1.6 billion to the U.S. government under provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, “the largest fine for bribery in modern corporate history.”

Former mid-level executive, Reinhard Siekaczek, told reporters Siri Schubert and T. Christian Miller that “he was one of several people who arranged a torrent of payments that eventually streamed to well-placed officials around the globe, from Vietnam to Venezuela and from Italy to Israel.”

“What is striking about Mr. Siekaczek’s and prosecutors’ accounts of those dealings,” the Times averred, “which flowed through a web of secret bank accounts and shadowy consultants, is how entrenched corruption had become at a sprawling, sophisticated corporation that externally embraced the nostrums of a transparent global marketplace built on legitimate transactions.”

The former executive said that between “2002 to 2006 he oversaw an annual bribery budget of about $40 million to $50 million at Siemens. Company managers and sales staff used the slush fund to cozy up to corrupt government officials worldwide.”

“Bribery was Siemens’s business model,” Uwe Dolata, the spokesman for the association of federal criminal investigators in Germany told the Times. “Siemens had institutionalized corruption.”

Such lucrative inducements to officials were meant to maintain the firm’s “competitive edge” overseas in the branch Siekaczek oversaw, “which sold telecommunications equipment.”

High-tech accouterments which ended up in the hands of Abdul Ghani Al Khanjar’s torturers.

Ahmed Aldoseri, the director of information and communications technologies at Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority told Bloomberg Markets, “If they have a transcript of an SMS message, it’s because the security organ was monitoring the user at their monitoring center.” …more

Time Magazine and the Fake Hezbollah Interview
By As’ad AbuKhalil – Sun, 2011-09-04 13:25

The fake interview by Nicholas Blanford of a supposed Hezbollah member allegedly implicated in Hariri’s killing was a journalistic scandal and a clear intelligence ploy. The interview published in Time Magazine presumably intended to bring the accused out—electronically speaking—in order to locate him. The story reveals a lot about the way in which the Western press operates. This is not the first time that coverage of the Middle East has been associated with scandals and propaganda. Western media have served as government tools since the US war on Iraq in 1990. It only got worse over time, especially since Sep. 11.

The US press is more obedient to the government than, say the British or French press, because the former lacks experienced experts on the Middle East who can make foreign policy decisions independent of government pressures. European media are more likely to employ experts who reside in the region and who know the languages. In the US press, the tendency is to rely on roving correspondents who know little on every country they cover, and on stringers who are filtered through the Zionist foreign editor in New York City. This is not the first time that coverage by Blanford reaches a bizarre level. Blanford, before the 2006 war, specialized in counting (in Western media) the number of missiles owned by Hezbollah and the amount of cash that Iran gives to Hezbollah. No one dared to ask Blanford where he got this information that even intelligence services don’t possess, although his estimates of Hezbollah missiles curiously matched Israeli intelligence estimates cited in the Israeli media. And only weeks ago, Blanford wrote a story in which a Hezbollah “fighter” brags to him about Hezbollah’s smuggling operations. Blanford never explained why a Hezbollah fighter would confide in him—him of all people, given his pro-Israeli and pro-Hariri tendencies.
[Read more →]

[cb editor: this fools ego know no bounds. ]

HRH the Crown Prince receives congratulatory cable from USA President Barack Obama

Manama, September 4th — (BNA) His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander received a congratulatory cable from the friendly USA President Barack Obama in which the His Excellency expressed felicitations to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr and wished His Royal Highness ample health and happiness and the Kingdom of Bahrain’s people further advancement and progress.

…source

Global campaign for release of former Kent student

By Steve Knight, chief county reporter Saturday, September 3, 2011
8:00 AM

Scholars from around the world are campaigning for the safe release of a former University of Kent student imprisoned in Bahrain.

Professor Masaud Jahromi, who graduated in 2001 with a PhD in telecommunication networking, was arrested on April 14 this year but has yet to be charged with any offence despite spending almost five months behind bars.

The married father-of-one, who is currently chairman of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Ahlia University’s College of Mathematical Sciences and Information Engineering in Bahrain, also suffers from Hepatitis C and has allegedly been refused treatment by his captors.

Eager to raise awareness of Prof Jahromi’s plight is the international Scholars at Risk (SAR) organisation, which exists to promote academic freedom and to defend the human rights of scholars worldwide.

A large number of British universities are members of the network, including the University of Kent.

SAR executive director Robert Quinn said: “Since his arrest, Prof Jahromi was reportedly held in an undisclosed location and initially had no communication with his family.

“According to reports, the police broke into his house in the middle of the night, threatened and harassed members of his family, confiscated the family’s laptops and beat Prof Jahromi. We understand now he was initially brought to AlGalaa prison and later transferred to Dry Dock Prison.

“He has yet to be informed of the charges against him. A date for his hearing has not yet been set in spite of the fact he has been detained for more than four months – in apparent disregard for international standards of due process, fair trial and detention.”

Based at New York University, Scholars at Risk was launched as part of the University of Chicago’s human rights programme in 1999. …more

Unjustly detained blogger, on hunger strike, could die in prison
Published on Saturday 3 September 2011 – by français Partager – Reports without Borders

The international press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders is very worried about the fate of the blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad and calls for his immediate and unconditional release in order to preserve the democratic nature of Egypt’s political transition.

Freeing the first prisoner of conscience since the revolution would be a powerful symbolic gesture, one that the entire international community would see as a sign of a commitment to openness.

Sanad, who began a hunger strike on 23 August, is now refusing to drink and already has heart problems. Detained since March, his physical condition is very alarming and needs urgent intervention.

“While Sanad’s hunger strike is a personal decision, the authorities are responsible for the cause, an unjust and anti-democratic political imprisonment,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. “If he does not resume drinking, he could very soon die in detention and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces would have to take full responsibility. Held for exercising his right to freedom of expression, Sanad must not become the symbol of a repressive and unjust post-Mubarak Egypt.”

Aged 25, Sanad was arrested by military police on the night of 28 March and was tried by a military court, which sentenced him to three years in prison on 10 April on charges of insulting the armed forces, publishing false reports and disturbing public order.

Neither his family nor his lawyer has been able to see him of late. He used to be allowed one visit a week that this has been reduced to two visits a month. …source

Candle vigil for martyred Ali Al Sheikh Jawad
Shiapost – September 3, 2011

Candle vigil was organized in Sitarah for martyred Ali Al Sheikh Jawad. Thousands took part in the candle vigil, several other candle vigils were organized in other villages at the same time as the one in Sitrah. Ali Al Sheikh Jawad, the 14-year-old boy was killed on Wednesday after Eid al-Fitr prayers. He was shot at close range, directly in the [face back of the neck], by a tear gas canister fired by Saudi-backed regime forces in the southern city of Sitra.

After the killing of a 14 year old boy, instead of turning to violence, people of Bahrain hold candle vigils. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across the Persian Gulf state since the incident to condemn the murder of Jawad.

Jawad was killed just three days after a televised speech by Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on August 28, in which he announced a decision to pardon the demonstrators arrested during the popular uprising that began in February. …source

Everyone, Republican or otherwise has their own particular part to play.No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something. Bobby Sands(1954-1981)

Bobbys Sands and his ten comrades were true heroes. These young men were willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice rather than be branded criminals. Criminals don’t starve themselves to death for their beliefs. Anyone with an ounce of sense and not blinded by hatred can see this. Ta ar la anois.

The hunger strike of 1981 was one of, if not the most influential periods in the IRA’s long campaign to remove Britains’ role from irish politics. It not only thwarted Britain’s plans to criminalise the IRA prisoners in the H-Blocks, but concentrated world wide media attention on the war in Ireland, paving the way for Sinn Fein’s entrance into the political arena and the electoral successes that followed.

…source

Bahraini medical professionals, who were arrested at the start of a government crackdown on pro-democracy protests earlier this year, have gone on hunger strike, their relatives say.

They have been held in jail for almost six months, while their trial continues in a military court.

Bahraini and international human rights organisations have called the trials a farce.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Khalil Al-Mazrooq, a former chairman of the Shia bloc Al Wefaq, said: “The trial of Bahraini medics in a military tribunal is against the country’s constitution. Article 105 of the constitution says civilians should be tried in civilian courts only.”

Adel Al Moawda, chairman of parliamentary foreign affairs, defence and national security in Bahrain, said the medics would receive a fair trial.

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford reports. …source

More Bahrain detainees join hunger strike
The Associated Press – Posted on Sat, Sep. 03, 2011 04:30 AM

A rights group in Bahrain says more detainees are joining a hunger strike to protest ongoing trials from the crackdown on demonstrations for greater rights by the Gulf nation’s Shiite majority.

A statement Saturday by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights says the hunger strike now includes nearly 20 doctors who are jailed and face anti-state charges linked to the protests against Bahrain’s ruling Sunni dynasty.

The trials are scheduled to resume on Wednesday.

The Center says at least two other prominent activists, Abdul Jalil al-Singace and Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, have also begun hunger strikes in solidarity. The activists were sentenced to life in prison in June.

Bahrain protests began in February inspired by other Arab uprisings. …source

Jailed Bahrain Shiite activists on hunger strike
(AFP) – 3 hours ago

DUBAI — Two Bahraini Shiite activists jailed for life in June for “plotting to overthrow” the Sunni ruling family have gone on hunger strike, the daughter of one of them told AFP on Saturday.

Human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and opposition Haq movement member Abduljalil al-Singace stopped eating on Tuesday in solidarity with detainees held at Bahrain’s Dry Dock prison, Zainab al-Khawaja said.

She said that the detainees, who were arrested as part of a March crackdown on Shiite-led pro-democracy protests, had called their hunger strike in protest at the government’s failure to honour promises to release them.

“I am concerned about my father’s health,” Khawaja said. “He was beaten when detained and his jaw was broken. They also beat him repeatedly on his jaw in court. The doctor had told him to eat well for his health to improve.

“He has already lost too much weight in prison and yesterday he called me and said his blood sugar level has dropped,” she added.

Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who also holds Danish citizenship, was jailed for life with Singace and six other opposition activists in June.

The Bahrain interior ministry says 24 people, including four policemen, were killed in the month-long protests that erupted in mid-February.

Security forces backed by troops from Bahrain’s Gulf neighbours crushed the protest movement.

The opposition says that scores of people were arrested, and many of them tortured. Hundreds more were dismissed from their jobs.

Four people have been sentenced to death and three to life imprisonment after being convicted of the killing of two policemen during the protests. Nine others were jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of abducting a policeman. …source