Two Iran executed two peaceful Ahwazi activists

 
Hadi Rashedi (l) and the poet Hashem Shabani.

According to sources Iran Human Rights (IHR) has been in contact with the two Ahwazi Arab activists Hadi Rashedi and   Hashem Shabani have been executed. Iranian intelligence ministry offcials have informed the families of the prisoners that the executions were carried out on 25 January. However, Ahwazi activists believe that Hadi Rashedi and Hashem Shabani were executed immediately after their transfer from the Karoun prison of Ahwaz.
Hashem Shabani (32) and Hadi Rashedi (38) were sentenced to death for Moharebeh (“enmity against God”), Mufsid-fil-Arz (“corruption on earth”) and spreading propaganda against the system in July 2012 alongside three other political prisoners. All are founding members of Al-Hiwar, a cultural institute that promoted Arabic education, literature and cultural activities among deprived Ahwazi Arab youth.
Insisting on his innocence and demanding a retrial before an impartial court, Shabani has retracted the “confession” made following torture and has repeatedly repudiated violence.
In one of his letters from prison, made available to use through his family, Shaabani who was known as a poet, says he could not have remained silent against ‘hideous crimes against Ahvazis perpetrated by the Iranian authorities, particularly arbitrary and unjust executions.’ He adds “I have tried to defend the legitimate right that every people in this world should have which is the right to live freely with full civil rights. With all these miseries and tragedies, I have never used a weapon to fight these atrocious crimes except the pen.’”

HRW: Abuse of women is common in Iraq's justice system

Iraqi authorities are detaining thousands of Iraqi women illegally and subjecting many to torture and ill-treatment, including the threat of sexual abuse, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Convictions arefrequently based upon coerced confessions, and trial proceedings fall far short of international standards. Many women were detained for months or even years without charge before seeing a judge.
The 105-page report, “‘No One Is Safe’: Abuses of Women in Iraq’s Criminal Justice System,”documents abuses of women in detention based on interviews with women and girls, medical service providers in the prisons, and is also based upon court documents and extensive information received in meetings with Iraqi authorities including Justice, Interior, Defense, and Human Rights ministry officials, and two deputy prime ministers.
Many of the 27 women who spoke with Human Rights Watch described being beaten, kicked, slapped, hung upside-down and beaten on their feet (falaqa), given electric shocks, and raped or threatened with sexual assault by security forces during their interrogation. They said security forces questioned them about their male relatives’ activities rather than crimes in which they themselves were implicated. Security forces forced them to sign statements, many with fingerprints, which they were not allowed to read and that they later repudiated in court, they said.

Largest Dutch pensionfund ABP decides not to divest from Israeli banks

Branch office of Bank Leumi in the settlement Oranit. Bank Leumi has similar offices in settlements around Jerusalem and on the Golan and its daughter (for nearly 90%),  Leumi Mortgage Bank, which provides mortgages for houses in the settlements has a branch in the settlement Nofei Zufim  

The largest pension fund of the Netherlands, ABP (short for Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds), announced Wednesday that it does not intend to divest from its investments in Israeli banks. In a press statement it said that it had concluded that they had not done anything contrary to international law or regulations.
ABP has investments in Israel's two largest banks, Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi, and Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot. The pension fund's announcement came several weeks after the second largest Dutch pension fund, PGGM, said it was divesting its holdings in Israel's five largest banks.

ABP's statement reads:

Israel destroyed 27 homes in Jordan Valley in January, Red Cross stops providing tents

On 8 January 2014 Israeli forces destroyed the Bedouin community of  Khirbet ‘Ein Karzaliyah in the north of the Jordan Valley (Photo B'tselem)

Israeli forces destroyed 27 homes in the occupied Jordan Valley in January, according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, leaving 147 people homeless. Nearly half of those displaced were children and 65 people lived in communities that had been demolished more than once by Israel, B'Tselem said.
On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it would stop providing tents to Palestinians whose homes had been demolished in the Jordan Valley because Israel would confiscate them.
Last week, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories criticized Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes in the Jordan Valley.

More barrel bombs kill dozens in Aleppo after Geneva talks failed

People inspect a building that has been destroyed by a barrel bomb on 2 February 2014. (AFP)

Syrian military helicopters dropped more improvised "barrel bombs" on the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, a monitoring group said, bringing the death toll to at least 83 people in the latest episode of a campaign that many consider a war crime. Most of the victims killed since Friday have been civilians from the city's eastern districts, including women and children, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a broad network of sources across Syria.
The '' barrel bombs'' fell after a week-long first round of Syrian peace talks ended on Friday with no progress and the government delegation unable to say whether it will return for the next round in about a week. U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said the opposition delegation would be back on February 10, but President Bashar al-Assad's delegates had told him they would have to check with Damascus before agreeing to return.

Aid agencies evacuate hundreds of people from Yarmouk camp in Damascus

Sick and elderly people are evacuated from the Yamouk camp. (Photo Wall Street Journal).

Aid agencies in Syria have evacuated hundreds of people from the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Yarmouk, a government-aligned Palestinian group said on Saturday, in a rare moment of coordination between the government and rebel forces.
Granting relief groups access to an estimated 250,000 people trapped by fighting across Syria was one of the goals of the peace talks held last week in Switzerland, which recessed on Friday with no substantial results.
Despite lengthy discussions, the sides could not agree on passage for an aid convoy to reach 2,500 people trapped in the old city of Homs, Syria's third-largest city, with no access to food or medicine.

More financial aid from Gulf for Egypt: $ 5,8 billion

Saudi Arabia is expected to give Egypt up to $4 billion in additional aid in the form of central bank deposits and petroleum products, Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Thursday.
The UAE is also expected to contribute $1.8 billion to the new aid package in the form of fuel shipments, the source added.
Citing an unnamed ministerial source, the newspaper said the package would be worked out during a visit next week to the oil-rich kingdom by Egypt's interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi.

According to Al-Ahram, half of the latest Saudi aid package is expected to be deposited at the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) before the end of January, with the other half to be delivered in the form of fuel shipments
Gulf Arab states have pledged $12 billion to Egypt since the 3 July overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

One of the defendants in Morsi´s ´jailbreak´ trial was dead in 2011, another in jail

 

The trial against the former Egyptian president for charges that they conspired with Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah to help escape more than 20,000 inmates from three Egyptian prisons during the early days of the January 2011 popular uprising, opened Tuesday in Cairo. Among the 131 defendants in the trial, 70 are Palestinians being tried in absentia, some of them alleged Hamas members.
Prosecutors said that over 800 fighters from Gaza had infiltrated Egypt and stormed the prisons with RPGs and heavy armaments, killing several policemen and inmates. Four policemen were reported kidnapped in the attacks. The defendants face charges of damaging and setting fire to prison buildings, murder and attempted murder, as well as looting prison weapons while allowing prisoners from "Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and the Brotherhood" as well as other "jihadists" and "criminals" break out of the jails.
Morsi and the 130 co-defendants are also accused of "carrying out a plot to bring down the Egyptian state and its institutions."

Tunisia adopts new constitution and names caretaker cabinet

The new Tunisian prime minister Mehdi Jomaa (L) hands the list of proposed minister of his cabinet over to president Moncef Marzouki. (Photo AFP /Fethi Belaid)

Tunisia's lawmakers adopted a new constitution Sunday and the prime minister named a caretaker cabinet tasked with organising fresh polls -- two key goals of the revolution that touched off the Arab Spring three years ago.
The  Constituent Assembly adopted the new charter, seen as one of the most modern in the Arab world, with an overwhelming majority of 200 votes in favour, 12 against and four abstentions.
"This day will be proudly remembered in history," Speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar said.
"All Tunisian men and women can identify with this constitution, which preserves our past accomplishments and lays the foundations of a democratic state," he said.
The drafting of the new constitution lasted two years and exposed a deep rift between the Islamist movement Ennahda, now Tunisia's largest party, and the secular opposition. But after months of political crisis and sporadic violence, Tunisia now seems to be on course to achieve some of the goals of the uprising that toppled the dictator-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. In taking these steps it seems to be miles ahead of its neighbours Libya and Egypt, which remain mired in instability and political deadlocks three years after the Arab Spring.

Egypt will hold presidential elections first - stepping stone to installation of Sisi as strongman?

Egypt will hold a presidential vote before electing parliament, President Adly Mansour said on Sunday, reneging on a roadmap and increasing the likelihood that army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will be elected as head of state within months.
Parliamentary elections were supposed to happen first under the timetable agreed after the army deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July following mass protests against his rule.
"I have taken my decision to amend the roadmap for the future in that we will start by holding the presidential elections first followed by the parliamentary elections," Mansour said in a televised speech.
Critics have campaigned for a change of the roadmap, saying the country needs an elected leader to direct government at a time of economic and political crisis and to forge a political alliance before a potentially divisive parliamentary election.
Opponents say it risks creating a president with unchecked power. Were that Sisi, who is widely tipped to win, it would put the army back in command, like the position it was in after president Mubarak was deposed and before president Morsi was elected. 
Update:  On Monday 27 January president Adly Mansour promoted general Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi to the rank of field marshal, the highest military rank of the country, in a move that further strenghtened the suspicions that al-Sisi shortly will announce his candidacy for the post of president. 

Yemen concludes national dialogue

President Abed Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi at the closing ceremony of the National Dialogue. (AFP)

Yemenis concluded a national dialogue Saturday aimed at drafting a new constitution and establishing a federal state. The talks were launched in March 2013 as part of a UN-backed transition that saw president Ali Abdullah Saleh step down after 33 years in power.
The nation's political factions gave interim President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whose two-year term had originally been due to end with elections in February 2014, an extra year after delays in the transition to democracy. He will oversee a shift to a federal system intended to accommodate southern separatist demands for more autonomy.  Hadi, who will head a special committee, was also tasked with the drafting of a new constitution within three months. He was also mandated to reshuffle the cabinet and restructure the Shura Council, the consultative upper house of parliament, to give more representation to the south and to Shi'ite Muslim rebels in the north. Southerners have strongly opposed proposals for a federation of six units -- four in the north and two in the south -- instead of one each for the formerly independent north and south, fearing that their influence would be diluted. Southern separatists have been demanding to revive the state that merged with North Yemen in 1990.

At least 64 killed in Egypt during demonstrations on third anniverary of ''25 January''

 
Demonstration by the Revolutionary Path Front at the Journalists' Syndicate. (Photo Revolutionary Socialists). lateron Sayyed Wezza, a member of the 6 April movement that took part in the demonstration was shot dead.  

Updated: The death toll from clashes in Egypt on Saturday's anniversary of the 2011 uprising has risen to 64, Egypt's forensic authorities' spokesperson told Ahram Online.
The toll on 25 January only includes those in Cairo and Giza, spokesman Hisham Abdel Hamid said. Post-mortem examinations showed at least 58 of the deaths were caused by gunshot wounds and one by birdshot, Abdel Hamid added.  In east Cairo's Mattariya district alone, 26 were killed when police violently dispersed a demonstration by Morsi supporters.  
 Earlier the ministry communicated that also two people died in Minya, in addition to one fatality in Alexandria,  249 people were injured in the clashes in Giza, Cairo, Alexandria, Fayoum, Ismailia, Minya, Assiut and Beni Suef, acccording to the Health ministry.  Security sources told Ahram Online that at least 300 people have been arrested in today's protests across Egypt.
 In Suez a  car bomb detonated outside a Central Security Forces (CSF) camp, 16 people were injured in the attack, the ministry of health said in a statement.
 Security was increased around major squares and roads nationwide, but failed to prevent the violent clashes across the country. In downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square, the situation was calm as crowds rallied to celebrate in a festive atmosphere. Gunshots were heard earlier in the day, but this did not deter people from gathering in the square waving portraits of general Sisi and pro-government banners. The mood was celebratory, with protesters holding up posters of Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, while dancing to pro-military song "Teslam al-Ayady."Ther clashes however took place elsewhere.