Oman arrests bloggers and writers

Portraits of former Oman volleyball player Habiba Al Hinai and activists Esmail Al Muqbali and Yaqoub Al Kharusi. The activists were arrested following their visit to Fahoud oil fields on 31 May  to show solidarity with the striking Omani workers from contracting companies, who were commissioned to complete a project for two oil companies in the country. Their portraits were circulated by blogger Nabhan al-Hinshi who himself ha been detained since. Hinaie and Kharusi were released in the meantime.   

The authorities in Oan have escalated their campaign against freedom of expression and have arrested six writers and bloggers on Friday who are: Hassan Alriqiche; blogger, Hammoud al-Rashdi; writer, Nabhan al-Hinshi; writer, Hamad al-Kharusi; poet, Ali al-Saadi; blogger and Ali al-Hajji; blogger.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights information (ANHRI) in Cairo reports that this campaign comes after an earlier arrest  of Habiba al-Hana’i, Yaqoub al-Kharusi and Ismail al-Meqbali, whom were arrested on 31/5/2012 while trying to monitor and follow up the open labor strike in “Fohood” oil field. Also arrested  were the activists Ismail al-Aghbari on 4/6/2012 and Khalfan al-Badrawi on 6/6/2012. 
ANHRI considers the arrests an escalation of the repression of freedom of opinion in the country which  comes after Sultan Qaboos last year approved legislative amendments limiting 'the freedom of demonstration and peaceful assembly, following the demonstrations and protests that swept the country on the background of the Arab revolutions spring'.

Mob attacks Egyptian women who were demonstrating against sexual harassment

A mob of hundreds of men assaulted women holding a march demanding an end to sexual harassment Friday, with the attackers overwhelming the male guardians and groping and molesting several of the female marchers in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

The attack follows smaller scale assaults on women this week in Tahrir. Earlier in the week, an Associated Press reporter witnessed around 200 men assault a woman who eventually fainted before men trying to help could reach her.

(Photo Mai Shaheen/Al Ahram Online)

Friday's march was called to demand an end to sexual assaults. Around 50 women participated, surrounded by a larger group of male supporters who joined to hands to form a protective ring around them. The protesters carried posters saying, "The people want to cut the hand of the sexual harasser," and chanted, "The Egyptian girl says it loudly, harassment is barbaric."
After the marchers entered a crowded corner of the square, a group of men waded into the women, heckling them and groping them. The male supporters tried to fend them off, and it turned into a melee involving a mob of hundreds. Eventually, the women were able to reach refuge in a nearby building with the mob still outside until they finally got out to safety.


Juan Cole (blog Informed Comment) commented:
Egypt, like many Mediterranean societies, emphasizes female chastity as a source of the honor for males in the family. Thus, most brothers are seriously shamed by a sister who sleeps around. This shame/honor dynamic underpins a nervousness about women playing a role in public, since being public rather than private, it is feared by many conservatives, increases opportunities for sexual activity. Women were about a fifth of the protesters in Tahrir Square during the 18-day revolution in 2011, but their presence was controversial. The military accused them of sleeping with boys at the square in tents, and gave them virginity tests when it arrested them. (...)
 So who attacked the women on Friday? Of course we don’t know. Some protesters suspect that elements in the military or remnants of the old regime put the thugs up to it, as a way of discouraging young people from coming to the square.(....) some activists suspect that the women were assaulted not because they are women but because they are revolutionaries continuing to threaten the prerogatives of the Mubarak elite.

Amnesty speaks out against increase in executions in Iraq

 Amnesty International on Friday condemned the "alarming" increase in executions in Iraq, which has put at least 70 people to death this year, and urged Baghdad to stop using the death penalty  Amnesty's comment came after Iraq executed the fromer secretary and body guard of Saddam Hussein, Abed Hamid Mahmoud, also known as Abed Hamoud, by hanging.
"The killing of Abed Hamoud is part of an alarming escalation in executions in Iraq and we fear others may soon face the same fate," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International.
Abed Hamoud was number four on the US list of most-wanted Iraqi officials following the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was arrested in June 2003 by American forces and sentenced to death in October 2010 by the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT), together with former government ministers Tariq Aziz and Saadoun Shakir, for their part in the crackdown on opposition forces, mainly Shiites. Tariq Aziz and Saadoun Shakir are among those facing imminent execution.

Abed Hamoun is the man behind Saddam Hussein. Left of him Tareq Aziz. (AP)

"The Iraqi authorities should refrain from using the death penalty, commute the sentences of all those on death row, believed to number several hundred, and declare a moratorium on executions," Hassiba Hadj Sharaoui said.
Amnesty International has repeatedly expressed concern about trials conducted before the SICT, which has a mandate to prosecute those accused of crimes committed under Saddam Hussain. Its independence as a court of law has been undermined by repeated political interference.

The death penalty was suspended in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003 but restored in August 2004. Since then, hundreds of people have been sentenced to death and many have been executed. According to Amnesty International information, in 2011 at least 68 people were executed in Iraq in total.

Egypt's military solve the deadlock around the constitutional assembly

A protester holds a sign saying that Egyptians did not die for the purpose of the constitution to be written by the Muslim Brotherhood. (Al-Ahram Online)
 
Egypt's ruling army council SCAF called on Thursday for parliament to meet next week to pick the members of a new constitutional assembly, tasked with drawing up a new constitution. The previous assembly was dissolved by court order after liberals and others quit the body complaining it was dominated by Islamists. The SCAF had on Tuesday given political parties a 48-hour deadline to agree on the make-up of a new assembly, threatening that they would otherwise amend the interim constitution drafted after Mubarak was ousted themselves.
General Mamdouh Shahin said after a meeting lasting more than seven hours on Thursday between 22 parties and the council, that elected members of the upper and lower houses of parliament would meet next Tuesday to elect new assembly members.
Te meeting between the SCAF and the parties followed a earlier lengthy meeting between the parties on Tuesday night, whereby it was agreed that 39 of the 100 seats in the assembly would be designated to political parties, of which the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) will hold 16; the Salafist Nour Party eight; the liberal Wafd Party five; the Free Egyptians Party two; the Egyptian Social Democratic Party two; and one each for the moderate-Islamist Wasat Party, the Nasserist Karama Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, the liberal Reform and Development Party and the Islamist Building and Development Party.
It was also agreed that 15 judges, nine religious figures – five from Al-Azhar and four from the Coptic Church – ten public figures, ten revolutionary youth (women and men), seven members of workers and farmers unions, seven members of professional syndicates, a representative from the police, another of the army and one from the Ministry of Justice. The new assembly is said to take decisions about the wording of articles of the constitution by a 67 percent majority or if that is not possible by a 57 percent majority 48 hours later.
Not all of the participants at the meeting of the parties were satisfied. Mohamed Abul-Ghar, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and Egyptian Bloc MPs Emad Gad and Farid Zahran walked out of the meeting as they felt the FJP parliamentarians would take over the assembly. Free Egyptians Party representatives also withdrew from the meeting.

Reports of new massacre in Syria

Syrian pro-government forces are being accused of having killed 78 people in a single village in Hama province, many of them women and children. Other reports talk of 100 dead or more.
Activists say that Qubair, about 20km north-west of the city of Hama, had come under heavy bombardment from security forces backed by tanks. They said much of the killing was done by accompanying groups of pro-government militiamen known as shabiha, who had come from nearby pro-government villages. The activists said they shot at close range and stabbed many people, and that some of the bodies were later burnt in houses that were set on fire.

Damascus denied a massacre, saying "terrorists" had killed nine people.
Neither account could be confirmed, but activists said 140 had been killed nationwide on Wednesday - one of the bloodiest days of the uprising.
The news of the new massacre comes less than two weeks after 108 people were killed in a massacre in Houla.On Thursday, UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is expected to urge the UN Security Council to create a new contact group to help end the violence.

Grim championship:

 ..

....and if nothing happens soon a dead champion..

s

Mass-protest in Cairo against candidacy Shafiq and verdict in Mubarak-trial

Tahrir Square on Tuesday 5 June 2012 (Photo Al Ahram Online/Mai Shaheen). Thousands had gathered in protest against the verdict in the Mubarak-trial, in which Mubarak and sons were acquitted of charges of corruption, and six generals of the Interior ministry were acquitted of the charges of giving ordeers to kill protesters in February 2011. The protest was also against the candidature of Ahmed Shafiq for president. Shafiq who was Mubarak's last prime minister and who ended second in the first round, should never have qualified as a candidate, according to the protesters,  as this was against a law adopted by parliament that excluded members of Mubarak's inner circle from taking oart in the elections. The commission that oversaw the presidential elections, however, decided otherwise. 

The demonstration was called for by three presidential candidates in the first round, Abdel Moneim Abouel Foutouh, Hamdeen Sabbahi and Khaled Ali (from left to right on this photo). Sabbahi and Abul-Fotouh led a march to Tahrir from the Mustafa Mahmoud mosque in Giza. Several thousand other protesters, led by Khaled Ali marched from Al-Fatah mosque, among them members of the 6 April Movement.  Ziad al-Eleimi of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and MP Essam Sultan of Al-Wasat Party also led protests to the square. (Al-Ahram Online)

Egypt's military set 48 hour deadline for parties to agree on criteria for Constitutional Assembly

Egypt's ruling military council on Tuesday has set a 48-hour deadline for political parties to finalize the formation of a 100-member panel to write a new constitution, or it will draw up its own blueprint.

Lawmaker Mustafa Bakri  outlined the ultimatum after representatives of 18 parties and independent lawmakers met with the head of the council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

 Party representatives announced that, if parliament failed to agree to issue viable membership criteria by Thursday, the SCAF would unilaterally issue a 'constitutional annex' or revive Egypt's 1971 constitution, suspended since last year's Tahrir Square uprising.

 Several parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood's FJP, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, headed by Mohamed Abul-Ghar, and the moderate-Islamist Wasat Party, headed by Abu-Ela Madi, refrained from attending the meeting. Members of parties that did attend the meetings, said that there will be negotiations soon between those who attended and those who did not, in order to see if agreement can be reached regarding the criteria for the Constituent Assembly. Parliament formed an Assembly in April, but soon after its formation it became defunct as most members of other parties than the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists withdrew in protest against the heavy over representation of Islamists.

Israel compels Arab visitors to have their email checked at Ben Gurion airport

Ben Gurion airport

 AP reports about a new (?) development concerning people of Arab descent who want to visit Israel:


 When Sandra Tamari arrived at Israel's international airport, she received an unusual request: A security agent pushed a computer screen in front of her, connected to Gmail and told her to "log in."

The agent, suspecting Tamari was involved in pro-Palestinian activism, wanted to inspect her private email account for incriminating evidence. The 42-year-old American of Palestinian descent refused and was swiftly expelled from the country.

Tamari's experience is not unique. In a cyber-age twist on Israel's vaunted history of airport security, the country has begun to force incoming travelers deemed suspicious to open personal email accounts for inspection, visitors say. (continue here)

AP wrote this apparently after the site Mondoweiss featured a similar horror story one day earlier.  

Would they do it only to Arab visitors? And what about bloggers?

Syrian unrest again spills over to northern Lebanon: 13 killed in street battles in Tripoli

 Gunmen in action in Tripoli (Reuters).

The Syrian unrest again spilled over to the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli this weekend.  It is not the first time the Alawite neighbourhood of  Jabal Mohsen (supporters of the Assad-regime) fought battles with the predominantly Sunni area Bab al-Tabaneh (adversaries of Assad). The Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star:    
A cautious calm set in Sunday morning in the tense north Lebanese neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli after intensive overnight clashes that raised the weekend death toll to at least 13 people and the number of wounded to 49. 

Residents said the overnight fighting with assault rifles, machine guns, grenades and mortar bombs were the fiercest in the second largest Lebanese city since the height of the 1975-1990 Civil War, in a growing sign that the conflict in Syria is spilling over into its tiny neighbor.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel, following a meeting with security officials at Tripoli’s serial that ended near midnight, said the Lebanese Army had been given the green light to move in to the conflict area and that a security plan would be implemented starting 5 a.m. Sunday.

 

It was not the first fight of this kind: In May, 11 people were killed and over 100 wounded in three days of battles between the rival sides, prompting several Gulf countries to warn their citizens against travel to Lebanon. Also in February the two neighbourhoods in Tripoli clashed.

Verdict in Mubarak-trial provokes extreme anger among progressive Egyptians

 Mubarak enters the courtroom. (Al-Masry al-Youm)

Today, 2 June,  was the day of the verdict against the former Egyptian president Mubarak, his minister of the Interior Habib Adly, his two sons Gamal and Alaa and a number of  police and and other top generals  from the Interior ministry.
The verdict was a blow to the head of the revolutionaries: Although Mubarak and Adly got life imprisonment, it was for conspiring to kill protesters during the demonstrations in 2011, and not for giving the orders. What was worse: all of Adly's collaborators at the Interior ministry were acquitted. The judge said that the evidence against them had be destroyed. (And the big question now of course is: by whom?).
On top of that Mubarak and his sons were acquitted of corruption charges. Because according to the verdict '10 years had passed' since the crimes were committed'.
After the verdict angry spectators started a scuffle in and outside the courtroom. Read what Egypt Independent reported directly from the spot:  

10:40 am: Outside of the courtroom, a fight has broken out between families of the martyrs and Central Security Forces. The origins of the fight are not clear.

10:30 am: Lawyers representing the families of the martyrs explode in protest inside the courtroom, angry that former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly's deputies have escaped conviction. They chant: "The people demand the purging of the judiciary!" and "Illegitimate!" A fight breaks out in the courtroom.

10:25 am: Mubarak and Adly are sentenced to life imprisonment (the paper originally  wrote 25 years, but this was later corrected) for conspiring to kill protesters, the maximum possible sentence under Egyptian law.

Adly's deputies have all been acquitted. They are: former First Assistant Interior Minister for the Central Security Forces Sector Major General Ahmed Mohamed Ramzy Abdel Rashid; former First Assistant Interior Minister for Public Security Major General Adly Mostafa Fayed; former First Assistant Interior Minister for the State Security Agency Major General Hassan Abdel Rahman; former head of Cairo Security Directorate Major General Ismael al-Shaer; former head of Giza Security Directorate Major General Osama al-Marassy; former head of 6th of October Security Directorate Major General Omar al-Farmawy.

The former president and his two sons are also acquitted of all financial crimes because 10 years have passed since the alleged crimes were committed.

 The brothers Alaa and Gamal Mubarak behind bars in the courtroom. They were acquitted. But earlier this week they have been charged anew with new evidence. They remain in custody.   

The reactions in Cairo spoke volumes. A few samples: Hani Shukrallah, editor in chief of Al-Ahram Online twitterd: Message to police: kill & torture as you will; you"l be charged with investigating your crimes and be cleared for lack of evidence. 
Or Heba Morayef, Researcher for Egypt of Human Rights Watch: To recap: in this historic case prosecution failed to present enough evidence to convict the head of riot police Ahmed Ramzy of ANYTHING. Or: Verdict will go to appeal. Shouldnt be too difficult for lawyers to appeal Mubarak and Adly sentences given acquittal of all MOI aides.
Other reactions went even further than that and said that it was a clear signal that nothing has changed in Egypt and that this process was a signal that the state is preparing the way for a Mubarak-like regime under Ahmed Shafiq.

Links for the period 23 May - 1 June

I admit I copied this idea  from blogger Arabist: links for articles that one could recommend, but in some cases for reasons of time and place didn´t find their way to the blog. Here are my links for the period 23 May 1 June:

The New York Times reveals that it was not only the Israelis that executed cyberattacks on Iran. It was a combined American-Israeli project and maybe still is.  

 Nobel laureate Paul Krugman argues in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel (for the Xth time) against the EU´s obsession with austerity and warns that the euro risks to fall apart:

´If there was a European government, I'd be arguing for stimulus from that European government. But Europe has a special problem, which is the single currency without the single government.´

Portrait of  28-year old filmmaker Bassel Shehade who left a Fullbright scholarship in the US for Syria, where he met his death while covering the events in Homs.

Gideon Levy of Haaretz´ outburst  against the riots against black fugitives in southern Tel Aviv: ´Israel is the most naive and racist country in the West ´

And yes, finally somebody states the obvious about thes drone attacks. The Washington Post: In Yemen, U.S. airstrikes breed anger, and sympathy for al-Qaeda