HITNA AKCIJA AI-a - SIRIJA:
Amnesty International URGENT ACTION: Fears for Syrian human rights lawyer: Abdullah al-Khalil
Human rights lawyer Abdullah al-Khalil is being held in incommunicado detention at an unknown location where he is at risk of torture and other ill-treatment. He has not been seen since he was arrested on a street in al-Raqqa, eastern Syria, on 3 February. Abdullah al-Khalil, who is 50 years old, is a well-known lawyer who represents political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. He is a member of the Detainees' Defence Team in al-Raqqa, where he lives, and has reported on human rights violations taking place before and during the past year of protest and unrest. According to Syrian human rights activists, he was arrested on 3 February 2012 with several other lawyers, who have since been released, while on a street in al-Raqqa. Unconfirmed reports suggest he was tortured or otherwise ill-treated while detained at a branch of Military Intelligence in al-Raqqa, and then may have been transferred to another branch of Military Intelligence in Damascus, the capital. He is not known to have been charged with any offence. He had been detained on three other occasions in the past year and he and his family had been subjected to other forms of harassment from the Syrian authorities. ... Abdullah al-Khalil appears to have been subjected to a campaign of harassment by the Syrian authorities for his peaceful human rights activities, including carrying out his duties as a lawyer, Abdullah al-Khalil had been arrested three times already since May 2011 and was due to appear at court on 6 February 2012 on charges that appear to be politically motivated, namely “illegal building” on what the authorities alleged to be state land. On 1 May 2011 he was detained for one month and questioned about his alleged participation in unauthorised demonstrations and incitement of sectarian strife, charges commonly brought against perceived opponents of the government. Several days after his release he was included in a presidential amnesty. On 22 August 2011 he was arrested with 21 other lawyers and held for one week for participating in a peaceful sit-in at the Palace of Justice at al-Raqqa. On 15 December 2011 he was arrested in front of his home, along with his son who was released the next day, and held for some 11 days during which he was questioned about information he had posted on Facebook regarding the alleged torture in detention of several of his clients. He was charged with “spreading false news” and with both inciting and taking part in protests. On 18 December 2011 the family's farmhouse was demolished on the orders of the Governor of al-Hasaka, apparently as a punishment for the human rights work of Abdullah al-Khalil. During the demolition, several of his family members were attacked by individuals working on behalf of the authorities and his nephew required medical treatment in hospital. As early as April 2011 Abdullah al-Khalil said that he had received death threats and that although he reported the threats to the authorities, they do not appear to have been investigated.
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DODATNO - LINKOVI:
IRAN:
Threats, Aggression, War Preparations...and Lies – U.S. and Israel Accelerate Campaign Against Iran
Put another way, if Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and the U.S. and Israel know this, why are they threatening war? In a nutshell, the U.S., Britain, and France represent the most militarily, politically, and economically dominant coalition of predatory capitalist-imperialist powers on earth, which together possess thousands of nuclear weapons. Israel is their heavily armed surrogate and enforcer in the Middle East with an estimated 75-200 nukes. Iran, on the other hand, is a much less powerful Third World capitalist state without nuclear weapons. The U.S. can project power thousands of miles from its shores and has 737 military bases around the world; Iran's navy rarely ventures beyond the Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea area and has no foreign military bases. The U.S. spends 100 times as much on its military as Iran, and has over 2,000 deployed nuclear weapons. Its population is over three times as large as Iran's; its economy is nearly 18 times larger and much more technologically advanced than Iran's. At bottom, this is a battle by the U.S. and its allies to maintain their dominance over the Middle East and the world. This need is rooted in the core functioning and power of their entire system, which is based on the global exploitation of labor, control and access to key resources and markets, and the military-political control of vast swaths of the globe. Controlling the Middle East has been a key part of the entire structure of U.S. global dominance for the past 60-plus years because together with Central Asia it contains roughly 80 percent of the world's proven energy reserves. Control of this energy spigot is a key lever on the entire global economy—and on all the other powers that depend on oil and natural gas—from allies in Europe and Japan to rivals Russia and China. The region is a crossroads for global trade and a critical military-strategic pivot. In short, the U.S., Israel, Britain, and France are battling for empire and hegemony—not for justice, liberation, or a nuclear-free world.
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HRVATSKA:
Tribina Kriza kapitalizma - kapitalizam kao kriza, Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, 28. ožujka 2012. (video)
MAGREB I SREDNJI ISTOK:
YEAR OF REBELLION: THE STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
It was a year like no other, when the whole region shook as ordinary people summoned up the courage to provide a demonstration of “people’s power” such as the region had never seen before and, incredibly, to sustain it even when the might of the state and its repressive security forces were deployed against them. This failed in Tunisia and then in Egypt, where peaceful protests triumphed, albeit at heavy human cost, while in Libya the result was a slide into armed conflict in which international intervention tipped the scales against the oppressive regime of Colonel Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi. In Yemen, the President's obstinate refusal until almost the end of the year to stand down despite mass anti-government protests and increasing levels of repression and violence exacerbated the country's already deep social, political and economic problems. Bahrain's rulers, backed by Saudi Arabia, faced down the protests by force, again at heavy human cost and deepening divisions, but ended the year committing to reform, reparation and reconciliation. Meanwhile, Syria teetered at the edge of civil war as its obdurate President, facing unprecedented demands for change, used relentless brute force to crush the protests, but in doing so succeeded only in exposing further the rotten nature of his rule. This report describes the events of this historic, tumultuous year, one which saw so much suffering and sadness but also spread so much hope within the region and beyond, to countries where other people face repression and everyday abuse of their human rights.
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SIRIJA:
Local Residents Used as Human Shields, Reports of Residents Forced to March in Front of Soldiers in Idlib (video)
Witnesses from the towns of al-Janoudyah, Kafr Nabl, Kafr Rouma, and Ayn Larouz in the Idlib governorate in northern Syria told Human Rights Watch that they saw the army and pro-government armed men, referred to locally as shabeeha, force people to march in front of the advancing army during the March 2012 offensive to retake control of areas that had fallen into the hands of the opposition. ... "As we were going to Friday prayer, soldiers from a base near the mosque were rounding up people. They took maybe 25 people, including me. There were also eight children, aged from 10 to 15, among us. They made us march in front and around the military vehicles to some houses where they were searching for wanted opposition activists. We marched for about 600 meters. They were insulting us the whole time. They arrested several people from the houses. Then they made us march back to their base, after which they released all of us, apart from the detained activists. The whole operation lasted for about two hours." Abdullah said that the army often forced town residents to march alongside them, particularly when they needed to get food supplies. Raed Fares, an opposition activist from Kafr Nabl, told Human Rights Watch that the Syrian army, which increased its presence in the town when demonstrations there begun seven months ago, started using civilians as human shields in January after opposition forces tried to attack the army with a roadside explosive device. Since then, he said, the soldiers have gathered residents and forced them to walk in front of the soldiers whenever they want to move around in the town. "They take anybody who opens the door when they knock," he told Human Rights Watch. "It doesn't matter whether it is a man, woman, or child." ... "Ahmed", a resident from Kafr Nabl, also said that the army made civilians walk in front of them on a regular basis and described how the army used civilians when he was detained and transferred to the town of Ma'aret al-Nu'man, five kilometers away ... "After a Friday demonstration about a month ago, the army conducted house searches around 12:30 a.m. I was in one of the streets when I saw that the soldiers forced people out of their houses, put the men in police buses, and made women, children, and elderly people walk in front of the tanks followed by the other police buses transporting the detainees." ... "I could see through my binoculars that when they reached the first houses at the limits of the village, the shabeeha accompanying the army started taking people out of their houses. From my position, I saw them taking about 20 people. They gathered them in front of the advancing tanks to protect themselves from the FSA. They made them march for 600 to 700 meters. Among them were children and old people. " ... "When we went out into the street we saw several tanks and buses. There were three or four children on each tank and in each bus. Several women were shouting at the soldiers and tried to grab the children from the tanks, but the soldiers were just kicking them away. We recognized children from all over the village, but most lived along the main street. We found out from the other mothers that the soldiers had come to their houses and taken the children. When the soldiers left the village, they left the children at the north side of the village."
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Government Uses Homs Tactics on Border Town, Indiscriminate Shelling, Sniper Killings, Attacks on Fleeing Residents (video)
Syrian security forces are committing serious abuses in their military campaign on al-Qusayr, a city of approximately 40,000 in Homs governorate near the Lebanese border, Human Rights Watch said today. Witnesses describe heavy shelling of residential neighborhoods, snipers shooting residents on the streets, and attacks on fleeing residents. Humanitarian conditions are dire, including food and water shortages, communications blackouts, and virtually non-existent medical assistance. ... "It was a peaceful protest with about 200 participants, after the Friday prayer. There were no security or army present, but 30 minutes into the protest we heard the sound of rockets and then an explosion. The rockets hit a building near the protest, and people started running in all directions while the shelling continued. Three people died and five were injured, including me. " ... "A mortar landed in the street where they were playing. My friend who was in the street with them, he was 28, died instantly. I found him 3 meters away from where he was sitting when I went into the house. A piece of shrapnel hit his head and decapitated him. The son of my neighbor who was with them also died. He was 7. He was lying by a wall 2 meters away from the house.… My two girls were still alive. I saw my 4-year-old's arm was moving in an unnatural way. I started yelling "help…help." I put them in a taxi and took them to the field hospital." ... "They were passing behind the mosque to the other side of the street, but my daughter, Tamara who was carrying her 7-month-old cousin made a mistake when crossing and took the wrong corner, passing in front of the mosque giving the sniper on the municipal building a clear view of her. The next thing I heard was a gunshot and Tamara was yelling. Men in the neighboring buildings ran toward her. They were revolutionaries (thuwar). Some were wearing military uniforms others were in civilian clothes. Some of them carried her and put her in a car while others were shooting at the municipal building to protect her and the others rescuing her." ... "I have never seen such a dire situation in terms of medical assistance in any other conflict I've covered – not in Libya, not in Afghanistan. The "hospital" was just a tent under a tree, about 6 square meters, with one doctor and a medical student. They had nothing – no morphine, no alcohol for disinfecting the wounds, let alone proper equipment; they were running out of bandages. Before leaving, I gave the doctor 10 doses of morphine that I normally carry to war zone assignments, and he accepted it as the most precious gift. But it would probably only last him for a few days. At that point, they could no longer arrange the transfer of the wounded to Lebanon, and knew they were likely to die."
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