Saudi Arabia urged to release protesters
Press TV – March 25, 2011
The Saudi-based Human Rights First Society has called for the release of 100 protesters amid reports that some of those arrested have been tortured.
The rights group has called for a full investigation into the allegations of physical and psychological torture of the detainees, AFP reported.
It says the protesters were mainly arrested in the cities of Safwa, Qatif, and Hassa in the east of the country during peaceful rallies last week.
Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry has declined to comment on the report. Riyadh has recently stepped up its clampdown on anti-government protesters in response to protests in the kingdom.
The anti-government demonstrators are demanding political reforms and the immediate release of political prisoners, whom protesters say are being held unjustly and without trial, some for as long as 16 years.
The protesters also condemned Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Bahrain and called for the withdrawal of Saudi forces from the country.
Shias, a minority in Saudi Arabia, say that they face discrimination in getting government jobs and benefits. The Saudi monarchy denies the allegations.
King Abdullah announced last week that the country would hold the second municipal elections next month, already delayed for two years. He also allotted $136 billion to tackle unemployment and housing problems and ordered the establishment of an anti-corruption body.
Activists say the state should take up real political reforms including an elected parliament with legislative powers, public freedoms and true independence for the judiciary.
They say that instead of carrying out the reforms, the government has stepped up security to suppress demonstrations.
Judge Cites Privacy Concerns in Rejecting Google Books Settlement
By Nicole Ozer | ACLU | March 23, 2011
What you read says a lot about what you think and believe. That’s why the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Samuelson Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, filed an objection to the proposed Google Book Search settlement on behalf of authors and readers concerned about inadequate privacy safeguards in the book service. Now a federal court has rejected that proposed settlement. In today’s court opinion, the judge wrote that “[t]he privacy concerns [with Google Book Search] are real.”
We urged the court to reject the proposed settlement unless Google took several important steps to protect user privacy:
- Promise to protect book records from disclosure by complying with demands for information only when those demands are embodied in a search warrant or civil court order and by informing users whose records are sought as soon as legally permissible.
- Limit tracking of users who choose to browse, read, and search books anonymously, including allowing users to use the service without registering or providing any personal information.
- Provide user control over reading and purchasing data, including the ability to maintain privacy settings for “bookcases” and to transfer a digital book to another user without a permanent record.
- Be transparent about the information that the service collects and maintains about users and when and why that information has been disclosed to any third party.
As we pointed out in Digital Books: A New Chapter for Reader Privacy, our recent issue paper, digital book services are growing in popularity. These services may collect detailed information about readers and the books they browse, the pages they read, and even the notes they write in the “margins.” The time is now to retain and strengthen reader privacy in the digital age and ensure that sensitive browsing and reading history does not improperly end up in the hands of the government or third parties.
To address this challenge, we are working with EFF to introduce landmark digital book privacy legislation in California. (Stay tuned!) But we need companies like Google to support these efforts — and to ensure that their digital book products protect reader privacy.
As the court noted today, Google has an opportunity to incorporate additional privacy protections into its Book Search product. Please let Google know that you demand strong reader privacy protections for the digital age by signing our petition today.
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New Egyptian law criminalizes protests
Al-Masry Al-Youm | March 23, 2011
The Egyptian Cabinet on Wednesday ordered a law criminalizing protests and strikes. Under the new law, anyone organizing or calling for a protest will be sentenced to jail and/or a fine of LE500,000.
The new law will be enforced as long as the current Emergency Law is in place, said the cabinet in a statement on Wednesday. The Emergency Law has been in force since 1981 following the assassination of former President Anwar Sadat.
The new law will apply to anyone inciting, urging, promoting or participating in a protest or strike that hampers or delays work at any private or public establishments.
Since the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February, Egypt has witnessed nationwide labor strikes and political protests. Among those protesting have been university students, political activists, railway workers, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, journalists, pensioners, and the police force.
“Nakba Law Incites against Arab Population”
Israel’s Knesset approved the Nakba Law, mandating fines for state funded bodies that commemorate the Nakba, the 1948 Palestinian catastrophe of death, displacement and dispossession. Palestinian public in Israel will continue to commemorate its national days and history, despite this legal threat.
The Israeli Knesset approved on Tuesday night (22 March) the second and third readings of the controversial “Nakba Law.”
37 Knesset members voted in favor of the bill, which would require the state to fine local authorities and other state-funded bodies for holding events marking Israeli Independence Day as the “Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic) or for supporting “racism” against Israel. 25 others opposed the law.
The bill, initiated by Knesset Member Alex Miller of the ultra right-wing Zionist party Yisrael Beiteinu, will now become law, unless the decision is overturned by the Israeli High Court.
The Nakba is the term for the events of 1948 that left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as refugees, dead, and homeless.
The final version of the law will require the state to fine local authorities and other state-funded bodies for holding events commemorating the Nakba, supporting armed resistance or racism against Israel, or desecrating the state flag or nation symbols.
A statement released by the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education- Israel, following the vote, says, “The Palestinian Arab public in Israel has every right to observe national days and preserve the national collective memory, including content in school curriculum.”
“The Follow-up Committee on Arab Education will continue to target Arab schools, specifically on Nakba Day, Land Day, the massacre in Kafr Qasem and other important historical events, to enhance the national and cultural affiliation of Arab students and present the denied Palestinian narrative, and will continue to fight for inclusion in the curriculum.”
The AIC spoke with Raja Za’atra the spokesperson for the Committee on Arab Education Issues, which said it will continue to commemorate the Nakba Day in schools.
“This law has no practical effect on the committee itself because it receives no funding from the state, but it is meant to intimidate schools, local councils and other bodies that are giving services to the public and dealing with Palestinian nationalism in general,” Za’atra said.
“This law is an attempt to incite against the Arab population,” he added.
The Abraham Fund responded to the Nakba Law, warning that “Knesset members are mistaken to think that one can force the Arab minority to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day. It is important to allow Arab citizens to learn about and acknowledge their painful past. It is also important that mutual understanding of the other’s historical narrative exists between the Jews and Arabs in Israel.”
Prior to the final vote, Attorney Dan Yakir, ACRI’s Chief Legal Counsel, sent a letter to Members of Knesset, urging them to oppose the Nakba Law. In his letter, Attorney Yakir states that the law will limit specific forms of expression, while attempting to dictate one ideological and historical truth: “This bill severely damages freedom of political expression, freedom of artistic expression, and freedom of protest, which are all basic rights and are essential to the very existence of a democracy.”
Disappeared on a Ukraine Train
Mossad Snatches Gaza’s Power Plant Boss
A photo of Abu Sisi displayed by his daughter. (Aljazeera)
By Jonathan Cook – Palestine Chronicle – March 23rd, 2011
Israel admitted this week that it was behind the abduction of a Gazan engineer who went missing more than a month ago while travelling on a train in the Ukraine.
Israeli officials confirmed that Dirar Abu Sisi, 42, was being held in Israel’s Shikma prison, near Ashkelon, after a judge partially lifted reporting restrictions late on Sunday. However, the reasons for Abu Sisi’s abduction are still covered by the gag order.
The whereabouts of Abu Sisi, the operations manager of Gaza’s only power plant, have been the subject of intense speculation since he disappeared on February 18 as he travelled on a train to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
Suspicions that he might have been spirited to Israel were raised by the Ukrainian spokesman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees earlier this month.
A few days after his disappearance, Abu Sisi’s wife, Veronika, a Ukrainian national, accused the Israeli spy agency Mossad of kidnapping him to extract information that could be used to disable Gaza’s power station in a future confrontation with the enclave’s Hamas rulers.
Israel bombed the plant during its three-week military assault, Operation Cast Lead, in winter 2008, causing blackouts across much of Gaza. Israel also targeted the power station in June 2006, cutting power to 700,000 Gazans for several months while it was fixed at a cost of more than $5 million.
Abu Sisi’s family suggested another reason why Israeli might consider him a high-value target. They say he had recently developed a method to reduce the plant’s dependency on high-grade diesel fuel, the flow of which Israel controls into Gaza.
In January Hamas officials announced that the station’s turbines had been modified to work on regular diesel, which is cheaper and can be smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt.
The Israeli media, on the other hand, have speculated that Abu Sisi must be a senior Hamas activist to have secured an important post at the plant. The family have denied the claim, saying he was not involved in any political faction and was appointed because of his skills as an engineer.
One of his Israeli lawyers, Smadar Ben Nathan, who met him for the first time at the court hearing on Sunday to lift the gag order, said she believed Israel had carried out the operation based on false information.
She called the abduction a “miscalculation”, saying interrogators had dropped their original line of questioning. She said the gag order meant she could not discuss the case further.
No charges have been brought yet. Ben Nathan said her client had lost a great deal of weight and his health was deteriorating after more than a month incommunicado. His family is concerned that he is being tortured.
Although the Mossad is suspected of carrying out many assassinations on foreign soil — including a hit on a Hamas leader, Mahmoud al Mabhouh, in a Dubai hotel last year — there are few examples of it seizing individuals in foreign countries to bring them to trial.
Ben Nathan said she could identify only two similar cases: Israeli agents captured the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, and smuggled Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear whisteblower, out of Italy in 1986.
Victor Kattan, an international law expert at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, said Israel had broken several human rights laws in seizing him rather than invoking treaty agreements between the Ukraine and Israel and requesting his extradition.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, based in Gaza, said it had learnt the details of how Abu Sisi was seized from another Israeli lawyer who had access to him. They did not name him, apparently because the information was a violation of the gag order.
In a statement, the Centre said three men, two of them apparently wearing official Ukrainian uniforms, had dragged Abu Sisi, hooded and handcuffed, from his carriage at a stop en route to Kiev, where he was due to meet his brother.
He was later interrogated in an apartment by six people who identifed themselves as Mossad agents, before being put on a plane. The flight took about four hours. The plane then made another flight of about an hour to Israel, the PCHR said.
Abu Sisi’s brother, Yousef, accused Ukraine of being “deeply involved”, adding that he had spent three weeks being “kicked like a football from one office to another” as he sought help from the police and various intelligence agencies. “At one point an official even threatened to make me disappear,” he said.
Abu Sisi was in Ukraine to apply for citizenship so that he and his wife could immigrate with their six children, his brother said. “He was desperate to leave Gaza and take his children to Ukraine away from the Israeli bombs and attacks. How could he be a threat?”
According to Veronika, her husband had encountered problems at an interior ministry office in the city of Kharkiv earlier on the day of his disappearance. Officials there had briefly refused to return his passport.
So far Ukraine has kept a low profile on the incident.
During an official visit to Israel last week by the Ukrainian prime minister, Mykola Azarov, reporters due to cover his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, had their invitations withdrawn at short notice and without explanation.
However, during an interview with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper while he was in Israel, Azarov responded to a question about Abu Sisi’s disappearance: “We don’t have clear information right now … I don’t want to imagine that such things are carried out on the soil of a friendly state.”
Abu Sisi’s kidnapping was first brought to light by Richard Silverstein, an American blogger.
The Association of Civil Rights in Israel, which sought the removal of the gag order, said in its petition to the court: “It is inconceivable that the authorities in a democratic country be able to secretly arrest people and ‘vanish’ them from the public eye.”
~
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest book is Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press)
Abducted Palestinian Engineer: Mossad Snatched Me, Handcuffed Me, Hooded Me
Al-Manar | March 22, 2011
Dirar Abu Sisi, the Palestinian engineer abducted from the Ukraine by Israeli Mossad agents last month gave an account of the incident in which he was arrested to a lawyer from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) earlier this week, the NGO reported on Monday.
On Sunday, Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court partially removed a publication ban and confirmed that Abu Sisi was being held at the Shikma Prison in Ashkelon.
PCHR said that Abu Sisi told the lawyer that on February 19 he was traveling by train from Kharkov to Kiev to meet with his brother Yousef when three persons, two in military uniforms, entered his room on the train. They asked him to show his passport but he refused. Then they threatened him and forcefully took his passport. They forced him to get off the train at the nearby station of Poltava.
Abu Sisi said that he was handcuffed, hooded and transported in a car to Kiev. Once in Kiev he was held in an apartment where there were another six persons who introduced themselves to be members of the Mossad. Abu Sisi said that the Mossad members immediately questioned him.
The Palestinian engineer said he was then put on a flight that lasted between four and five hours before landing in a place unknown to him. Approximately thirty minutes later, they took off again and the flight lasted for approximately one hour. Upon landing Abu Sisi found himself in “Israel”.
Abu Sisi told the PCHR lawyer that he was denied contact with a lawyer for fourteen days. This denial was extended for another eleven days. He said that he was placed under intensive interrogations and that he was denied his legal rights.
After speaking with Abu Sisi, PCHR expressed doubts about previous reports that Ukrainian authorities had colluded in the abduction. He was not legally arrested by Ukrainian authorities and made no appearances in Ukrainian courts.
The human rights organization expressed concerns with Abu Sis’s physical and mental health and called for his immediate release.
Abu Sisi is the manager of the only power plant in the Gaza Strip. He is not known to have any direct ties with Hamas or other organizations, although it is likely that his senior position was the result of political affiliation.
In interviews to foreign reporters, Abu Sisi’s wife Veronica, blamed the kidnapping on the Mossad, saying they did it to sabotage the Gazan power plant.
Israeli forces detain journalist in Awarta
Ma’an – 22/03/2011
RAMALLAH — Sources at Voice of Palestine Radio told Ma’an that the station’s director of programming was detained by Israeli forces in the village of Awarta, after the village was locked down under a military curfew.
Kamal Sharab’s home was searched during a raid, and soldiers detained him and two of his sons – Fadi, 17, and Ra’fat, 16.
Earlier in the week, Sharab’s brother was also detained, in a round up that saw 40 men and youth from Awarta taken by Israeli forces.
The sources told Ma’an that Israeli forces detained Kamal’s brother a few days ago.
The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate condemned the detention of journalists and called for his immediate release.
Israeli forces re-entered Awarta at sunrise Tuesday, announcing via loudspeaker that the community was under curfew the for a second time this month.
The village had been under a military curfew from March 12-16 as Israeli police, military and intelligence forces searched the area for evidence relating to the murder of five settlers in the adjacent illegal settlement Itamar.
An as yet unknown attacker or attackers stabbed five members of the Fogel family, including two children and a baby. Israeli leaders immediately blamed Palestinian militant groups, and put a total gag order on the investigation for the Israeli press.
A military spokeswoman confirmed that there was a curfew in place, but said she could not disclose how long it would remain on the village. She said the search was in relation on the ongoing investigation into the Itamar murders, and that troops were trying not to disrupt normal life in the village.
Head of the Awarta village council Qays Awwad told Ma’an that a large number of Israeli forces entered the town and set up checkpoints at all of its entrances.
Villagers were told they were prohibited to leave their homes and enter the streets.
“So far, we have not been informed about the motive behind the incursion,” the Awwad said.
The last closure of the village prevented patients in need of medical treatment from getting to hospital. Villagers reported that at least two children suffered bites from sniffer dogs. Teenagers sustained broken bones after attempting to stave off an attack by settlers who marched into the village and threw rocks and bottles at homes.
Although militant groups in the West Bank have denied involvement in the murders, accusations by Israeli officials sparked a string of settler attacks against Palestinian civilians.
On Monday, one settler in the southern West Bank opened fire on a funeral procession in Beit Ummar, injuring one man critically and hospitalizing a second with a gunshot wound to the thigh.
Further south, a settler from the Ma’on outpost stabbed a Palestinian man on a donkey en route to a local clinic for treatment.
Two Palestinians were stabbed earlier in the week as they went to work in the industrial area of the Shilo settlement.
Dozens of acts of vandalism and harassment have also been reported.
‘Isolated Saleh under pressure to quit’
Interview with Zayd al-Isa, a Middle East expert in London
Press TV – March 22, 2011
Democratic protesters in Yemen now seem to be gaining the advantage against a dictator that is losing political and military support. Press TV talks with Zayd al-Isa, a Middle East expert in London on the latest developments in Yemen and about where President Saleh can turn for additional support.
Press TV: How do you see the situation in Yemen? We have Yemeni ambassadors in Europe, the Arab League, the UN and in China all stepping down and calling for the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. This presumably would leave him more isolated. How much do you think this would pressure Saleh to step down?
Zayd al-Isa: Saleh is becoming increasingly isolated, beleaguered and embattled. Support is waning away from him and he is under unprecedented pressure. The massacre that his forces have perpetrated has piled on the pressure for him to resign and step down. People have hardened their rhetoric ad toughened their language against him. They want him to be ousted and not only that, but to stand trial for crimes committed against unarmed peaceful civilians.
This has followed the massacre by Saudi forces on the people of Bahrain and we can say that Saleh too is following the green light given by the US. Saudi Arabia considers Yemen to be its backyard garden – both Yemen and Bahrain. Americans have given them a license to kill in those two countries.
Saleh’s policy of shooting to kill the protesters has backfired and we are witnessing the backlash from the tribe’s people, which is highly significant because Yemen is a tribal nation. These tribes are now standing against him and most importantly we now see the army, high ranking Generals, pull the rug from under his feet turning against him.
Without warning some of the army’s troops have been ordered on the ground, tanks included, to come to the defense of the innocent people of Yemen.
We have seen support come from the defense minister who has pledged his loyalty and called Saleh a constitutional president. This is all a critical and highly dangerous development that may show divisions within the high ranks of the military, which is something different to what occurred in Egypt, which was stable and united. We also saw a different situation in Tunisia where the army stood firmly against Ben Ali and remained as a stable unit.
The situation in Yemen has deteriorated further with Saleh becoming isolated amid an unprecedented number of diplomats defecting. This highlights the beginning of a new phase where the protesters are gaining the upper hand and the movement is gathering momentum.
This is to the contrary of what Saleh had expected. Protesters have flouted the imposed curfew and numbers have substantially escalated, spreading to all parts of Yemen. Saleh is now in a terrible position and I believe he now has to step down. France has said that the fall of Saleh has become unavoidable. We haven’t heard such noises coming from the US as Saleh is again considered one of the key allies of the US.
I think Saleh depends on three important pillars: the support of the tribes, the support of the US and aid that is allocated to military; and finally the backing and support of the Saudi regime. Saleh has been a loyal and obedient defender of the Saudi Monarchy.
Press TV: Regarding the three pillars of Saleh’s ability to stay in power that you mentioned, President Saleh’s own tribe has called upon him to step down.
Zayd al-Isa: That’s right and support of that tribe is absolutely crucial. Using a policy of divide and conquer he heavily relied on this tribe in the earlier war against the Houthis, which was backed by Saudi Arabia. That tribal support now is waning.
The aid from the US goes to Saleh’s military in order to fight al-Qaeda, which we know the Saudi regime has been a major factor in the supporting and the flourishing of al-Qaeda. Al Qaeda has flourished during those dictatorships and the oppression forced on the people of those countries, in Yemen, and of course in Saudi Arabia, which is the mother of all dictatorships.
Press TV: Let’s talk about the support of Saudi Arabia for Saleh – Do you think there will be Saudi troops deployed to Yemen as they were deployed to Bahrain?
Zayd al-Isa: I wouldn’t call it a deployment of forces. What you have in Bahrain is a clear cut occupation; an outright invasion of a sovereign country.
Yemen though is a huge massive country with a very difficult terrain. And we’ve seen Saudi Arabia actually try to invade Yemen before to impose its own will on the Houthis and to actually commit genocide against them; committing crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing against them. They used their superior military ground forces and supremacy in the air – advanced equipment supplied to them by the US.
They picked on the Houthis, a simple militia and now we see them once again taking on a tiny country (Bahrain) which is ruled by a ruthless dictator the so-called king of Bahrain who is no king (by definition). He was never elected and has subjected his people to intolerable discrimination. He has tried to change the makeup of the country by luring thousands of mercenaries giving them citizenship if they commit crimes against his own people.
Saudi now has its trigger happy forces inside Bahrain to quash the revolutionary forces of democracy also and with utter silence from the US. The US has condemned the situation in Bahrain, but has not lifted a finger to help prevent the occupation of Bahrain. We can see through this discussion that what they have done in Bahrain they cannot duplicate in Yemen.
Press TV: We have reports that Houthi fighters are now in control of Yemen’s Northern provinces. This raises a question of – What are the chances of Yemen falling into a civil war?
Zayd al-Isa: The situation is incredibly volatile and there are so many tribes. And what makes it even more dangerous is the division (potential) between the army generals and this could lead to civil war unless the army sits down and unites, that is, a united front against Saleh. He has the loyalty of the Defense Minister, but I do believe that Saleh is running out of allies and supporters; he is relying now on the backing and support of Saudi Arabia. That’s why he has sent his foreign minister to Saudi Arabia to get whole hearted support and the king of Saudi Arabia has emphatically supported the dictators in the region. He gave shelter to Ben Ali to live in his country and he tried to influence Egypt into allowing Mubarak to remain in power and oversee a transition. They have been the bastion of dictatorship.
Israel admits to abduction of Gaza engineer
Ma’an – 20/03/2011
TEL AVIV — Israeli media released details on the abduction of Gaza engineer Dirar Abu Sisi on Sunday, after the country partially lifted its gag order on the plight of the Power Plant official who went missing in the Ukraine in February.
In a report released in the Israeli daily news site Haaretz, said only that “Sisi was arrested by Israel as part of an investigation. Much of the rest of the details remain under gag order.”
Earlier in March, an Israeli court in Petah Tikva upheld a ban on publishing any information from Israel about the mysterious disappearance of Abu Sisi on February 19, when he boarded a train in the Ukraine during a visit to his wife’s family. Relatives said he was seeking to establish Ukrainian citizenship during the trip.
Two weeks ago, the Ukrainian interior ministry said it had received a request from Abu Sisi’s wife “to establish the whereabouts of her husband who disappeared in unknown circumstances,” spokesman Sergiy Burlakov said.
He said Abu Sisi was reported to have disappeared on a train between Kiev and the northern city of Kharkiv and that his wife said he could be in Israel.
Fresh protests break out in Morocco
Press TV – March 20, 2011
Amid escalating unrest in Middle East and North of Africa, Moroccans have also taken to the streets to protest corruption in Morocco and demand better civil rights.
Thousands of pro-democracy protesters gathered in Rabat and Casablanca on Sunday shouting “the Moroccan people demand change!” and holding up placards reading “For the freedom and dignity of the Moroccan people.”
Protests in Morocco began earlier this year following revolutions in Egypt and Tunis which led to the overthrow of the governments in both countries.
In February thousands of Moroccans staged peaceful demonstrations across the country, prompting Morocco’s King Mohammed VI to emphasize his commitment to “pursuing the realization of structural reforms.”
The king announced on March 9 that he had appointed a committee to draft a reform of the constitution widening the prerogatives of elected officials and ensuring officials are accountable and the judiciary independent.
Mohammed VI added that the new proposals would be announced in June and the draft constitution will be put to a referendum.
On March 14, however, Morocco’s riot police armed with truncheons broke up peaceful protest in Casablanca in an unusual show of violence, injuring 13 people and arresting 54 others.
‘100 missing after Bahrain crackdown’
Press TV – March 20, 2011
A former Bahraini lawmaker says that around 100 people have gone missing during the Manama-ordered crackdown on the countrywide popular revolution.
“We don’t know anything about them, we’ve asked hospital and ministry authorities and none of them are telling us anything about them,” said Hady al-Mussawy, formerly a parliamentarian with Al Wefaq, the country’s largest political party.
He made the comments during a short protest in front of the United Nations building in the capital, calling on the world body to make sure rescue medical services operate in the Persian Gulf kingdom.
Demonstrators in the Shia-majority country have been demanding the ouster of the Sunni-led Al Khalifa monarchy as well as constitutional reforms since February 14.
The government recently razed the capital’s Pearl Square, where hundreds of protesters had been camping.
At least 12 people have been killed and about 1,000 injured since the start of the anti-government protests during the government-backed armed attacks.
On Thursday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay denounced a new move by the government to take control of the country’s hospitals amid the killing and injuring of protesters by the security forces.
“There are reports of arbitrary arrests, killings, beatings of protesters and of medical personnel, and of the takeover of hospitals and medical centers by various security forces,” she said.
Manama recently sought the help of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to further suppress the protests.
Violence has intensified against the demonstrators ever since the deployment of Saudi and Emirati forces in Bahrain.
Massive Crowd Buries Yemen Martyrs as More Officials Resign
Al-Manar | March 20, 2011
Tens of thousands of people gathered in the Yemeni capital Sunday for the funerals of some of the 52 people martyred in a massacre against protesters committed by loyalists of President Ali Abdullah Saleh last Friday, as more officials close to Saleh offered their resignations from their posts in protest of the massacre.
Around 30 bodies were laid out in neat rows and the square near Sanaa University overflowed with mourners, who massed under tight security and despite a two-day-old state of emergency.
Waving Yemeni flags and shouting slogans denouncing the regime, the mourners formed a massive procession as they carried the bodies in coffins on their shoulders to the cemetery.
“Ali, the blood of the martyrs will not be in vain!” they chanted, referring to the president. “We sacrifice blood and soul for you, oh martyr,” they roared in tribute to the martyrs.
Politicians and civil society representatives joined the throng.
Ali Abed Rabbo al-Qadi, the head of the independent parliamentary bloc who was in the crowd, said those responsible for the killings must be “held responsible for every drop of blood that has been shed.”
Muslim clerics called on Yemeni soldiers to disobey orders to shoot demonstrators, and blamed Saleh – in power since 1978 – for the slaughter on Friday. “We call on the army and security forces to not carry out any order from anyone to kill and repress” demonstrators, a group of influential clerics in the deeply religious country said in a joint statement. They also called for Saleh’s elite Republican Guard troops to be withdrawn from the capital, where protesters have defied the state of emergency called after Friday’s violence and continued a sit-in.
Saleh had declared Sunday a national day of mourning for the “martyrs for democracy,” while blaming the opposition for “incitement and chaos” that had led to the killings.
Youth activists organizing the sit-in panned Saleh’s declaration as insincere. “After getting blood on his hands… he cried crocodile tears for the martyrs,” they said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Human rights minister Huda al-Baan announced late on Saturday that she was resigning in protest at Friday’s bloodbath, where the undersecretary at her ministry, Ali Taysir, has also stepped down.
Baan became the third Yemeni minister to quit in as many days, along with a host of senior officials and at least two ambassadors.
A report said that Yemen’s Ambassador to the UN Abdullah Alsaidi has also resigned following the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in Sana’a.
On Saturday, Yemeni Ambassador to Lebanon Faisal Amin Abu al-Ras also quit his post to protest Saleh’s crackdown on anti-government protesters. The move by Abu al-Ras marked the first by a Yemeni envoy to protest Friday’s violence brought by government forces against protesters in the capital.
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Book Review
‘Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison’: A Tale of Two Diaries
By Jill Erzen | The Defender | October 13, 2026
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s private diary reveals a “mind-numbing” contradiction between what the former top U.S. infectious disease official knew about COVID-19 and what he told the public, senior White House adviser Peter Navarro, Ph.D., said last week on “American Thought Leaders.”
In his new book, “Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison,” due out Oct. 20, Navarro compares Fauci’s private entries to his own pandemic-era diary, and uses what he calls “a tale of two diaries” to argue that Fauci should face criminal prosecution.
“I show, actually, how a prosecution can and should happen … at the state level, most likely,” Navarro said. “He should wind up in prison, and we’ve got the receipts in this book to put him there.”
Navarro said Fauci repeatedly acknowledged important facts in private, then publicly pursued policies that contradicted those facts — with devastating consequences.
“What he says many times privately in his diary is so at odds with both his public behavior and public statements that it’s mind-numbing,” Navarro said.
Navarro examines the lasting damage caused by lockdowns and other pandemic policies, and the ongoing toll of long COVID.
His book also addresses questions about vaccine safety, including why healthy young people faced COVID-19 vaccination mandates despite concerns about myocarditis, and why women were not warned about miscarriage risks linked to the shots. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Yemen denounces international community’s silence on Saudi aggression, siege
- UAE and Saudi Arabia move toward renewed coordination against Sanaa
- How Iran’s two-week retaliatory strikes exposed cracks in US military architecture in Persian Gulf
- The mother of all propaganda: Why the hype over US MOAB strike against Iran is nothing but theater
- Iran says it possesses technology behind US 14-ton GBU bunker-buster
- Trump asks Iran not to retaliate after he strikes Pickaxe Mountain – w/ Prof. Marandi
- Vice President J.D. Vance’s Deceptive ‘Antiwar’ Campaign Speech
- Iran: Palestinians’ rights must not be compromised in Gaza’s future; US, Israel to blame for Hormuz situation
- Ongoing tales of Syrian chemical weapons
- Moscow blasts UN for ignoring torture of Russian POWs
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli rabbi permits occupiers to steal Palestinian olive harvest in West Bank
- Netanyahu’s spin on latest settler attack is laughable – Daily Update
- Israeli soldiers debunk Israel’s talking points
- In West Bank, Israeli settlers are totally out of control – Daily Update
- NPR investigation finds evidence of widespread fraud at mall kiosks tied to Israeli skincare brand
- Tucker Carlson exposes Israeli Lies about the Oct 7th attack, Charlie Kirk, and the U.S.
- Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian children since Oct 7th – over half spent time in solitary, many uncharged
- Israeli Analysis: Is Netanyahu Planning an ‘October Surprise’ Attack Before Israel’s Election?
- Israeli settlers brutally attack Palestinians and Washington Post female photographer, 65
- Words Have Changed, Occupation Continues: The Reality of the Gaza Ceasefire
- No Tricks Zone
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Proifessor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
