Al-Jazeera Video: UN official calls Syria conflict 'civil war'

"Herve Ladsous, the head of the United Nations' peacekeeping operations, has said that the situation in Syria now amounts to a full-scale civil war.

Meanwhile, the United States says Russia is sending attack helicopters to the country.

Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports."

Russian Humanitarian Gift to the Syrian People

Russian Humanitarian Gift to the Syrian People

Tunisian court sentences Ben Ali to 20 years for inciting violence

Ousted dictator, already sentenced to decades in jail for other crimes, is unlikely to be extradited from Saudi Arabia

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 June 2012

"A Tunisian military court has sentenced the ousted dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to 20 years in jail in his absence for inciting violence during a police attempt to smuggle his nephew out of the country during last year's revolt.

Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia as protests engulfed Tunisia on 14 January 2011, has already been sentenced to decades in jail – also in his absence – on charges ranging from corruption to torture and faces more charges.

Last month, a Tunisian military prosecutor demanded that the death penalty be imposed on the former strongman for his role in the deaths of protesters in the towns where the Arab spring began last year.

There is, however, little indication that Riyadh would be willing to extradite Ben Ali.

No senior officials have so far been convicted for the deaths of more than 300 people in last year's uprising, angering the families of the dead and raising pressure on the Tunisian government to ensure that justice is done.

Tunisia's government has faced persistent criticism over its failure to persuade Saudi Arabia to hand over Ben Ali and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, a former hairdresser whose lavish lifestyle and clique of wealthy relatives came to be seen by many Tunisians as a symbol of the corrupt era....."

Egypt activist Asmaa Mahfouz acquitted of battery, assault charges

Bikya Masr

"CAIRO: An Egyptian court acquitted prominent activist Asmaa Mahfouz on Tuesday morning from battery and assault charges.

Mahfouz, whose video message “I am taking part in January 25 protest” helped galvanize youth, received an earlier sentence of one-year in prison and 2,000 Egyptian pounds ($330), appealed and won.

The man who accused her of hitting him with a stick over the head worked as a director in the Youth and Sports Ministry during the old regime.

He claimed Mahfouz hit him with a stick on his head after he testified against another activist in court.

Mahfouz denied all accusations, saying she never saw the man before in her life.

Mahfouz announced to her followers, some 309,823 Twitter followers, saying “acquitted,” three times. She reported that while she was waiting for the verdict, her movement was confined by police.

She wrote on her account that while she wanted to go and wash her face, two policemen asked her where she was going and ordered her to sit still as “her movement was restricted.”

Mahfouz has been on a hunger strike the past week, camping outside the Egyptian parliament in opposition to the non-application of the political isolation law, that should prevent loyalists to the old regime from participating in public life, most notably presidential finalist Ahmed Shafiq, who was imprisoned dictator Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister.

Mahfouz’s happiness was short-lived, as she soon wrote on her Twitter account “the revolution is still going, and still there are detainees in military prisons and still activists are on hunger strikes.”"

On the front lines of Syria's guerrilla war

(21 photos)
Exclusive account of Sham Falcons, a rebel group waging war against the Assad government from their mountain hideouts.

Tracey Shelton
Al-Jazeera

"Idlib Province, Syria - Dawn broke over the northern mountains of Jabal al-Zawia late last month to find a group of anti-government fighters hiding along a ridge line, waiting for their remote-controlled bomb to destroy an army convoy on the road below.

The roughly 100 guerrillas were members of a larger group known as the Sham Falcons. Like many of the hundreds of ad hoc rebel groups that have sprung up across Syria, they are loosely trained but closely knit, and armed only with Kalashnikov rifles, PKT machine guns and a few rocket-propelled grenades.

Like other armed fighting groups, they were drawn from local towns and villages that carried fierce resistance to the Damascus government of President Bashar al-Assad and claimed to have suffered from its brutality. Like so many Syrians, they decided to fight back......

"We are using very simple weapons against the highly sophisticated weapons of the regime," said Fatalah, a former Syrian army lieutenant who defected at the beginning of the uprising.

Before the revolution many, like Fatalah, worked as police officers or soldiers for the government. Others were students, farmers or taxi drivers. United by the government's alleged atrocities, Fatalah said they now fight like brothers.

In pockets of resistance across Syria, groups such as these carry out missions against an army equipped with tanks and helicopters. They fight back with homemade bombs, limited weapons and meagre medical supplies. Many of these operations are carried out on foot or on motorbikes, with the occasional pick-up truck concealed beneath trees a safe distance away......."

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

Are you in favor of a no-confidence vote against the Maliki government in Iraq?

With over 3,000 responding, 94% said yes.

أساس الخلل

A BRIEF COMMENT
By Azmi Bishara

"يمكن تلخيص الخلل الأساسي في المرحلة الانتقالية في الثورة العربية بأن القوى السياسية المناصرة للثورة، أو المشاركة فيها، انتقلت الى التنافس الحزبي قبل التأكد من تغيير النظام، وقبل وضع أسس ومبادئ النظام الجديد والاتفاق عليها. هذا ما جعل النظام القديم في بعض الحالات ليس أحد الأطراف المتنافسة فحسب، بل منافسا يسيطر على أجهزة الدولة.

سوف يكون بالإمكان إصلاح هذا الخلل،وسوف يحتاج ذلك الى جهد ووقت، وربما تضحية، ولكن نرجو أن يتعلم الثوار العرب الدرس في دول أخرى. نعم للانتخابات، ولكن ليس قبل التأكد انها تجري على أساس مبادئ النظام الجديد، وليس تنافسيا بين النظام القديم الذي يحتفظ بجهاز الدولة من جهة، والجديد الذي لم يتبلور بعد، ويعتمد على قوى هي ذاتها متنافسة خارج جهاز الدولة (اي ما زالت متنافسة على الشارع وليس على الدولة، من جهة أخرى.

أكرر مرة أخرى سيكون إصلاح ذلك ممكنا، ولا عودة الى الوراء. ولكن التشخيص ضروري لتفادي أخطاء فادحة أخرى.
"

Al-Jazeera Video: Syria interview with UN peacekeeper spokesman

"Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the UN peacekeeping office, discusses his office's assertion that Syria has entered into a civil war."

The mother of the world: The birth of Egypt's democracy

This election is not a 'referendum' on the revolution, but a step in the only direction possible: forward.

A VERY GOOD COMMENT
Hamid Dabashi
Al-Jazeera

"........So it all depends how you read these numbers - with or without trust in the revolutionary will of a people. In another utterly brilliant reading, offered by Hani Shukrallah, we read:

"Minerva's owl flies at dusk... and this for the first time in our history, we can with a fair degree of confidence say that while a quarter of us want the Brotherhood and another quarter want restoration, nearly half of us want the revolution realised; not at all a bad place from which to start putting that revolutionary house in order."

This is the way a caring revolutionary, committed to the future of his homeland, reads the very same numbers. Even more importantly and poignantly, Hani Shukrallah wisely and accurately reverses the conventional and clichéd fear of the army and the Muslim Brotherhood:

"The electoral triumph of the Mubarak regime on one hand and that of its no-less-authoritarian historical antagonist, the Brotherhood, on the other, heralds not their ascent but their decline. It is not a new dawn of the Muslim Brotherhood that we are witnessing, nor is it a revival of the semi-secular police state à la Mubarak, Gaddafi et al, but rather the twilight of both."....

Flashback

These insights are accurate and trustworthy, even if we limit ourselves to events here and now in Egypt. But there are other historical comparisons we can make. If you want to have a simple sense of what exactly has happened in the Arab and Muslim world that we celebrate as the "Arab Spring", just compare the Iranian Revolution of 1979 with the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 - in a span of just a little more than three decades.

Look at the candidates and compare the scene with thirty years ago, when the Iranian revolution happened. The combination of Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and Mohamed Morsi would be the functional equivalents of Ayatollah Khomeini, while Ahmed Shafiq and his fellow army officers would be the late Shah's army officers that Ayatollah Khomeini had swiftly gathered and sent to the roof of his residence to be summarily executed. Hamdeen Sabahi would be the sum of all the Iranian leftist revolutionaries who Khomeini ordered executed by the stroke of one pen, their supporters and sympathisers violently purged from universities, clubbed to death or silence in newspapers by the thugs at the employment of the clerical leadership, or else forced into exile out of their homeland.

Now: which one is a superior and more hopeful revolution?.

The Egyptian revolution is everything that the Iranian revolution was not: calm, composed, gentle, civil, human, hopeful, principled. All the legitimate fear that all Egyptians now have for the future of their revolution is fuel for visionary progress. It is good that a former army officer, a Muslim Brotherhood member, and a socialist are running, debating, charging, and trying to appease their electorate. This is sublime democracy, with minimum bloodshed, with people, the Egyptians themselves, at the driving seat - with Tahrir Square supremely at their disposal.

Which one is a superior historic moment for us as a people - Arabs, Iranians, Muslims, from one end of Africa to another end of Asia: The moment when the former officials of the Pahlavi regime are summoned on the roof of Ayatollah Khomeini's residence and swiftly executed, or when the former officials of the Mubarak regime are given a democratic chance to go to their people and tell them their vision of their future?....."

جرائم الدكتاتوريات العربية وإسرائيل

Great post by Azmi Bishara

يظهر الاستبداد العربي ممارسات قمعية وحشية. ويروق لبعض الأخوة المندهشين أو المتأذين معنويا من حجم القمع الذي يمارسة الاستبداد بحق الشعوب العربية والإنسان العربي مقارنته بما مارسته إسرائيل ضد الشعب الفلسطيني، وفي الأرض المحتلة عام 1967 بشكل خاص. ويبدو أن من يقوم بهذه المقارنة إنما يفعل ذلك بحسن نية، فهو غالبا ما يقصد أن السياسة الإسرائيلية هي شر معياري، اذا صح التعبير، وأن الشرور الأخرى تقاس به وعليه. ولكن يبدو لي من بعض المناقشات أن ما يقصده أصحابها (وهم قلة) هو دحض شر إسرائيل. بل ونجد محاولات لتقديم إسرائيل بصورة افضل، لا سيما من قبل المعارضين الذين لم يعتبروا يوما أن قضية الشعب الفلسطيني أو العراقي أو الجزائري قضيتهم، وكانوا دائما ينظرون الى أميركا كحليف. وقد لفتت نظري تعليقات بعض الأخوة الإيجابية تجاه خطاب المندوب الإسرائيلي في مجلس الأمن تجاه سوريا وهي، على الرغم من ندرتها وقلتها، ليست في مكانها، فإسرائيل لا ترغب لا بوحدة سوريا ولا بتطورها ولا بديمقراطيتها، فضلا عن عروبتها. ومع ذلك فيما يلي بعض الملاحظات حول خطأ المقارنة:
1. لا تصح المقارنة الكمية لأن الصراع مع إسرائيل لا يقاس بحجم القتلى والشهداء. فإسرائيل القوية اقتصاديا وأمنيا وتكنولوجيا لم تعد بحاجة لهذا الكم من العنف البدائي، ولديها أدوات سيطرة وعنف أكثر "تطورا". ولكنها في الماضي استخدمت عنفا بدائيا، وما هو اكثر فداحة منه، في طرد شعب بأكمله. ولم تحاصر ولم تفرض عليها عقوبات، وما زالت حتى اليوم دولة الغرب المدللة... وهي تستغل ما يجري عربيا لمواصلة الاستيطان وتهويد القدس، وحتى الدول العربية التي تقيم معها علاقات سلام للأسف لم تقطع هذه العلاقات.
2. الشعوب العربية تناضل في أوطانها من أجل مستقبل أفضل. وسوف تناله بنضالها ضد الاستبداد. ولكن الشعب الفلسطيني فقد وطنه. فلسطين هي ارض محتلة من قبل استعمار استيطاني إحلالي... أحل شعبا مكان آخر.
3. إسرائيل هي النقيض للوحدة الوطنية والمحفّز الأول في مسارات البنية الطائفية السياسية للدول، فهي تنظّر للتعامل مع العرب ليس كشعوب بل كطوائف، وتمارس علاقاتها الإقليمية سياسيا على هذا الاساس.
4. قضية فلسطين هي قضية كل عربي ليس بسبب القمع الذي يتعرض له الشعب الفلسطيني، بل لأنها آخر قضية استعمارية في المنطقة، وهي التي تشكل محور الإملاءات الاستعمارية الغربية على دول المنطقة حتى الديمقراطية في المستقبل.
يجب ان نقف جميعا ضد الاستبداد، وان لا نسمح لاي نظام باستغلال قضية فلسطين في تبرير جرائمه، ولا يمكن أن يكون من يقمع شعبه صديقا حقيقيا لإحقاق العدل في فلسطين... ولكن علينا ايضا ان لا نسمح ان يجري بهدوء تهميش قضية فلسطين، أو تحويلها الى مسألة نسبية مقارنة بالقمع العربي، لا سيما من قبل أولئك الذين أعجبوا دائما بالسياسات الغربية في المنطقة، وناهضوا فكرة الرابطة العربية التي تربط شعبهم بشعب فلسطين والشعوب الأخرى، وانضموا الى الثورات لأسبابهم وليس من أجل الديمقرطية. وتحتاج الثورات لمن ينضم إليها ولكن علينا أن نكون حذرين بشأن النوايا والأهداف... فغالبا ما تكون النوايا هي الأهداف.

180

The Syrian opposition is fighting the enemy within the mind of every citizen

As the Syrian National Council unveils its new leader, it is engaged in a battle of ideas against the regime's dominant Ba'athist ideology

A GOOD COMMENT
Nadim Shehadi
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 June 2012

".....What makes these plans more difficult is that the opposition is at the same time fighting a battle of ideas against the regime's dominant Ba'athist ideology. These ideas are deeply ingrained in the minds of Syrians, including those of the opposition, and benefit from a headstart of 48 years where Ba'ath party ideology was hammered in through the media, the educational system and other government institutions.

In addition, a complex web of informants, modelled on eastern European security services, created a lack of trust and a kind of thought police where citizens were expected to report on each other. Even Syrian expats and exiles, living as far away as Texas or Paris, never felt free of these ideas or far from the atmosphere of suspicion........

The opposition to the Syrian regime in fact represents every idea that was suppressed in Syria since the 1958 declaration of the United Arab Republic and unity with Egypt, and especially since the advent of the Ba'ath party in 1958. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath party incorporates elements of Arab nationalism calling for pan-Arab unity combined with anti-imperialism and socialism. The authoritarian or even totalitarian nature of the regime evolved from a slogan that no voice can emerge above the noise of the battle against Israel and imperialism. This was consolidated through several wars and battles, both internal and external.

The ideas represented by the opposition include various facets of the antithesis of Ba'ath party teachings. Where the dominant ideology was unity, the opposition has diversity; where it has secularism you have the Muslim Brotherhood and other religious parties; where it had Arab nationalism you have Kurds and ethnic groups; where there was a one-party state you now have a multiplicity of parties. What was a strong centralised state under the Ba'ath is now a debate about various forms of administrative and political decentralisation........

Whenever an element of this ideology comes up in a meeting of the opposition, it is like hitting a brick wall. Syrians were brought up for generations with the idea that any attempts at dissent were part of a conspiracy to fragment the nation and weaken its resolve in the battlefield amounting to treason and collaboration with the enemy. While these may sound like empty rhetoric, Syrians, some of whom are discovering the practice of politics for the first time, experience these mental obstacles and realise the difficulties of surmounting them.

What the SNC hopes to achieve in the near future amounts to co-ordinating different ideas and battling a mentality that is deeply programmed in the minds of people. It is in fact a process that will take at least two generations and will last long after the regime is gone; the enemy is within the mind of each and every Syrian."

The Silence is Deafening

By Maysaloon

"Yesterday there was an enormous gun battle that lasted most of the afternoon and throughout the night in Damascus. Any explanations? Any questions by the esteemed parliament that the president of this banana republic appointed? Has the parliament demanded an end to the Syrian army's activities in Homs, Deraa, and the countless villages where it's passed through like a Tatar horde? No, nothing. They stand there in their "Sunday best" - or should that be Friday? - and clap when asked to clap for the man who has treated this entire country and its people like a joke. When all the voices are silent in a great country like Syria, and the man in the suit gives you that patronising half-smile because he knows that he's got it sorted, what can you feel but utter contempt?

Yet that's nothing besides the renewed vigour of those fifth columnists who did well out of the dictatorship; those young and educated, suited and booted, who have now rallied as a representation of an illusive "internal" opposition which - shock and horror - wants to negotiate with the dictator, and wants him to stay, "just long enough to hand things over", you understand? Pardon my ignorance, but I had thought that the real Syrian internal opposition was the one getting shot at and pounded with artillery on the streets of Syrian cities and towns.

I've read history, in fact I'm currently reading Philip Khoury's history of Syria during the mandate years, and I've never come across anything as barbaric as what this regime is doing to the country today. I grew up with that heady mix of nationalism and intense pride at kicking out the French. Yet the Great Revolt of 1925 is like a picnic compared to what's happening in the Syrian Revolution of 2011."

Al-Jazeera Cartoon: The Butcher of Damascus Speaks

Al-Jazeera Video: Activist Hadi al-Abdallah speaks about the situation in Homs

"Activist Hadi al-Abdallah in Homs speaks to Al Jazeera on the situation in the province.

He says: "We met so many people in schools and homes who said they know they will die. But the question is how will they die"."

Al-Jazeera Video: George Graham from Save the Children

"George Graham from Save the Children talks about UN reports that children are being used as human shields in Syria."

Al-Jazeera Video: Migrant workers mistreated in Qatar

"Qatar, a tiny Gulf monarchy, might be known worldwide for its stunning wealth, ambitious Middle Eastern diplomacy and unprecedented winning bid to host a World Cup, but beneath the country's lightspeed rise to prominence lies a class of unprotected, often forgotten migrant construction workers whose lives can amount to forced labour.

The workers, most of whom have immigrated to Qatar from South Asia, say many are lured by irresponsible companies who make false promises of big salaries and good conditions before withholding paychecks and taking away passports once the workers arrive.

Qatari law requires that wages be paid on time and housing meet minimum standards of comfort, but most companies are never forced to comply, according to a new Human Rights Watch report. Qatar does not have a minimum wage, has not signed key international human rights agreements and prohibits unions, the report said.

Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford reports from Doha."

Al-Jazeera Video: Palestinian prisoner remains on hunger strike

"A Palestinian prisoner who has been on hunger strike for 89 days has denied claims by the Israel Prison Services that he had ended his protest.

"(Mahmoud) Sarsak ended his hunger strike," IPS spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said, saying he had taken the decision to end his fast after consulting his lawyer and the prison administration.

But Sarsak's family in Gaza, as well as the Palestinian Prisoners' Club in Ramallah, denied that he had ended his strike.

And his lawyer, Mohammed Jabarin, said he had no comment on the Israeli claim.

Al Jazeera's Nadim Baba reports from Gaza."

Syrian forces killing and sexually abusing children, says UN

Report into children and armed conflict says children have been tortured and used as human shields by forces loyal to Assad

Haroon Siddique and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 June 2012

"Syrian government forces and militia loyal to the Assad regime are killing and sexually abusing children and using them as human shields, the UN says, amid fears that the conflict is intensifying.

Kofi Annan said he was "gravely concerned" about the escalation of fighting in Syria, citing the shelling of opposition areas in central Homs province and reports of mortar, helicopter and tank attacks in the town of Haffa and its surrounding villages in Latakia province on the Mediterranean coast. The US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland voiced fears about reports that the regime "may be organising another massacre" in Latakia, where UN monitors have been impeded.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon's annual report on children and armed conflict during 2011 included Syrian government forces and the allied shabiha for the first time on a list of 52 governments and armed groups that recruit, kill or sexually attack children in armed conflicts.

"In almost all recorded cases, children were among the victims of military operations by government forces, including the Syrian armed forces, the intelligence forces and the shabiha militia, in their ongoing conflict with the opposition, including the Free Syrian Army," the report says.

The report quotes a witness to an attack on the village of Ayn l'Arouz in Idlib province on 9 March 2012 in which several dozen boys and girls between the ages of eight and 13 were forcibly taken from their homes and "used by soldiers and militia members as human shields, placing them in front of the windows of buses carrying military personnel into the raid on the village". The UN said it had collected dozens of witness accounts from children as young as 14 who were tortured in detention, as well as from former members of the Syrian military who were forced to witness or carry out acts of torture, the report says......."

Syria: Stop Grave Abuses of Children

Secretary General’s Report Should Prompt Security Council Sanctions

June 11, 2012

"(New York) – The United Nations Security Council should impose an arms embargo and other targeted sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, on the Syrian leadership in response to widespread killings and other grave violations against children. A report from the secretary-general to the Security Council on June 11, 2012, on children and armed conflict highlights violations against children by Syrian Armed Forces, intelligence forces, and pro-government militias. The violations, in a climate of total impunity, include targeted killings, torture of children in detention, the use of children as human shields, and attacks on schools and their use for military operations.

The report also cites credible allegations that armed opposition groups, including the Free Syrian Army (FSA), are recruiting children as soldiers. Human Rights Watch called on the leaders of Syrian opposition groups, including the FSA, to immediately stop any recruitment or use of child soldiers, to discipline all those responsible, including commanders, and to cooperate fully with any investigation into the use of child soldiers........"

Egypt: Investigate attacks on women protesters

"The Egyptian authorities must immediately launch an investigation into reports of sexual harassment and assaults against women protesters during a demonstration in Cairo, Amnesty International said today.

A group of activists calling for an end to sexual harassment of women protesters were reportedly groped and punched by a mob of men as they marched across Tahrir Square on Friday.

The assault comes amid increasing reports of sexual harassment against women protesters in Egypt.

“These women stood up to demand an end to sexual harassment. What they got was intimidation and sexual assault,” said Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

“In last year's protests, Tahrir Square was a place where women stood on an equal footing with men to demand their freedom. Now it has become a place where women are singled out for sexual harassment.

“These attacks need to be investigated immediately and those found responsible held to account. An investigation would serve as a deterrent against sexual harassment and will help protect women protesters who are exercising their right to peacefully express their views.”......"