Could the Druze Minority Tip the Scales of Syria’s Revolution?

By Mona Alami

"BEIRUT, Mar. 26, 2012 (IPS) - The Druze stronghold of Sweida, Syria, witnessed several pro-democracy protests last week. While the movement remains marginal, it is charged with symbolism: the Druze have long been considered the "spiritual cousins" of the Alawites, the religious group to which the Assad family belongs.

The question now on the table is whether or not the recent outbursts of Druze opposition to the regime could be a tipping point in favour of the Syrian revolutionaries...."

Death penalty 2011: Alarming levels of executions in the few countries that kill

"Countries that carried out executions in 2011 did so at an alarming rate but those employing capital punishment have decreased by more than a third compared to a decade ago, Amnesty International found in its annual review of death sentences and executions.

Only 10 percent of countries in the world, 20 out of 198, carried out executions last year.

People were executed or sentenced to death for a range of offences including adultery and sodomy in Iran, blasphemy in Pakistan, sorcery in Saudi Arabia, the trafficking of human bones in the Republic of Congo, and drug offences in more than 10 countries.....

In the Middle East there has been a steep rise in recorded executions [It goes with the "Arab Spring??"] – up almost 50 per cent on the previous year.

This was due to four countries – Iraq (at least 68 executions), Iran (at least 360), Saudi Arabia (at least 82) and Yemen (at least 41) – which accounted for 99 per cent of all recorded executions in the Middle East and North Africa. The rise in Iran and Saudi Arabia alone accounted for the net increase in recorded executions across the world of 149, compared to 2010......"

Egypt: Children on Trial

Stop Sending Juveniles Before Military Courts

March 27, 2012

"(New York) – Egypt’s military courts have investigated or tried at least 43 children over the past year, Human Rights Watch said today,including the pending trial of 13-year-old Ahmed Hamdy Abdel Aziz in connection with the Port Said football riots. Children prosecuted in military courts have not had access to lawyers, and often to their families, until after military authorities have investigated and sentenced them. Since coming to power in February 2011, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has referred over 12,000 civilians for prosecution by military courts before military judges, though these courts fail to meet minimum due process standards.

The Egyptian military should end all investigations and trials of children before military courts, Human Rights Watch said, and should release or transfer all those already convicted to the juvenile justice system.In particular, the military should immediately release Islam Harby, a 16-year-old boy who has served nearly a full year in an adult maximum-security prison after an unfair trial before a military court in March 2011, Human Rights Watch said.

“It’s bad enough that the SCAF is trying civilians in military courts, but to put Egyptian children through the military justice system is an even graver injustice,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, Middle East children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The military has brought children before military courts without even the most basic protections, like access to lawyers or their families. Even worse, authorities have abused them in detention.”......."

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

Do you see holding the Arab Summit in Baghdad as the beginning of Iraq's return to the Arab line?

With about 1,000 responding, 75% said no.

Boycotting Israel: Mustafa Barghouti vs. Rabbi Arthur Waskow on BDS Movement, Palestinian Solidarity

Democracy Now!


"The Park Slope Food Coop, one of the oldest and largest in the country, is set to vote Tuesday on whether to hold a referendum on boycotting goods from Israel to protest the Israeli government’s policies toward Palestinians. We host a debate on the international advocacy effort called the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, or BDS for short, which is inspired by the international boycott movement against apartheid South Africa. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. He is a member of the Palestinian Parliament. He is secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party. He was also a presidential candidate in the 2005 elections. Rabbi Arthur Waskow is opposed to BDS. He is founder and director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia....."

The Butcher of Damascus, by Emad Hajjaj

The U.N. and Syria

Patrick Chappatte, Cagle Cartoons, The International Herald Tribune

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

Why the silence? Hana Shalabi on day 40 of hunger strike as Israeli rejects appeal

By Ali Abunimah

"What will it take to get the media pundits – who constantly demand that Palestinians produce Gandhis – to pay heed to Hana al-Shalabi’s struggle? She’s on Day 40 of her hunger strike against arbitrary detention by Israel....

As Israeli officials defame and malign her on Twitter, Hana al-Shalabi lies critically ill and at risk of immediate death in Israeli detention on day 40 of her hunger strike......"

On the Death of Shaima Alawadi

Murdered by a decade of militarist demagoguery

by Justin Raimondo, March 26, 2012

"It sickens me to write this, to report on the latest manifestation of the hate that has enveloped my country and spread out across the world like a giant oil spill, but the death of Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old Iraqi woman and mother of five, is a moral obscenity – a crime for which the War Party must take responsibility.

On Wednesday, in the quiet San Diego suburb of El Cajon, California, the teenage daughter of Shaima Alawadi returned home to find her mother drowning in a pool of blood. There were signs of forced entry at the back of the house. Someone had broken in and beaten her mother nearly to death with a tire iron.

Next to her body was a note: “Go back to your own country, you terrorist.” .....

Murder, murder everywhere – in Afghanistan, where a rampaging US soldier killed 16 Afghan civilians, half of them children, and in a quiet Southern California suburb, where Shaima’s 17-year-old daughter found her mother on the floor, her brains bashed in, next to a note that echoed the slogans shouted by Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, Pamela Geller, Rep. King, Rep. Royce, Rep. Miller, Newt Gingrich, and all the rest of the Republican haters and militarists......"

Al-Jazeera Video: Empire - Syria on the brink

Real News Video : Banking "Technocrats" Undermine Democracy

Gerry Epstein: In Europe and the US, bankers take control of the political process

Woman beaten in San Diego attack to be buried in Iraq

Iraqi-American Shaima Alawadi was found unconscious in her home with note next to her body that said 'go back to your country, you terrorist'

guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 March 2012

"The body of an Iraqi-American woman who was found beaten unconscious in her home next to a note that said "go back to your country, you terrorist" will be flown to Iraq for her funeral, a local Muslim leader has said.

Shaima Alawadi, 32, was taken off life support on Saturday, three days after her 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious in the dining room of the family home in El Cajon, San Diego.

Investigators said they were exploring all aspects of her death, including the possibility that the attack was a hate crime.

Alawadi's father is a Shia cleric in Iraq, and the Iraqi government will pay to have her body sent back, a Muslim leader in Michigan told the Detroit Free-Press on Sunday. "Everybody is outraged," Imam Husham al-Husainy, of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Centre, in Dearborn, said. "This is too evil, too criminal."

The woman's daughter, Fatima Al Himidi, told KUSI-TV that her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tyre iron.....

Zayadi said Alawadi's brothers worked for the US army, serving as cultural advisers to train soldiers who were going to be deployed to the Middle East. Another family friend told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Alawadi's husband had a similar job.

El Cajon, north-east of downtown San Diego, is home to one of the largest Iraqi communities in the US."

Guardian Video: Syrian forces renew attacks on Homs

Amateur footage posted on the internet purports to show the continued shelling of the restive Syrian city of Homs on Sunday 25 March. Government forces renewed their attacks on Homs using tanks and launching mortars on Saturday, resulting in the deaths of 10 civilians and four soldiers, according to opposition activists

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 March 2012

No representation in Egypt’s constituent assembly

By Joseph Mayton
Bikya Masr

"Egypt set the Constituent Assembly on Sunday. All 100 members. The problem is, and the liberal and left see this clear as day, it is not representative of Egyptian society and will undoubtedly bring forward a new, Islamic constitution that pushes Egypt one step closer to their ultra-conservative bedfellow Saudi Arabia.

While we should not be spreading doomsday scenarios just yet, what we are witnessing in Egypt is the slow build toward complete Islamist control of the country. Even more so after last week, the Muslim Brotherhood hinted that they would field a candidate in the May presidential election. Of course, they argued it was to buttress the military junta’s power and refusal to acquiesce to their demands. We know the truth.

The Islamists have gone from speaking and saying the right things to what appears to be an entrenched government who has learned quickly the scent of power and want to indulge even longer, possibly indefinitely.

The Constituent Assembly is to draft Egypt’s constitution, ideally a document that will need little changes, let alone an overhaul, in the coming years and decades. Yet, when one looks at the council’s representatives, it is easy to see this will not be the case. And this was before the liberal parties walked out in protest of the Islamist majority......"

Ali Ferzat: Revolution redefines art in Syria

Ali Ferzat's hands sweep and glide and conjure shapes as he sits in a small art gallery behind Sloane Square in London where his sly deconstructions of authoritarianism are on show.

These are the hands that pricked and provoked the mukhabarat - the security police - in Syria into trying to smash them into silence.

It was last August when he was attacked by masked men in what he describes as one of the most secure parts of Damascus.

"I was beaten here, here and here," he gestures. "My arms were black from the beating."

He was dumped by the side of the road. The attack made headlines across the world.

Getting personal

Wiry and angular like Ferzat himself, his hands are now almost 90% back to normal, he says.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

"The uprising has redefined art in Syria... it's exposed the gulf between real artists and mercenaries in the pay of the state”

Ali Ferzat

The beating came as his style changed from general ridicule of the political system in Syria to specific caricatures of President Bashar al-Assad and his circle.

Ferzat says the switch had begun several months before the protest movement erupted last year.

"I started to get personal," he explains. "Before, I made sure not to draw any official that could be recognised, even though my cartoons were based on real people. And even if someone in power felt they were being targeted, they wouldn't say anything, because that would be like confirming it really was them."

The change is evident from looking at one of his best-known cartoons where a brutish - but generic - apparatchik scrawls a smile on the bandaged face of a beaten prisoner.

Compare that to one of the drawings he did just before his beating.

It shows President Assad himself sweatily clutching a suitcase as he tries to hitch a ride with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, who's furiously driving a getaway car.

Al-Jazeera Video: Inside Syria - Will Syria become a guerrilla war?

Israel exploits Toulouse murders to justify no-charge jailing of hunger striker Hana al-Shalabi

By Ali Abunimah

"What does the spokesman of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do when his propaganda efforts fail to conceal Israel’s abuses of Palestinians? He uses the blood of Jewish children murdered in the French city of Toulouse last week to try to blot them out. This is low, even for Israeli official propaganda.

Since 16 February – when Israeli occupation forces violently seized her from her home in the West Bank village of Burqin – Hana al-Shalabi has been on hunger strike because she has no other way to resist the injustice Israel is inflicting on her and her family.

Now into her 38th day without food, and after severe deterioration in her health, doctors warn that she is at risk of “immediate death.”

Yet Hana al-Shalabi, who had already spent more than two years in Israeli jails without charge or trial, has still not been charged with any crime. During her current and previous detention she has faced severe abuse at the hands of Israeli authorities......"

Report says Israel operating in Iran

UPI

"LONDON, March 25 (UPI) -- Israeli spies have been operating inside Iran to gather information and evidence about Iran's nuclear program, sources told The Sunday Times.

The British newspaper reported Israel has established a secret base in northern Iraq where it dispatches Special Forces to conduct covert operations and compile intelligence inside Iran.

The mission is to find "smoking gun" evidence that Iran's nuclear program is centered on the production of weapons, the newspaper said.

Western intelligence sources told The Times Israeli forces enter Iran disguised as Iranian soldiers and operate near a number of the country's nuclear facilities. They also measure the levels of radioactivity and magnitude of explosions from tests conducted by Iran.

The sources said Israeli forces use vehicles as well as helicopters in order to travel from place to place and that Israel has been conducting such missions for several years and has intensified efforts in recent months near the Parchin military complex near Tehran.

"We've detected clean-up efforts recently in Parchin, which might indicate that the Iranians are trying to hide evidence of warhead tests in preparation for a possible IAEA visit," an unnamed source said, referring to Iran's refusal to permit inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the site.

Operations have also been conducted near the Fordow uranium enrichment facility, the paper said.

There has been no Israeli response to the report."

Iraqi woman dies after San Diego attack

Shaima Alawadi was found unconscious in her home next to a threatening note saying 'go back to your country'

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 March 2012

"An Iraqi woman who was found severely beaten at her San Diego home next to a note saying "go back to your country" has died.

Shaima Alawadi, 32, a mother of five, was found unconscious by her 17-year-old daughter on Wednesday, police said.

The daughter, Fatima al-Himidi, told local TV that her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly and that the note said: "Go back to your country, you terrorist."....

A family friend, Sura Alzaidy, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the attack apparently occurred after the father took the younger children to school. Alzaidy said the family is from Iraq and Alawadi was a "respectful modest muhajiba", meaning she wore the hijab.....

The family had lived in the house in San Diego County for a few weeks, after moving from Michigan, Alzaidy said. She told the newspaper that her father and Alawadi's husband had previously worked together in San Diego as private contractors for the US army, serving as cultural advisers to train soldiers going to the Middle East.

Mohebi said the family had been in the US since the mid-1990s. He said it was unfortunate that the family had not reported the initial threatening note.

"Our community does face a lot of discriminatory, hate incidents and don't always report them," Mohebi said. "They should take these threats seriously and definitely call local law enforcement."

El Cajon, north-east of central San Diego, is home to 40,000 Iraqi immigrants, the second largest such community in the US after Detroit."

Europe bishops speak out against Saudi Grand Mufti

Bikya Masr

"DUBAI: European Christian leaders have spoken out against Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah al-Sheikh, who last week said “all churches in the region should be destroyed.” Catholic bishops in both Germany and Austria were voiceful, saying that the statement was a “denial” of basic human rights for millions of foreign workers in the Gulf.

According to statistics, there are roughly four million Christians living in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi top religious figure said his anti-church comments in Kuwait, which has recently banned the construction of Christian churches in the country.

Archbishop Mark of Yegoryevsk, head of the Russian Orthodox department for churches abroad, called the fatwa “alarming” in a statement on Tuesday. Such blunt criticism from mainstream Christian leaders of their Muslim counterparts is very rare.

The recent statement made by the Saudi leader, which a number of regional English sites, including the Jerusalem Post have cited as a fatwa, or an official religious opinion, despite it simply being a statement made by the Saudi Grand Mufti, has sparked a widespread backlash against the ultra-conservative kingdom.

“It’s astonishing, horrible and amazing that the most important Muslim cleric in the land that gave birth to Islam can call for the destruction of churches without this genocidal fatwa attracting any international condemnation or protest,” wrote Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio and expert on Christians in the Middle East, in an email to The Jerusalem Post. “Where is the White House? Where is Lady Ashton? Where is the Vatican? Where are the UN’s agencies?” he asked.

Christians in the region, including Arab Christians, have condemned the comments.

In Cairo and Beirut, the anger was loudest, but also through their calls were gestures of tolerance.

“I mean from a regular, end of the street mosque, this stuff happens all the time, but for the Grand Mufti of a country to say it is simply shocking,” Beirut resident Hani told Bikyamasr.com.

Ironically, the Saudi religious leader’s comments come only months after Saudi Arabia partnered with Switzerland on an institute of tolerance. At the time, many observers called the move “unsubstantiated” in reference to Saudi’s ultra-conservative Islamic views.

Speaking to a delegation in Kuwait, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, stressed that since the tiny Gulf state was a part of the Arabian Peninsula, it was necessary to destroy all of the churches in the country, Arabic media have reported.

Saudi Arabia’s top cleric made the comment in view of an age-old belief that only Islam can be practiced in the region.

According to religious scholars, however, even during the Prophet Mohamed’s time, Christians and Jews were allowed to practice their faith openly and freely. Christians in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan largely have open access to churches and places to pray, although regulations in Egypt have been condemned by Christian leaders and activists.

“What we see with this is the turn toward ultra conservatism in the region,” said Egyptian Coptic Christian Noha, adding that “what we need to do now is bring together people and show this mufti that us Christians and Muslims can live and share the same street. And that it is a right granted by Islam for others to pray in their own place.”

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia is the highest official of religious law in the Sunni Muslim kingdom. He is also the head of the Supreme Council of Ulema (Islamic scholars) and of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwas.

A Kuwaiti parliamentarian said last month he wanted to ban the construction of churches and non-Islamic places of worship in the Gulf state.

MP Osama Al-Munawer announced on Twitter he planned to submit a draft law calling for the removal of all churches in the country. He later clarified that existing churches should remain but the construction of new non-Islamic places of worship should be banned."