Category Archives: Issues

On the need to listen to Arab public opinion

Commenting on the results of a recent Zogby poll of over 7,400 adults in six Arab countries (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE), Turkey, and Iran, Rami G. Khouri writes: As expected, people in Iraqi are divided on their views of their own national institutions and regional players’ actions in their country. Sunnis mostly lack confidence in the Iraqi military, Iran’s involvement, or the Popular Mobilization Units that are fighting “Islamic State” (ISIS), while Iraqi Shiites support the actions of all these. The more significant finding, however, is the “remarkable consensus” on two important issues: that the cause of the conflict in Iraq is that, “the government in Baghdad does not represent all Iraqis,” and that, “the best way to ultimately resolve the conflict…is forming a more inclusive representative government” — and not partition, with the Kurds also supporting such a representative central government.

I would guess that this Iraqi desire for inclusive, representative governance within a unified national framework is mirrored in most Arab countries that are wracked by war and sectarian tensions, like Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Syria. Ordinary citizens probably hold much more rational and constructive views on how to resolve those conflicts than the warlords and officials, not to mention foreign powers that now mostly shape policy.

The poll found that ISIS was mentioned as the most serious extremist problem facing the region in every country except Jordan, where Al-Qaeda is ranked first. More interestingly — and significant for counter-terrorism purposes — is that in most countries polled citizens identified, “corrupt, repressive, and unrepresentative governments” and, “religious figures and groups promoting extremist ideas” as the most important causes of religious extremism. [Continue reading…]

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Extinguishing the flames of the Arab Spring

Al Jazeera reports: Five years ago today, Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old street vendor, set himself on fire outside a local municipal office in his hometown of Sidi Bouzid to protest against police corruption – a solitary act that would set off a stunning chain of events throughout the Arab world.

In the years since Bouazizi’s death, Tunisia has gone through tremendous change. After street protests forced President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile after two decades of his rule, Tunisia adopted a new constitution and held national elections in 2014.

Earlier this month, the country’s National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for assisting Tunisia’s transition to democracy.

But despite the changes that have taken place around them, residents of Sidi Bouzid say their lives are no better than they were before the uprising.

“Before the toppling of the regime of Ben Ali, we had hopes,” Ramzi Abdouli, 29, a graduate from Sidi Bouzid, told Al Jazeera. “We thought that maybe when Ben Ali left our reality would change. Unfortunately, it was not the case.”

Like many of Tunisia’s youth, Abdouli participated in the 2010-2011 protests, hoisting banners against the regime. Even after Ben Ali was deposed, Abdouli marched more than 250km from Sidi Bouzid to Tunis in April 2012 to reiterate demands for social justice and employment.

Today, via social media, he remains a relentless critic of the current government and its political affairs – and is pessimistic about the years ahead. [Continue reading…]

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The world needs drastic action to meet Paris climate goals

Wired reports: Last week’s UN climate meeting took place inside six massive, climate-controlled warehouses, on the grounds of France’s oldest commercial airport. That airport is in the suburb of Le Bourget, which itself is part of the Paris metropolitan region—home to some 12 million people and their homes, workplaces, commutes, appetites, and pastimes. With the exception of a small but growing slice powered by renewables, the majority of everything that everybody does in Paris and beyond is powered by fossil fuels.

That’s the electricity powering your computer, Xbox, microwave, refrigerator, and heater. Gas goes in your car, into the trucks that deliver your year-round vegetables, into the ship that brought your hoverboard over from China. Coal provides the heat to make the steel in every building, every train track. It’s essential for concrete, too.

The goal of the Paris climate deal is to keep average global temperature increase well below 2 degrees Celsius, and as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible. Let’s assume the best case scenario, compliance-wise. Every nation outdoes their pre-submitted plans (which currently add up to 2.7 degrees above global average by the end of the century). Every five years every nation ratchets up their commitments, and carbon pricing sends a planet-wide price signal to the economy that it is cheaper to do business with renewables. What does all that look like? What exactly needs to happen in order to meet that ambitious goal? [Continue reading…]

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Mass deaths and torture in Syria’s detention facilities

Human Rights Watch reports: Nine months of research reveals some of the human stories behind the more than 28,000 photos of deaths in government custody that were smuggled out of Syria and first came to public attention in January 2014.

The 86-page report, “If the Dead Could Speak: Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria’s Detention Facilities,” lays out new evidence regarding the authenticity of what are known as the Caesar photographs, identifies a number of the victims, and highlights some of the key causes of death. Human Rights Watch located and interviewed 33 relatives and friends of 27 victims whose cases researchers verified; 37 former detainees who saw people die in detention; and four defectors who worked in Syrian government detention centers or the military hospitals where most of the photographs were taken. Using satellite imagery and geolocation techniques, Human Rights Watch confirmed that some of the photographs of the dead were taken in the courtyard of the 601 Military Hospital in Mezze.

“Just about every detainee in these photographs was someone’s beloved child, husband, father, or friend, and his friends and family spent months or years searching for him,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “We have meticulously verified dozens of stories, and we are confident the Caesar photographs present authentic – and damning – evidence of crimes against humanity in Syria.”

Countries meeting about possible peace negotiations in Syria – including Russia, as the Syrian government’s biggest backer – should make the fate of the thousands of detained people in Syria a priority, Human Rights Watch said. Concerned countries should insist that the Syrian government give international monitors immediate access to all detention centers and that Syria’s intelligence services must stop forcibly disappearing and torturing detainees. [Continue reading…]

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Life in Raqqa: Bombed by the government during the day, then bombed by the coalition at night

A paediatric doctor describes his flight from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa: One day ISIS came to me and put pressure on me to join the hospital that they controlled in the city. Most doctors had left Syria and they needed me. But I refused. As a result, I received threats. There was nowhere to hide from them – not in the small villages around Raqqa, nor in the city itself. I began to realise that my only way out was to leave Syria. I thought, ‘I’d prefer to go on one of the death boats than risk staying here’.

Life in Raqqa was terrifying. During the day we lived with the government’s airstrikes; at night there were coalition airstrikes. The sound of the jets was so loud it was like an earthquake. A close friend was killed by a government airstrike.

I realised that life had stopped for me, and the one thing I had to do was save my family. I worried that in Syria my children wouldn’t have a life or even get an education. I wanted to protect my life to save my children’s lives.

I started to plan my departure. I planned to travel to Turkey then take the boat to Europe, heading for Holland. My wife was in the final month of her pregnancy with our third child. She was so exhausted by the pregnancy that it was difficult for her to travel. So the idea was that I would go with a friend, and once I had immigration papers, my family would follow me.

I decided to sleep that last night with my children. Although they didn’t know I was leaving, they felt it somehow. I wish I could have brought them with me.

Leaving Raqqa was not easy, with fighting going on between ISIS, Kurdish fighters, Al Nusra and the FSA. I had to pass through three checkpoints between Raqqa and Efreen – it was like passing through three separate countries.

When I reached Turkey, I heard that the government was arresting people going to Izmir [a city on the coast]. Deep inside me, there was a voice hoping that this trip would fail and I’d have to return to Syria. [Continue reading…]

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How does it feel to be told you are welcome in your own country?

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Ever since I became a U.S. citizen, I’ve got a kick out of the fact that when re-entering this country (after visits to the UK), after presenting my passport, the immigration official commonly returns it to me, saying: “welcome back.”

Maybe this happens more often for travelers coming through laid-back Atlanta than somewhere like New York City, but it’s an endearing friendly touch where one otherwise confronts the cold face of bureaucracy and security.

Across the globe, crossing a border tends to be a dehumanizing experience when who we are is so sharply defined by a piece of paper.

As a dual national and British citizen, it’s frankly unimaginable that a representative of the government there would offer any kind of greeting.

Once back in the U.S., however, I would find it a bit disturbing if a fellow citizen wanted to reassure me that I’m welcome here, since, supposedly, we both share equal rights and an equal claim to American identity.

Even so, since I wasn’t born here and since I “have an accent” (to which I like to respond: who doesn’t?), it’s not difficult for me to understand why I might be viewed by some Americans as an outsider. Indeed, the term “naturalization” has always struck me as being an oxymoron. An innate attribute is either there or it isn’t — I don’t see how it can be inserted.

For that reason, I’m inclined to defer moderately to those Americans who feel like an American who was born in this country is in some sense more American than those of us who were born elsewhere.

That shouldn’t imply any discrimination in terms of status or rights — it’s simply an observation about depth of enculturation.

Which brings me to Muslim Americans, a large proportion of whom were indeed born in this country and have never lived anywhere else.

When someone such as Mark Zuckerberg reaches out to Muslims and says, “I want you to know that you are always welcome here,” I realize this kind of message is well-intended, but it isn’t deeply inclusive.

One American should never be so presumptuous as to tell another American that they are welcome here.

What is called for at this time is something much more radical. What is being contested is the meaning of solidarity.

Some Americans are saying that we now need to stand together to protect ourselves from foreign threats. This kind of unity divides humanity into two camps: Americans and non-Americans. And this division undercuts the very notion of humanity.

It becomes clear then, that the actual rift here is between those for whom their experience of being American is subordinate to their experience of being human, and those for whom their identity as Americans, trumps all others.

Is someone who gives such preeminence to national identity, really capable of any genuine expression of solidarity?

If you’re ability to empathize with another person depended on first knowing what kind of citizenship they held or which religion they practiced, how could such empathy be heartfelt?

I have to wonder whether those Americans who are afraid of Muslims are not also, to a lesser degree, afraid of each other?

Empathy is the core human recognition. It is the knowledge that your experience of pain is the same as mine; that love, joy, grief, and anger are universal emotions.

Where this knowledge is lacking, or where it gets buried beneath a rigid national identity, xenophobia and Islamophia are merely symptomatic of a degradation of an underlying sense of humanity.

Americans who do not see themselves as indivisibly part of humanity, should be less concerned about how they protect America than what they think it means to be human.

And since so many American-firsters describe themselves as Christians, they might begin a process of self-inquiry by reminding themselves that according to their own belief system, they are the descendants of a human lineage that traces back to a single source preceding all national identities.

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Iran’s October missile test violated UN ban

Reuters reports: Iran violated a U.N. Security Council resolution in October by test-firing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, a team of sanctions monitors said, leading to calls in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday for more sanctions on Tehran.

The White House said it would not rule out additional steps against Iran over the test of the medium-range Emad rocket.

The Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Iran said in a confidential report, first reported by Reuters, that the launch showed the rocket met its requirements for considering that a missile could deliver a nuclear weapon.

“On the basis of its analysis and findings the Panel concludes that Emad launch is a violation by Iran of paragraph 9 of Security Council resolution 1929,” the panel said.

Diplomats said the rocket test on Oct. 10 was not technically a violation of the July nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, but the U.N. report could put U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration in an awkward position. [Continue reading…]

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CNN debate ignores climate change, does not ask GOP candidates about historic Paris agreement

Media Matters reports: Three days before CNN hosted the fifth Republican presidential debate, leaders from every country in the world struck a historic climate change agreement in Paris to reduce fossil fuel emissions and face up to one of the greatest threats facing our country and our planet. The Paris agreement was a front page story in newspapers throughout the U.S. and around the globe. So considering that the Pentagon says climate change “could impact national security” and experts have identified a relationship between global warming and the rise of ISIS, the issue clearly belonged in the December 15 CNN debate, which co-moderator Wolf Blitzer described as a “discussion about the security of this nation.”

CNN’s own Michael Smerconish pointed to the significance of the Paris climate agreement in the cable outlet’s debate preview coverage the night beforehand, yet CNN failed to ask a single question about the agreement or climate change more broadly during the debate itself. While GOP candidates may have their own political reasons for avoiding the issue — and a couple of them dismissively brought climate change up on their own — CNN is a news organization with a responsibility to press the candidates for our nation’s highest office on the most important issues facing the country and the world, particularly when there are major new developments to address. [Continue reading…]

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Possessed by a mask

Sandra Newman writes: It is an acknowledged fact of modern life that the internet brings out the worst in people. Otherwise law-abiding citizens pilfer films and music. Eminent authors create ‘sock puppets’ to anonymously praise their own work and denigrate that of rivals. Teenagers use the internet for bullying; even more disturbingly, grown-ups bully strangers with obsessive zeal, sometimes even driving them from their homes with repeated murder threats. Porn thrives, and takes on increasingly bizarre and often disturbing forms.

Commentators seem at a loss to satisfactorily account for this surge in antisocial tendencies. Sometimes it’s blamed on a few sociopathic individuals – but the offenders include people who are impeccably decent in their offline lives. The anonymity of online life is another explanation commonly given – but these behaviours persist even when the identities of users are easily discovered, and when their real names appear directly above offensive statements. It almost seems to be a contagion issuing from the technology itself, or at least strong evidence that computers are alienating us from our humanity. But we might have a better chance of understanding internet hooliganism if we looked at another form of concealment that isn’t true concealment, but that nonetheless has historically lured people into behaving in ways that are alien to their normal selves: the mask.

There doesn’t seem to be any culture in which masks have not been used. From the Australian outback to the Arctic, from Mesolithic Africa to the United States of the 21st century, people have always made and employed masks in ways that are seemingly various and yet have an underlying commonality. Their earliest appearance is in religious ritual. [Continue reading…]

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Seeing the Trump candidacy as an effect of the Obama presidency

Republican consultant, Frank Luntz, gathered a focus group of 29 past and present Donald Trump supporters in Virginia a few days ago and, among other things, asked them to come up with a phrase that characterizes Barack Obama.

These were some of the responses:

pathetic, jellyfish marshmallow, naive, lost, out of touch, clueless, ineffective, elitist, doesn’t respect American values, anti-American, un-American, zero leadership, out of his depth…

Luntz responded to the group: “Anti-American, un-American… Barack Obama? Seriously?”

For these Trump supporters there was no question.

In no doubt about their own identity as Americans and that Obama lacks an American character, their gravitation towards Trump seems to derive mostly from their perception that the billionaire stands out as authentically American:

he gives the image he’s not going to put up with any crap… his personality is so large… he’s entertaining… he looks presidential and he acts presidential… he’s a leader… I’m voting for the person… we’re tired of weak candidates [like John McCain and Mitt Romney]

Luntz probed further: “[Trump] used the word ‘shit’ [when saying he would ‘bomb the shit out of ISIS’]; that’s presidential?”

The group responded with a loud “yes,” fists waving and applause.

It matters less what Trump says than how he says it. He talks tough and he’s impolite and that makes him an American and makes him trustworthy among those who share this view of the American spirit.

If the general election ends up being a contest between Trump and Hillary Clinton, no doubt a significant portion of Trump’s support will come not only from his perceived Americanness but also from the notion that ruling the U.S. is a job for a man.

The fact that presidential campaigns are largely personality contests has been true for decades. In that respect, Trump has done nothing to reshape American politics.

Luntz concludes, seeming to confirm that this is very much a reflection of contrasting perceptions of personality: “I don’t believe there would be a Trump candidacy if there wasn’t an Obama presidency.”

If that’s true, it would be easy to infer that it meant that white America wasn’t ready for a black president, and to some degree that must be the case, but the criticisms thrown at Obama clearly express distaste and contempt for the way he carries himself.

Following the death of Benedict Anderson on Sunday — Anderson was an expert on Indonesia and the origins of nationalism — Christopher Dickey, noting the influence Indonesian culture played in Obama’s personal development, wrote:

As Edward L. Fox pointed out in a delightful essay a couple of years ago, the no-drama character of the American president is best understood as behavior learned when he was a boy, from the time he was 6 until he was 10, going to elementary school on the island of Java in Indonesia.

When Obama was being mocked by the other kids because of his dark skin, his mother encouraged him to adopt the kind of bearing and conduct associated with Javanese kings and the word halus, a regal sort of imperturbability. To this day, there are little tells, like the way Obama points with this thumb on top of his hand, rather than with his forefinger, which was considered very impolite; or the way he sometimes stands with his eyes down in a debate, not a broken man, but one containing his emotion.

In Anderson’s 1990 essay “The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture,” he wrote that halus is “the quality of not being disturbed… Smoothness of spirit means self-control, smoothness of appearance means beauty and elegance, smoothness of behavior means politeness and sensitivity. Conversely, the antithetical quality of being kasar means lack of control, irregularity, disharmony, ugliness, coarseness, and impurity.”

Which also sounds like a description of Donald Trump — the ugly American.

For Americans who despise Trump, the challenge he poses goes beyond the dangerous effects of his demagoguery, but towards the disquieting recognition that he may indeed be more typically American than a large portion of his critics.

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Trump and Le Pen grow in strength with the help of ISIS

Roger Cohen writes: America, like Europe, is rattled by Islamic State terrorism and unsure how to respond to the black-flagged death merchants. Its polarized politics seem broken. The right of Donald Trump and the right of France’s Marine Le Pen overlap on terrorism and immigration. On the American left, Bernie Sanders sounds like nothing so much as a European social democrat. But that’s another story.

Le Pen is now a serious candidate for the French presidency in 2017. Her strong first-round performance in regional elections was not matched in the second round. She faded. But as with Trump, she answers the popular call for an end to business as usual after two Paris massacres this year in which the Islamic State had a role. The three jihadists who killed 90 Friday-night revelers in the Bataclan club were French citizens believed to have been trained in Syria.

“Islamist fundamentalism must be annihilated,” Le Pen says. People roar. “France must ban Islamist organizations,” she says. People roar. It must “expel foreigners who preach hatred in our country as well as illegal migrants who have nothing to do here.” People roar.

There is no question Le Pen is being taken seriously in France. Europe’s watchword is vigilance. Its entire postwar reconstruction has been premised on the conviction that peace, integration, economic union and the welfare state were the best insurance against the return to power of the fascist right.

That conviction is shaken. The rise of the Islamic State, and the Western inability to contain it, leads straight to the Islamophobia in which Trump and Le Pen traffic with success. It would be hard to imagine an atmosphere better suited to the politics of fear. Americans say they are more fearful of terrorism than at any time since 9/11.

“Every time things get worse, I do better,” Trump says. He does. They may get still worse. [Continue reading…]

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Syria’s media war

Elizabeth Dickinson writes: The driver stops on a crowded, dusty road lined with cars. Used SUVs and sedans are parked two deep in front of tired warehouses bearing sun-bleached signs for a shipping company and a tire store. “Is it here?” I credulously ask the chauffeur who was dispatched to bring me to this desolate stretch of road. “Yes, wait,” he says, pointing as a man weaves his way towards us. I get out and follow the man to one of the warehouses’ unmarked doors. After passing through a lobby that smells of cigarette smoke and mint tea, we push through a second, locked door and into the newsroom of Orient TV, a Syrian satellite channel run and broadcast from Dubai.

The discreet exterior is no accident. Syria’s media is at war, and with its $1.5 million monthly budget, dozens of correspondents, and four regional bureaus, Orient TV is in the middle of it.

As the Syrian conflict has unspooled over the last four years, Orient TV has earned a reputation as an opposition bulwark. A Syrian automotive exporting mogul named Ghassan Aboud founded the channel in Damascus in 2009, intending to broadcast movies and frothy serial drama programs.* But since the 2011 Arab Spring, he has used the channel to become an outspoken advocate of rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad. In addition to Orient TV, he bankrolls a chain of field hospitals in Syria. He has sent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money in the form of humanitarian aid, advocated an anti-government stance to policymakers across Western capitals, and trained a legion of young journalists in the opposition.

Along the way, Orient TV’s evolution has tracked that of the broader Syrian media. Like much of the Arab Spring, Syria’s revolution began with a flood of optimism about independent, citizen-driven news. When protesters thronged the streets, obtuse state television and radio networks played patriotic songs on loop, while satellite channels like Orient TV ran grainy cellphone videos of police firing on peaceful demonstrations. By evading censorship, platforms like Twitter and Facebook achieved two things Syria’s tightly-controlled media never had before: They gave the political opposition a voice, and they exposed to the world Syria’s brutal police state.

Within weeks, social media had helped topple decades-old despotic regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. Orient TV, like so many broadcasters covering the uprisings, tapped into this new pool of readymade sources on the ground. Its journalists built a database of as many as 9,000 Syrian activists ready to send in video and tips. International NGOs and foundations sent smartphones to activists and deployed media trainers to advise them on Skype. A new generation of citizen journalists was born, helping to grow Syria’s mobile phone penetration rate from just 46 percent in 2011 to nearly ubiquitous today.

Yet four years later, the much-vaunted media revolution hasn’t delivered the freedom or the plurality it promised. As unarmed demonstrations gave way to conventional warfare, the media, too, entered the fray. The number of citizen sources grew, but their audiences fragmented. Opposition, regime, jihadist, and ethnic media today rarely resemble one another; the stories they tell speak less to a shared reality than to the fissures between different versions of the prevailing narrative.

These days, every militia and brigade has its own YouTube channel, theme song, and social media network. And as armed groups have grown to resemble media organizations, the media has started looking like militias too: partisan, sectarian, and driven by hate speech. On social media particularly, but in the established media as well, broadcasts don’t just report the violence. With inflammatory language and provocative storylines, they actively incite it.

Orient TV has not been immune to these trends. The channel was a voice of reason in the early days of the uprising, and remains among the most professionally produced and one of the few to have reporters on the ground, breaking news few others can. But Orient TV, which describes itself as a non-partisan opposition channel, also took a side. Critics see a station that panders to a limited, Sunni revolutionary subset, adopting sectarian lingo to speak to and about most everyone else.

Syria is hardly the first conflict in which the media landscape has become a battlefield. But the rapid expansion of social media in the last few years has sped the process. The sheer volume of information the conflict has produced, and the vast number of people who are shaping it, mean that everyone is both citizen and journalist, partisan and reporter. The media war is just as real as any fighting on the ground, because many of the actors are the same. Ending the military conflict likely won’t be possible until the information battle dies down.

This explains why Orient TV operates behind unmarked doors, tucked away a dozen miles from the flashy Dubai neighborhood hosting most other satellite stations. The channel’s stance hasn’t just won it critics, but also enemies. Orient TV and its staff have been targeted by the Syrian government, the Islamic State (ISIS), and many others.

And Orient TV is fighting back. “The journalists don’t take it just as professionals; they take the revolution as their cause,” says Aboud, the owner. “They take it personally because Syria is their home.” [Continue reading…]

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Russian airstrikes force a halt to aid in Syria, triggering a new crisis

The Washington Post reports: Aid agencies are warning of a worsening humanitarian crisis in northern Syria as sharply intensified Russian airstrikes paralyze aid supply routes, knock out bakeries and hospitals and kill and maim civilians in growing numbers.

Air attacks have escalated significantly since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane along the Turkey-Syria border on Nov. 24, the aid agencies say, with Russia responding to the incident by stepping up its effort to crush the anti-government rebellion in the insurgent-held provinces bordering Turkey.

Among the targets that have been hit are the border crossings and highways used to deliver humanitarian supplies from Turkey, forcing many aid agencies to halt or curtail their aid operations and deepening the misery for millions of people living in the affected areas, according to a report this month by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Hospitals and health facilities also have been struck, reducing the availability of medical care for those injured in the bombings. According to the U.N. report, at least 20 medical facilities have been hit nationwide in Syria since Russia launched its air war on Sept. 30. [Continue reading…]

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Putin signs law allowing Russia to overturn rulings of international rights courts

Reuters reports: President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing Russia’s Constitutional Court to decide whether or not to implement rulings of international human rights courts.

The law, published on Tuesday on the government website, enables the Russian court to overturn decisions of the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if it deems them unconstitutional.

Human Rights Watch has said the law is designed to thwart the ability of victims of human rights violations in Russia to find justice through international bodies.

The law comes after the ECHR ruled in 2014 that Russia must pay a 1.9 billion euro ($2.09 billion) award to shareholders of the defunct Yukos oil company, a verdict that added to financial pressure on Moscow as it struggles with shrinking revenues due to tumbling oil prices and Western sanctions.

The ECHR said it had received 218 complaints against Russia in 2014 and that it had found 122 cases in which Moscow had violated the European Convention on Human Rights, including the deportation of Georgian citizens in 2006 and the incarceration of defendants in metal cages during Russian court hearings. [Continue reading…]

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Saudis ridiculed over ‘anti-terror’ coalition — new alliance likely to stir up sectarianism

By Brian Whitaker,

Amid widespread derision, Saudi Arabia has announced that it will lead a new military coalition to protect “the Islamic world” against terrorism.

Speaking at a news conference in Riyadh, deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman – the king’s favourite son and chief architect of the military disaster in Yemen – said the move stems from “the Islamic world’s vigilance in fighting this disease which has harmed the Islamic world first and is now harming the international community as a whole”.Saudi Arabia has put itself in charge of the coalition and, according to Prince Mohammed, “There will be an operations room in Riyadh for the coordination and support of efforts to fight terrorism in many parts of the Islamic world.”

More than 30 predominantly Muslim countries have allegedly signed up to join the coalition (full list here). They include the other Gulf monarchies, but with the notable exception of Oman which also previously declined to get involved in the war in Yemen.

The move seems partly intended as a response to complaints that Saudi Arabia is not doing enough to combat terrorism and that it is more interested in pursuing its quarrel with Iran than fighting ISIS. There has also been growing criticism of its efforts, over many years, to promote the intolerant religious ideology that now fuels ISIS and similar organisations elsewhere.

However, it looks as though the anti-terror coalition may nevertheless be designed to pursue a sectarian agenda. Judging by its reported membership, the “Islamic world” does not include Iran, the main representative of Shia Islam, or Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria – though it does reportedly include Lebanon which has a large Shia population along with large numbers of Sunni Muslims and Christians. Asked at the news conference if the coalition would only be targeting ISIS/Daesh, Prince Mohammed replied: “No. To any terrorist organisation that appears in front of us, we will take action to fight it.”

This is especially alarming because the Saudi regime has some very strange ideas about what constitutes terrorism and will presumably now be pressing other countries to accept them. Under a law introduced last year, virtually any criticism of the kingdom’s political system or its interpretation of Islam counts as terrorism:

Article 1: “Calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based.”

Article 2: “Anyone who throws away their loyalty to the country’s rulers, or who swears allegiance to any party, organization, current [of thought], group, or individual inside or outside [the kingdom].”

Article 4: “Anyone who aids [“terrorist”] organizations, groups, currents [of thought], associations, or parties, or demonstrates affiliation with them, or sympathy with them, or promotes them, or holds meetings under their umbrella, either inside or outside the kingdom; this includes participation in audio, written, or visual media; social media in its audio, written, or visual forms; internet websites; or circulating their contents in any form, or using slogans of these groups and currents [of thought], or any symbols which point to support or sympathy with them.”

Article 6: “Contact or correspondence with any groups, currents [of thought], or individuals hostile to the kingdom.”

Article 8: “Seeking to shake the social fabric or national cohesion, or calling, participating, promoting, or inciting sit-ins, protests, meetings, or group statements in any form, or anyone who harms the unity or stability of the kingdom by any means.”

Article 9: “Attending conferences, seminars, or meetings inside or outside [the kingdom] targeting the security of society, or sowing discord in society.”

Article 11: “Inciting or making countries, committees, or international organizations antagonistic to the kingdom.”Last December the cases of two women who defied the ban on driving cars were also referred to the special anti-terrorism court.

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Social media lifts Saudi women in vote

The Wall Street Journal reports: After Lama al-Sulaiman became one of Saudi Arabia’s first elected female politicians over the weekend, she celebrated her landmark victory through her Twitter account.

She expressed thanks to her supporters and said she hopes to meet their expectations. “Words of gratitude are not enough,” she tweeted.

As with many other candidates who had to campaign under restrictive rules in this absolutist monarchy, Ms. al-Sulaiman bet heavily on social media to promote her political program and to hear from voters.

Ahead of Saturday’s historic election — the first in which women were allowed to participate as voters as well as candidates — she combined face-to-face campaigning with social-media outreach to secure a seat in the local council of her hometown, the coastal city of Jeddah.

“Saudi Arabia is ready for women in politics,” said Ms. al-Sulaiman, the entrepreneur behind a woman-only fitness club and one of at least a dozen women who won a seat in Saturday’s nationwide municipal election.

That Saudi Arabia has one of the highest rates of social-media use in the world — there are an estimated five million Twitter users in the country — helps explain the ease in which candidates promoted their campaigns and articulated their priorities. [Continue reading…]

Michael Stephens writes: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s recent municipal elections is not usually a story most international observers would spend an awful lot of time on. But the election of 19 women from some 2,100 candidates has focused attention for the first time on the role of women in a country which has over the years received much criticism for its perceived imbalance of gender.

While fewer than one percent of the successful candidates were female, make no mistake, this is a big moment for Saudi. Thirty women already sit in Saudi Arabia’s 150-member parliament, known as the Shura Council, but they are appointed directly by the king. So the election of women by the public is a welcome step which in the eyes of many commentators – indeed many Saudis – is long overdue.

There is much more to be done, the next most likely step being the normalisation of driving for men and women. But as with all things in the kingdom, change happens slowly and at its own pace. [Continue reading…]

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