Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. Photo/Wikimedia.

Human Rights Watch is charging that, despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy, the reality is that it left behind a “budding police state” —  cracking down harshly during 2011 on freedom of expression and assembly by intimidating, beating, and detaining activists, demonstrators, and journalists.

The organization’s Middle East and North Africa director, Sarah Leah Whitson, warns that “Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism as its security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists, and torture detainees.”

Its World Report 2012 attributes the downward trajectory to the security services of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki” and armed gangs.

The report notes that in February, HRW “uncovered a secret detention facility controlled by elite security forces who report to the military office of the Prime Minister. The report added, “The same elite divisions controlled Camp Honor, a separate facility in Baghdad where detainees were tortured with impunity.”

The 676-page report report says, “Given the violent forces resisting the “Arab Spring,” the international community has an important role to play in assisting the birth of rights-respecting democracies in the region.”

The report documents a wide range of human rights abuses. For example, it says, “In the weeks before the last convoy of US troops left Iraq on December 18, Iraqi security forces rounded up hundreds of Iraqis accused of being former Baath Party members, most of whom remain in detention without charge.”

The pullout of U.S. troops has been marked by an “apolitical crisis and a series of terrorist attacks targeting civilians that have rocked the country.” But Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence is not new and is unconnected to the US exit. A number of US Embassy cables released by Wikileaks refer to the torture of prisoners in Iraqi custody and of knowledge of some of it by US troops.

The annual report, which covers the state of human rights in some 90 countries, says that, during nationwide demonstrations in Iraq to “protest widespread corruption and demand greater civil and political rights,” security forces “violently dispersed protesters, killing at least 12 on February 25, and injuring more than 100. Baghdad security forces beat unarmed journalists and protesters that day, smashing cameras and confiscating memory cards.”

Earlier in the year, “in one of the worst incidents, government-backed thugs armed with wooden planks, knives, and iron pipes, beat and stabbed peaceful protesters and sexually molested female demonstrators as security forces stood by and watched, sometimes laughing at the victims,” the report charges.

In May, the report says, the Council of Ministers approved a Law on the Freedom of Expression of Opinion, Assembly, and Peaceful Demonstration, which “authorizes officials to restrict freedom of assembly to protect ‘the public interest’ and in the interest of ‘general order or public morals.’ This law still awaits parliamentary approval.

HRW comments that freedom of expression fared little better as “security forces routinely abused journalists covering demonstrations, using threats, arbitrary arrests, beatings, and harassment, and confiscating or destroying their equipment.”

On September 8, the report says, “An unknown assailant shot to death Hadi al-Mahdi, a popular radio journalist often critical of government corruption and social inequality, at his home in Baghdad. Immediately before his death, HRW says al-Mahdi had received several phone and text message threats not to return to Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, which was the focal point for the weekly demonstrations.”

Earlier, after attending the February 25 “Day of Anger” mass demonstration, security forces arrested, blindfolded, and severely beat him and three other journalists during a subsequent interrogation,” HRW says.

In January 2012, HRW says it “observed that Iraqi authorities had successfully curtailed the Tahrir Square anti-government demonstrations by
flooding the weekly protests with pro-government supporters and undercover security agents. Dissenting activists and independent journalists for the most part said that they no longer felt safe attending the demonstrations.”

The report continues, “Prison brutality, including torture in detention facilities, was a major problem throughout the year. In February, Human Rights Watch uncovered, within the Camp Justice military base in Baghdad, a secret detention facility controlled by elite security forces who report to al-Maliki’s military office.”

Beginning in late 2010, the report charges, Iraqi authorities transferred more than 280 detainees to the facility, which was controlled by the Army’s 56th Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Service.

HRW added that “the same elite divisions controlled Camp Honor, a separate facility in Baghdad where detainees were tortured with impunity. More than a dozen former Camp Honor detainees told Human Rights Watch that detainees were held incommunicado and in inhumane conditions, many for months at a time. Detainees said interrogators beat them; hung them upside down for hours at a time; administered electric shocks to various body parts, including the genitals; and repeatedly put plastic bags over their heads until they passed out from asphyxiation.”

HRW also weighed in on the human rights situation in Iraqi Kurdistan. In what it called the “Silenced Spring,” HRW’s Samer Muscati recounts that  the Kurdistan Regional Government “promised a new era of freedom for Iraqi Kurds, but it seems no more respectful of Kurdish rights to free speech than the government that preceded it.”

He added, “In a time when the Middle East is erupting in demands to end repression, the Kurdish authorities are trying to stifle and intimidate critical journalism.”

In March, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 20 journalists in Kurdistan covering the protests and found that security forces and their proxies routinely repress journalists through threats, arbitrary arrests, beatings, and harassment, and by confiscating and destroying their equipment.

And Iraqi authorities appear to be pulling no punches. Zana Ali Ghazi, 32, a reporter for the Kurdistan News Network (KNN), a satellite television channel affiliated with the Kurdish opposition party, Goran, said that while he was trying to report on a protest in the city of Saeed Sadiq on March 15, “eight armed men, some in uniform, cracked three of his ribs and beat him with wooden clubs and Kalashnikovs until he lost consciousness. ‘They told me that if I continued to cover this type of news, they would kill me’,” Ghazi told HRW.

Kurdistan authorities have repeatedly tried to silence Livin Magazine, one of Iraqi Kurdistan’s leading independent publications, and other media. The international community should end its silence and condemn these widening
attacks, Human Rights Watch said.

A Livin reporter told Human Rights Watch that when he called the Minister of Peshmerga (Kurdistan security forces), on April 24, the minister threatened Livin’s editor, Mira, with death. The reporter says the conversation is on tape but that no one from the Iraqi authorities had made any move to investigate.

In Sulaimaniya on the night of May 11, security forces detained and beat a Kurdistan News Network reporter, Bryar Namiq, breaking his hand.

In Arbil, two journalists, who HRW says are afraid to be named for fear of reprisal, charged that on May 18 eight men in civilian clothes chased after them in late April. The men appeared in two vehicles on the street just before the journalists were supposed to meet with a regional official who had asked for a meeting with some members of the media.

HRW says the journalists believe that the men were plainclothes security forces who were aware of the meeting and were trying to kidnap them.

The HRW Report says that Soran Umar, a protest organizer and freelance journalist, has been in hiding since April 19. “I have not slept at home since then,” he told Human Rights Watch on May 17. “My sin is that I am criticizing the undemocratic acts of KRG and the two ruling parties, that is all. The security forces have tried to kidnap me, and they have ordered my arrest. They even tried to kidnap my son.”

These examples appear to be a small fraction of abuses carried out by Iraqi government authorities against journalists — Reporters Without Borders has tallied 44 physical attacks against media workers and outlets and 23 arrests.

Which prompted this thought from HRW’s Sarah Leah Whitson: “Eight years after the United States removed Saddam Hussein in the name of protecting the rights of Kurds, it is standing by silently as the government it helped to install in Kurdistan abuses and represses the population. US President Obama noted in his speech on May 20 the flourishing democracy in Iraq, but the reality is that government-sponsored fear and repression continue to fester there.”

William Fisher has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the international affairs area in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He began his working life as a reporter and bureau chief for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Associated Press in Florida. He now reports on a wide-range of issues for a number of online journals.

Baltazar Garzón. Photo/Wikimedia

The Spanish Judge whose work triggered the investigation that nabbed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet back in 1998 believes that Spain could bring charges against six Bush Jr. administration officials for clearing the way for the use of torture during the Iraq war – but he is being blocked by charges making him the culprit.

On 17 January 2012, Al Jazeera reported that Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon had “gone on trial in the country’s Supreme Court on [three separate] charges of abusing judicial powers.”

According to West Chester University history professor Lawrence Davidson, Spanish and US authorities want even the remotest possibility of charges against Bush Administration officials to go away – quietly. To this end Spain is attempting to silence “a very important truth-teller (who has) conducted a number of investigations into violations of international law against torture.”

The truth-teller is Baltasar Garzón Real, 57, the Spanish jurist who in 1998 obtained a request for the extradition from the UK of former Chilean president, General, Augusto Pinochet, for the alleged deaths and torture of Spanish citizens. The former dictator was undergoing medical treatment in London.

Garzón was indicted in April 2010 for exceeding his authority when investigating crimes committed by the Franco regime that were included in an amnesty, and suspended on 14 May 2010, pending trial. He has been given permission to work as a consultant at the International Criminal Court.

Garzon used the principle of universal jurisdiction to go after Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet back in 1998, and said in March 2009 that Spain could now use the same principle to bring charges against Bush Jr. officials.

He charged that, “At least four men who are Spanish citizens, and also former prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison, have accused the U.S. military of torturing them.”

It was at this point, Davidson claims, that the U .S. government appears to have placed Garzon in a category that would also include Wikileaks case figures, (Pfc. Bradley) Manning and impresario Julian) Assange – “the category of the dangerous truth-teller.”

Davidson notes that the U.S. Ambassador to Spain in 2009, Eduardo Aguirre, describes his actions (in a diplomatic cable made public by Wikileaks in 2010) in relation to the Garzon investigation as follows, “…behind the scenes we have fought tooth and nail to make the charges disappear.”

Davidson says the significant word here is “disappear” for “there are two approaches to suppressing an unwanted truth. The first is to create a counter-story that makes the truth appear untrue. The second is to simply suppress all evidence, all references, all interest so that the particular truth just ‘disappears’.”

He declares that the U.S. ambassador, Eduardo Aguirre, “managed to get the cooperation of Spain’s Chief Prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, who is quoted in another U.S. diplomatic cable (also made public by Wikileaks) to the effect that he had a plan to ‘embarrass’ Garzon into dropping his case against the Bush officials by misrepresenting Garzon’s actions in previous cases. This sounds like a bit of blackmail.”

However, he adds, Garzon did not relent and now he is on trial for “abusing judicial powers” in this and other cases.

Garzon and his supporters, which include almost every human rights group on the planet, claim that the charges are politically motivated and, “to be sure, the entire affair appears similar to the questionable rape charge facing Assange in Sweden.”

Davidson documents that the U.S. Ambassador to Spain in 2009, Eduardo Aguirre, described his actions (in a diplomatic cable made public by Wikileaks in 2010) in relation to the Garzon investigation. He wrote:

“…behind the scenes we have fought tooth and nail to make the charges disappear.” The significant word here is “disappear” for there are two approaches to suppressing an unwanted truth. The first is to create a counter-story that makes the truth appear untrue. The second is to simply suppress all evidence, all references, all interest so that the particular truth just “disappears.”

Davidson says, “This is precisely the outcome the U.S. government would like to see.”

He notes that Aguirre managed to get the cooperation of Spain’s Chief Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza, who is quoted in another U.S. diplomatic cable (also made public by Wikileaks), to the effect that he had a plan to “embarrass” Garzon into dropping his case against the Bush officials by misrepresenting Garzon’s actions in previous cases. “This sounds like a bit of blackmail,” Davidson says.

He adds that Garzon did not relent and now he is on trial for “abusing judicial powers” in this and other cases.

“Garzon and his supporters, which include almost every human rights group on the planet, claim that the charges are politically motivated and, to be sure, the entire affair appears similar to the questionable rape charge facing Assange in Sweden,”  Davidson charges.

In the case of Garzon, the Spanish Public Prosecutor (different than the Chief Prosecutor) has recommended acquittal on all three charges and yet there is still serious doubt that this will happen. If he is found guilty on any of the charges, Garzon “could be banned from serving as a judge for 20 years, in what would be a career-ending blow.”

Davidson says, “This is precisely the outcome the U.S. government would like to see.”

The good news is that this battle to silence Garzon” has not yet intimidated all other Spanish judges.” On January 20, another Spanish judge , Pablo Rafael Gutierrez, took up the case of the former Spanish citizens who allege torture at Guantanamo Bay. This judge, again used the principle of universal jurisdiction, and noted that the United States government has consistently refused to investigate the Spanish citizen’s charges.

James Goldston, the executive director of Open Society Justice Initiative, described the situation this way, “These crimes [such as torture] are universal crimes and it is very clear that until the United States holds to account those responsible for these crimes, other judicial actors in other countries are going to press for accountability.”

Davidson concurs. He says, “The most powerful and influential government in the world, the one with its capital in Washington, D.C., is going to fight to halt these foreign efforts. And so, we have a war that seeks to replace the truth with either lies or historical black holes.”

“One of the major themes of George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, is the control of information…if government can control all media and all public records it can either impose a lie as truth or simply make selected past events disappear from society’s collective memory,” Davidson recalls.

“Who controls the past…controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Is this not what the United States government is trying to do in the case of its policy of torture: manipulate and hide the truth so people will ignore it and then forget it? And is this not what almost every country tries to do relative to their present crimes or those embedded in their pasts?

Davidson finds it “really amazing just how common this sort of manipulation is. And, the reason it is relatively easy for governments to get away with it is because the average man and woman cares mainly about little truths and not big ones.”

He continues: “Little truths are local truths. Don’t be misled to think that little means unimportant because that is not the case. Little truths are the truths that make possible successful daily interactions and that, of course, makes them very important indeed. Thus, one major reason life can go on relatively smoothly is that, most of the time, you can take as true what others tell you. That this is so means we can rely on friends, have stable relationships with spouses and children, and maintain successfully operating offices, business arrangements, etc. When the little truths start to become lies, these relationships break down.”

And finally, “Alleged big truths are the ones governments and the major media outlets tell the masses. When the U.S. government tells its citizens that unregulated capitalism will make the nation strong and prosperous, or that there must be a war to prevent Iraq from using weapons of mass destruction; when the major American media outlets tell their viewers and readers that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons or Israel is ‘just like us’,” they are shaping perceptions that are not just local but regional and national. The problem is that, historically, most alleged big truths turn out to be big lies.”

He concludes: “Yet truth-tellers, like Manning, Assange and Garzon have good historical memories and they do notice and do care. They realize that when big truths turn out to be big lies people suffer–they suffer in the millions, bombs range down from the skies, economies falter and the public sphere of life becomes like a poisoned well. That is why accountability for the crimes hidden behind big lies is so important. That is why no government, no politician, no media organization should be allowed to manipulate the truth about the past or the present. On this the future depends.”

William Fisher has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the international affairs area in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He began his working life as a reporter and bureau chief for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Associated Press in Florida. He now reports on a wide-range of issues for a number of online journals.

Photo: USAID/Egypt

Predicting that the current Middle East unrest would continue through 2012, Amnesty International is slamming Western governments for their tepid responses to peaceful protests, for their “double standard,” and for being more concerned with preserving their political and economic interests than with the historic changes sweeping the region.

The charges are being made in a new Amnesty report, “Year of Rebellion: State of Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa.”

The Report says, “Many powerful governments performed political somersaults or continued to ignore human rights violations in the region.” They “sought to protect their own political and economic interests” through  the varying and inconsistent reactions of foreign powers saying they were looking out for their own instead of truly looking after protesters dying in pursuit of legitimate freedoms and rights.”

It says there was an initial reluctance to support the protest movements by western governments, citing the initial silence of the French government on Tunisia and the US administration on Egypt. The US supported Mubarak until his “refusal to resign risked a much deeper social revolution and a much greater threat to the status quo in the region.”

The report was also critical of the UN’s responses, despite the gross human rights violations perpetrated against peaceful protesters across the region.

Amnesty International has three million members and supporters in more than 150 countries.

It contrasted the UN Security Council’s fast response after Libya’s uprising took off, sanctioning a no-fly zone and airstrikes (which it then said surpassed its mandate to “protect civilians”), and the slow and non-existent responses when it came to Syria and Bahrain.

The report also cited the late condemnation by the Security Council of human rights violations in Yemen, saying that it urged Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh to sign a power transfer deal which granted him immunity, an act prohibited by the UN Secretary General’s directives, it argued. That deal was approved by the Yemeni parliament yesterday.

Nor did the European Union’s (EU) response escape criticism. The report said, “The initial reaction [of the EU] was limited to sanitized statements calling for restraint by all sides and negotiations.”

It added: “The EU continued its long-standing relations with repressive states in the region and opted for diplomatic advances rather than openly condemning human rights violations,”

It said that the EU’s belated offers of financial support for pro-democracy and pro-human rights – while a positive development – is seemingly being stalled by the EU.

It blamed the EU for continuing its policies that subordinated human rights to trade and energy interests, which led it to provide political and financial support to authoritarian governments in the Middle East and North Africa.

Amnesty focused special attention on what it called the “double standards” it claimed are present across all the major uprisings taking place in the Arab World in 2011.

The “disjuncture between the words and deeds of powerful governments and institutions were exposed and undermined. It can only be hoped that the year of rebellion signals an end to policies that put an illusory ‘stability.’

Mideast protests and government repression will continue through 2012, the organization predicted.

“With few exceptions, governments have failed to recognize that everything has changed,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s interim Middle East and North Africa director, said in the report.

“The protest movements across the region, led in many cases by young people and with women playing central roles, have proved astonishingly resilient in the face of sometimes staggering repression.

“They want concrete changes to the way they are governed and for those responsible for past crimes to be held to account. But persistent attempts by states to offer cosmetic changes, to push back against gains made by protesters or to simply brutalize their populations into submission betray the fact that for many governments, regime survival remains their aim,” he said.

The 80-page report, which describes 2011 as “historic” and “tumultuous,” discusses the rights issue in each country where uprisings, protests and countering repression took place. Other subjects such as promoting human rights in the region and what the organization has achieved on the ground during the revolutions are also included.

Most of the countries currently in turmoil were singled out for criticism.

In Egypt, Amnesty found that the military rulers had been responsible for abuses that were “in some aspects worse than under Hosni Mubarak”.  About 84 people had died under violent suppression between October and December last year, while more civilians had been tried before military courts in one year than under 30 years of his rule, it said.

In Tunisia, it was “critical” that a new constitution was drafted to ensure it guaranteed protection of human rights and equality under the law, the report said.

Amnesty also criticized international powers and regional bodies for “inconsistencies” in their response to the situations in Libya, Syria and Bahrain, and of “failing to grasp the depth of the challenge to entrenched repressive rule”.

The report noted that Bahrain set up acommittee to investigate what happened during the unrest and brutal crackdown, by commissioning an independent inquiry.  The inquiry’s results, reported in October 2011, criticized the government for using excessive force and torture, as well as making arbitrary arrests. This critcism was accepted by the King, who vowed to make amends and punish culprits. He said that the time for action is now, while the people still have hope for a new future….”

Amnesty International, in its statement said, “The call for justice, freedom and dignity has evolved into a global demand that grows stronger every day. The genie is out of the bottle and the forces of repression cannot put it back.”

William Fisher has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the international affairs area in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He began his working life as a reporter and bureau chief for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Associated Press in Florida. He now reports on a wide-range of issues for a number of online journals.

Protesters hold a banner with the faces of political prisoners during a protest in the Persian Gulf coast town of Awwamiya on March 3, 2011. Photo/filesfromtoni.blogspot.com.

The Arab Spring has been greeted in Saudi Arabia by “a new wave of repression” that saw authorities arresting and imprisoning peaceful protesters demanding political reforms. Now, the Saudi crackdown may be reinforced by a draft anti-terror law that would effectively criminalize dissent as a “terrorist crime.”

In a new 61-page report, “Saudi Arabia: Repression in the Name of Security,” Amnesty International (AI) said authorities have “used security concerns to justify the arrest of hundreds of people who have been imprisoned after unfair trials.” The draft anti-terror law would further strip away rights from those accused of such offenses, Amnesty said.

“Peaceful protesters and supporters of political reform in the country have been targeted for arrest in an attempt to stamp out the kinds of call for reform that have echoed across the region,” said Philip Luther of AI.

“While the arguments used to justify this wide-ranging crackdown may be different, the abusive practices being employed by the Saudi Arabian government are worryingly similar to those which they have long used against people accused of terrorist offenses,” he said.

AI said that the government “continues to detain thousands of people, many of them without charge or trial, on terrorism-related grounds. Torture and other ill-treatment in detention remain rife.”

In April 2011, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said that around 5,000 people connected to the “deviant group,” meaning al-Qa’ida, had been questioned and referred for trials, Amnesty said.

Meanwhile, Saudi troops continue to serve in Bahrain on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), helping the rulers of the tiny oil-rich monarchy to put an end to many months of peaceful demonstrations seeking reform.

In a statement following AI’s release of the draft law, the Saudi government said it “absolutely has a responsibility to protect the public from violent attacks, but that has to be done within the boundaries of international law.” It said the new draft law is designed “to assist Saudi Security forces in tackling terrorist activity.”

But AI charges it would “allow the authorities to prosecute peaceful dissent as a terrorist crime.”

The organization says it has obtained copies of the Draft Penal Law for Terrorism Crimes and Financing of Terrorism. It says, “If passed it would pave the way for even the smallest acts of peaceful dissent to be branded terrorism and risk massive human rights violations.”

A Saudi Arabian government security committee reviewed the draft law in June but it is not known when or if it might be passed.

AI says that since February, when sporadic demonstrations began — in defiance of a permanent national ban on protests — the government carried out a crackdown that included the arrest of hundreds of mostly Shi’a Muslims in the restive eastern province.

Since March over 300 people who took part in peaceful protests in al-Qatif, al-Ahsa and Awwamiya have been detained.

Khaled al-Johani, 40, the only man to demonstrate on the March 11 “Day of Rage” in Riyadh, was swiftly arrested. He told journalists he was frustrated by media censorship in Saudi Arabia. Charged with supporting a protest and communicating with foreign media, he is believed to have been held in solitary confinement for two months, Amnesty said.

“Nine months later, he remains in detention and has not been tried. A number of people who have spoken up in support of protests or reform have been arrested. Sheikh Tawfiq Jaber Ibrahim al-”Amr, a Shi’a cleric, was arrested for the second time this year in August for calling for reform at a mosque. He has been charged with “inciting public opinion,” AI said.

On November 22, 16 men, including nine prominent reformists, were sentenced to five to 30 years in prison on charges they formed a secret organization, attempted to seize power, financed terrorism as well as incitement against the King and money laundering.

Amnesty says their trial, which began in May, was grossly unfair. “The defendants were blindfolded and handcuffed and their lawyer was not allowed to enter the court for the first three sessions,” AI said. “Unless it were radically altered, the proposed draft anti-terror law would make the current situation even worse, as it would entrench and make legal the very worst practices we have documented,” according to AI’s Luther.

The draft law allows for suspects to be held in incommunicado detention for up to 120 days, or for longer periods — potentially indefinitely — if authorized by a specialized court.

Under the draft law, terrorist crimes would include such actions as “endangering”national unity”, “halting the basic law or some of its articles”, or “harming the reputation of the state or its position.”

Violations of the law would carry harsh punishments. The death penalty would be applied to cases of taking up arms against the state or for any “terrorist crimes” that result in death.

Amnesty charges that a number of other key provisions in the draft law run counter to Saudi Arabia’s international legal obligations, including those under the UN Convention against Torture.

Amnesty is calling on King Abdullah to “reconsider this law and ensure that his people’s legitimate right to freedom of expression is not curtailed in the name of fighting terrorism.”

Prof. Chip Pitts of Stanford and Oxford, former Chair of Amnesty International USA, commented on the proposed new law.

“Having just renewed the USA Patriot Act, the United States has sadly continued to set the stage for and model such counterproductive, harsh, and illegal approaches, and undermined its ability to credibly and effectively question them,” he said, adding:

“The myopic and reactionary approach taken in the new Saudi draft law, which would violate the country’s obligations under international human rights law, shows that the Kingdom is battening down the hatches and preparing for a long period of continued feudal rule that contradicts the very premises of expanding human rights that have swept the world in recent centuries.”

“Neglecting the lessons of the Arab Spring — that repression ultimately breeds instability and violence — the Saudi regime apparently prefers to look backwards to an error of medieval justice and absolute monarchical power which brooks no dissent. Such backwardness condemns the Saudi regime to greater isolation over time, and the Saudi people and businesses to constricted options for economic and social development, unless wiser heads prevail and move toward more progressive instead of regressive laws,” he said.

Prof. Lawrence Davidson, who teaches history at West Chester University, sees the proposed new law in its longer-term context.

He said, “Laws like this essentially blur the lines between the criminal and the authorities. It makes it much harder to tell who is who. Presently, there are two aspects to Saudi power: Force of questionable legitimacy and the ability to buy the loyalty of a portion of their population. In a couple of generations the latter may well go away and then former will probably prove insufficient. This law will not lessen the probability that last of the Saudi royal line dying in exile.”

William Fisher has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the international affairs area in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He began his working life as a reporter and bureau chief for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Associated Press in Florida. He now reports on a wide-range of issues for a number of online journals.

The reason for the raids is still unclear, but it is known that these are among the not-for-profit groups who have registered strong objections to the so-called NGO law drafted by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) IN November 2011.

According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), officers – in uniform and civilian clothes – raided the Arab Center for Independence of Justice and Legal Professions (ACIJP) and The Budgetary and Human Rights Observatory, both Egyptian NGOs; The National Democratic Institute (NDI), an American NGO with offices in Cairo and Assuit); the International Republican Institute (IRI), an American organization with an office in Cairo; Freedom House, an American organization with an office in Egypt, and Konrad Adenauer, a German NGO.

The staff members of these organizations were reportedly held in their offices while. Police searched their papers, laptops and computers.

Staff members of the six organizations were warned from using their cell phones, laptops and computers; and were isolated from contact with the outside world. Additionally, with regards to the ACIJP office at least, authorities restricted access to the entire building, preventing people from entering or exiting the building.

ANHRI said that “storming these offices is related to the campaign led by the Supreme Council for Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Egyptian government starting from June 2011 against civil society organizations and more specifically human rights groups in Egypt.”

The NDI, IRI, and Freedom House have been previously investigated by the ministry of justice on charges of receiving foreign funding, while the Arab Center for the Independence of Justice and Legal Professions has not been yet investigated. An Investigation of the Budgetary and Human Rights Observatory was due to start next Sunday, January 1, 2012.

ANHRI said the storming of NGO offices is “an unprecedented move in the recent history of Egyptian NGOs,” adding that in February 2011, during the 18 days Egyptian revolution, “Military Police stormed the office of Hisham Mubarak Law Center, an Egyptian NGO based in Cairo, and arrested several of its members as well as staff members of other international organizations who were present at the scene.”

The Egyptian newspaper, Al Ahram, reported, “In Mubarak’s time the government never dared to do such a thing,” said prominent human rights activists Negad El-Bourai on his Twitter account.”

“We are still not sure of anything,” said Emad Mubarak from the Freedom of Expression Center, “however their excuse could be that they are auditing the files after accusations that many NGOs are receiving foreign funds.”

In August, a group of Egyptian NGOs  sent an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, the Rights to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, and on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders. It is unclear what action the UN body took.

Thirty-nine Egyptian NGOs participated in the appeal, submitting a complaint condemning the campaign against civil society associations and the incitement to hatred, as well as government attempts to further restrict the activities of these organizations and the investigations launched by the Supreme State Security Prosecution.

In November, 2011, these 39 human rights and development organizations drafted a new law to regulate NGOs and sent a copy to then Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.

The proposed law provided for the autonomy of Egyptian civil society organizations from the state and its administrative apparatus. At the same time, it guaranteed the transparent operation of these organizations in terms of their activities and sources of funding. Under the proposed law, civil society groups and NGOs could be established by notification at a primary court, and the Ministry of Justice would be the competent administrative body. The law also provided for the freedom to join and form international and local networks and alliances. No action has been taken on this draft law.

ANHRI said that, “Since their formation human rights organizations have been at the forefront of proposing laws to liberate civic action. This law is one of many proposed since 1985. In 2009, during the Mubarak era, an alternative law was proposed by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights; however, it was disregarded by the regime.”

The group added,” In light of the continuation of the Mubarak regimes policy towards civil society organizations, including interference in civil society operations by the administrative and security sectors, the undersigned organizations now proffer the same law in a new initiative joined by several more groups. In addition, a media campaign has been launched to smear civil society, particularly human rights groups, in order to damage the credibility of their reports and their criticisms of the human rights record of the SCAF and its government.

ANHRI went further. It said this campaign has recently “taken more deplorable measures even than what was attempted by Mubarak himself. The undersigned organizations propose this law as a democratic alternative to the current law, passed in 2002, which gives arbitrary powers to the Ministry of Social Solidarity and Justice and permits daily intervention by the security apparatus in the operation of civil society associations and NGOs.

The group said its alternative law was “drafted with due consideration for international standards, aiming to rectify the current law’s incompatibility with such standards, as this incompatibility was a constant source of criticism of the Egyptian government, especially during the UN Universal Periodic Review of the human rights record in Egypt conducted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2010.”

It noted that one of the recommendations to the Egyptian government was to “pass legislation that allows NGOs to accept foreign funding without prior government approval, legislation that allows for increased freedom of association and assembly, and legislation allowing labor unions to operate without joining the Egyptian Trade Union Federation”.

The 39 signatories to the letter of objection said that, after the January 25 Revolution, they “hoped that civil society would be freed from the bureaucratic grasp of the state and its security apparatus and that it would be given the opportunity to perform its patriotic role by entrenching democratic norms, respect for human rights, and social justice in post-revolution Egypt.”

However, they added, “this hope soon faded in light of the unchanged mindset of the regime and its failure in administering the transitional phase. In fact, the investigating authorities currently looking into the activities of human rights groups are relying on reports prepared by the dissolved State Security Investigations of the Mubarak era – the very apparatus whose practices were one of the main reasons Egyptians revolted to bring down the regime.”

The signatories concluded, “It is a bitter irony that the interim government and the SCAF are using the same justifications espoused by the extreme right-wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu to force through legal amendments to limit the freedom of human rights organizations in Israel on the pretext of protecting Israeli national security. This is the justification cited by the Egyptian regime in its current assault on human rights groups—“protecting Egyptian national security”—to use legal, administrative, and security means to harass human rights groups with the goal of covering up crimes committed by the regime.”

“While Israel hopes to silence those defending the rights of the Arab minority and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Egyptian regime seeks to silence those who decry its practices, such as the use of excessive force against unarmed demonstrators, the referral of civilians to military trials, torture by the military police, the Maspero massacre of Copts, and other crimes,” they said.

NDI and IRI were created in 1983 as two of the four core institutes of the US National Endowment for Democracy, which was established by Congress in that year to act as a grant-making foundation, distributing funds to private organizations for the purpose of promoting democracy abroad. The two organizations correspond to the political parties bearing their respective names.

Freedom House was established in 1941 with the quiet encouragement of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its initial mission was to encourage popular support for American involvement in World War II at a time when isolationist sentiments were running high in the United States.  Today it is best known for the publication “Freedom in the World”, the Freedom House annual survey of global policies and civil liberties, which it began in 1973.

The 39 signatories to today ANHRI statement included such groups as the   Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the  Egyptian Organization for Human Rights the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid, the Human Rights Association for the Assistance of the Prisoners, the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, the Group for Human Rights Legal Aid, the Land Center for Human Rights, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, and the Hisham Mubarak Law Center.

What does all this mean in terms of the January revolution? The Public Record asked an American aid consultant who has lived in Cairo for 25 years. He told us it’s not absolutely safe to use his name, but this is what he told us:

“The smear campaign conducted by the SCAF against civil society groups is appalling. No one has a clue about what they’re thinking, but they’ve apparently swallowed Mubarak’s whole story about non-profit groups being responsible for Egypt’s unrest. The fact is that these organizations are the last line of defense against authoritarian, capricious and senseless limitation  of  these groups’ abilities. With SCAF in charge, we really didn’t need a revolution!”

William Fisher has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the international affairs area in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He began his working life as a reporter and bureau chief for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Associated Press in Florida. He now reports on a wide-range of issues for a number of online journals.

Protester camp outside the main square. Photo: Yana Kunichoff/Truthout

The United Nations’ top human rights official is calling on tiny, oil-rich  Bahrain to release prisoners detained for joining peaceful demonstrations earlier this year, and to restore the jobs of thousands of people who were dismissed for joining the protest.

Navi Pillay said in a statement that this action should be taken as a confidence-building measure.

Bahrain’s Human Rights activists applauded her statement. Faisal Fulad, Secretary General of Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society, said in response, “We have expressed all along that the government needs to show its commitment in order to gain the trust and respect of the people.”

He added: “The reforms agreed to in the National Dialogue, and the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) should be implemented immediately and those held for championing democracy must be released.”

Bahrain has been torn apart by peaceful protests met by armed responses following initial demonstrations for democratic rights made by the people during February and March this year. A strong crackdown by the government led to thousands of arrests and trials that took place under military rule during a state of emergency.

It was during this time that the Gulf Cooperation Council dispatched several thousand Saudi Arabian motorized troops to Bahrain to assist the Bahraini government to maintain order and re-establish stability.

Bahrain’s leadership, including the King, has since admitted that excessive force was used during the crackdown and that those responsible will be brought to justice.

To the surprise of virtually everyone, King Hamad appointed an independent commission to investigate the tense situation in the country and make recommendations for bringing the conflict to a peaceful end. Headed by a distinguished Egyptian judge, Cherif Bassiouni, and funded by the government.

According to a new report from Human Rights First, a US-based legal advocacy group, Judge Bassiouni stood in front of the King of Bahrain and largely confirmed what the world’s leading international human rights organizations and media outlets had been saying for months:

Thousands of people were illegally arrested, many were tortured;  detainees were subjected to unfair trials; several people died in custody; dozens had been killed in the streets; thousands of workers and students were dismissed for perceived association with the democracy protests; there were some attacks on expat workers; there had been a series of attacks on Shi’a places of worship.

King Hamad is a Sunni Muslim, as are all the senior figures in the government and in the Royal Family’s circle of friends and confidantes. The majority of Bahrainis, however, is Shia. They have been complaining against discrimination in employment, housing and finance for many years. Bahrain has a large cadre of senior workers imported from abroad.

King Hamad said he was “dismayed” by the findings of the report concerning the use of torture, and pledged reforms.

“We do not tolerate the mistreatment of detainees and prisoners,” he said.

The King promised to implement a series of recommendations contained in the Commission’s 500-page report. However, since the report’s release, the Bahrain regime has not significantly altered its behavior.

Police continue to attack protestors and funeral mourners. Those imprisoned after being convicted on the basis of tortured confessions have not been released. Those who appear to be detained on the basis of peacefully exercising their freedoms of expression or assembly are still imprisoned.

King Hamad has ordered the establishment of a committee to “follow up and implement” the BICI recommendations. It is expected to report by the end of February 2012 and to make suggestions “including the recommendations to make the necessary amendments to the legislation and the application of the recommendations.” It includes the Minister for Justice.

But human rights activists told HRF some of those on the commission are “part of the problem,” and so “can’t be part of the solution.”

King Hamad has taken a number of steps, largely focusing on personnel. He removed the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), Sheikh Khalifa bin Abdullah Al Khalifa. The NSA was heavily criticized in the BICI report for its use of excessive force. However, it would appear that Sheikh Al Khalifa has been promoted, and made the Secretary-General of the Supreme Defence Council and a National Security Adviser to the King with ministerial rank.

He has also made two top appointments to the police. John Timoney, formerly chief of police in Miami, Florida, will take on a similar post in Bahrain. He will be assisted by another new hire, the former chief of the UK’s Metropolitan Police, John Yates, who quit amid phone-hacking scandal will overhaul Middle East kingdom’s force.

On December 7, the Bahrain government announced that the King “forgave” a group of athletes who had criticized him and would drop charges against them, although did not say it would free other athletes already sentenced.

Shiite Muslim doctors look back with horror at months of torture and demand a neutral hearing now that they are out on bail pending retrial for their role in pro-democracy protests.

“I can’t talk,” sobbed consultant paediatrician Nader Dawani, recounting how he was forced to stand up for seven days, while being beaten repeatedly, mainly by a female officer.

“She was the harshest. She used to hit me with a hose and wooden canes, many of which broke on my back,” said the frail 54-year-old man.

“They attempted to insert a bottle in my anus,” he recounted.

Dawani is one of a group of medics arrested after security forces in the kingdom ruled by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty crushed a Shiite-led uprising inspired by Arab Spring protests that toppled the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt.

They face a plethora of charges, the most serious of which is occupying the Salmaniya Medical Centre and possessing weapons, while denying access to the hospital to Sunnis as Shiite demonstrators camped in the complex’s car park.

The doctors also stand accused of spreading false news — particularly concerning the condition of wounded protesters — illegal acquisition of medicines and medical facilities, and participating in demonstrations.

Thirteen were convicted by a military court on September 29 and sentenced to between five and 10 years in jail. But before the verdict was handed down, they had already been released and now face retrial before a civil appeals court.

Claims that torture was used against scores of Shiite detainees, including the medics, were upheld in November by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry.

Many Shiite medics who were not arrested, like consultant neurosurgeon Taha al-Derazi, lost their jobs just for being photographed at a demonstration.

The medics insist they are innocent. The commission’s report stated the charges that they inflated the number of protesters injured were unfounded, noting that hospital records showed hundreds were admitted during mid-February.

“All my statements to media were related to the wounded,” said consultant orthopaedic surgeon Ali Alekri, insisting he did not meddle in politics and only led demonstrations against the then health minister who was later sacked.

“Our slogans were clear: sack the minister and his administration for failing to protect medics, halting ambulance movement when needed and giving false information on numbers of casualties,” he said.

“We never called for the fall of the regime,” he added.

Alekri said the medics “need a neutral body,” an “international judicial body” to judge them. “We don’t trust the Bahraini judicial system.”

It was speaking out that got them in trouble, the medics said.

“We are witnesses to the crimes of the regime,” said Dawani, who, like most of his sentenced colleagues, and other foreign and Sunni medics, appear in abundant video footage treating casualties at the SMC accident and emergency department.

Rula al-Saffar, 49, the head of the Bahraini Nursing Society, who faces 15 years in jail, said she treated more than 200 female fellow prisoners who were subjected to torture and did not escape abuse herself.

During five months in custody, Saffar said, “At night they would take me blindfolded. I can smell alcohol fuming with their breaths. One interrogator would say: It is the weekend and we are a group. If you don’t confess, we will sleep with you one at a time.”

Which brings us to the question: What, if anything, has the US been doing about the situation in Bahrain.

The short answer is that the US Government has been largely silent. This has given rise to widespread perceptions among the Bahraini Shia population that America is on the side of the King.

Maryam al-Khawaja of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, minces no words. She says, “The United States has collaborated with the deadly crackdown on the popular revolution against Bahrain’s despotic monarchy. “People in Bahrain think that the US is in one way or another directly complicit in what’s happening in Bahrain,” she said in a Press TV interview.

The US Government’s rhetorical constipation reflects its attitude toward the stand-off between the Royal Family and pro-democracy activists. Secretary of State Clinton has delivered her almost-stock wish for moderation on both sides and a peaceful end to hostilities through dialogue.

The US sees a number of important relationships possibly being upended by full-throated support for either side. Saudi Arabia is one of Washington’s prime concerns. Bahrain is situation in the Persian Gulf just across a 1.4 mile causeway, over which the Saudi troops rolled in to help Bahrain’s rulers.

One of Saudi’s Eastern provinces is just a few miles from one of Bahrain’s western provinces. Both are largely Shia. And both are oil-rich. The two Shia communities have a long-standing relationship, and the Saudis worry about Bahrain’s violence spilling over into the desert Kingdom.

Nor would Saudi Arabia (or any of the other Gulf states) be thrilled to see a democratic form of government replacing the monarchy in Bahrain.

At this juncture, the US is turning itself into a pretzel to keep from angering the Saudis, who were reportedly upset at how quickly the US threw Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak under the bus. This concerned the Saudis for a number of reasons; one of them is the question of whether America would treat Saudi Arabia in the same way if pro-democracy forces were to prevail in Bahrain.

Aside from worrying about the Saudis, the US has its own, more immediate concerns: The American Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain. That makes stability the top priority for US policy­-makers.

So far, the most tangible help given to Bahrain’s protesters has been the suspension of a scheduled shipment of arms from the US, a position reached after some grassroots and congressional warnings to the White House. The arms shipment reportedly contains weapons used for crowd control.

William Fisher has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the international affairs area in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He began his working life as a reporter and bureau chief for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Associated Press in Florida. He now reports on a wide-range of issues for a number of online journals.

Crofton Black, an investigator for the charity, Reprieve, said the agency, called “EUROCONTROL, has the necessary information and it is able to disclose it.” He asked, “Will it step up and do the right thing? The clock is ticking.”

The requests for information have come from Reprieve and its partners, Access Info Europe. They have written to the Director General of EUROCONTROL, asking him to reconsider his denial of access to flight planning information vital to renditions accountability.

So far, EUROCONTROL is refusing to release crucial evidence relating to the CIA’s illegal renditions program, despite requests to do so by Reprieve and Access Info Europe.

Reprieve uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. It investigates, litigates and educates, and provides legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it. It promotes the rule of law around the world, and works to secure each person’s right to a fair trial.

In the past, the organizations say, EUROCONTROL “has made a significant positive contribution to the struggle for renditions accountability, disclosing portions of its records to the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and to the Danish parliament. Thanks to these disclosures, flight logs for dozens of planes, contracted by the CIA to perform sometimes illegal missions, have become available.”

The groups added, “This good track record is at risk, however, as EUROCONTROL has recently and unaccountably denied access to records for another 54 planes. These planes were unidentified at the time earlier requests were made, and represent new insights into the renditions program, particularly in its later stages.”

EUROCONTROL, the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, is an intergovernmental organization made up of 39 Member States and the European Community. EUROCONTROL is committed to building a Single European Sky that will deliver the ATM performance required for the 21st century and beyond.

Founded in 1960, it is a civil-military organization that has developed into a vital European repository of air traffic management (ATM) excellence, both leading and supporting ATM improvements across Europe.

EUROCONTROL supports its Member States to achieve safe, efficient and environmentally-friendly air traffic operations across the whole of the European region.

EUROCONTROL is made up of 39 European member states, including the UK, all of whom are bound by freedom of information laws – and who fund its half a billion euro budget. However, the organization appears to consider itself above the laws which apply to its members when it comes to disclosure of information – even when it relates to serious criminal acts such as the renditions program.

Access Info Europe’s campaign coordinator, Lydia Medland, said: “Consistent with European and International human rights law, EUROCONTROL should now make a review of the information that they hold, and consider the public interest in this case.”

Access Info Europe is a Spanish-based human rights organisation dedicated to promoting and protecting the right of access to information in Europe and globally as a tool for defending civil liberties and human rights, for facilitating public participation in decision-making and for holding governments accountable.

Reprieve notes that, in 2005, investigators, law enforcement officials and journalists became aware of the widescale use of private US-registered aircraft, illegally to transport (‘render’) individuals captured by the US and other governments in the context of the ‘war on terror’.

Prisoners transported by this method were routinely also held incommunicado and tortured, in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Convention against Torture, the Geneva Conventions and the domestic laws of all European countries.

A list of such aircraft was collected and published in two Council of Europe reports, in 2006 and 2007. Owing to the ongoing evolution of the CIA’s rendition and detention program, however, the Council’s data remained incomplete.

For the last twelve months, Reprieve and Access Info Europe say they have been building a more comprehensive overview of aircraft involved in the renditions program, and their flight routes. The list includes aircraft active before the Council of Europe reports but unknown to the Council of Europe investigators, and aircraft active after the Council of Europe reports. It currently includes 54 aircraft, all of which have substantive documentary connections to entities involved in CIA renditions operations. An interim report on this project will shortly be released.

In a letter to EUROCONTROL’s Director General David McMillan, the organizations, responding to EUROCONTROL’S denial of the records being sought, Reprieve and Access Info wrote, “We wish to explain why we consider your denial to be a very serious mistake and to urge you to reconsider most carefully in the light of your legal, social and ethical responsibilities.”

The organizations then laid out a timeline of exchanges on this issue. The said that, in 2005, investigators, law enforcement officials and journalists became aware of the wide-scale use of private US-registered aircraft, illegally to transport (‘render’) individuals captured by the US and other governments in the context of the ‘war on terror’.

Prisoners transported by this method were routinely also held Incommunicado and tortured, in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Convention against Torture, the Geneva Conventions and the domestic laws of all European countries.

The organizations noted that a list of such aircraft was collected and published in two Council of Europe reports, in 2006 and 2007. Owing to the ongoing evolution of the CIA’s rendition and detention program, however, the Council’s data remained incomplete.

They reminded EUROCONTROL that, for the last twelve months, Reprieve and Access Info Europe have been building a more comprehensive overview of aircraft involved in the renditions program, and their flight routes. The list includes aircraft active before the Council of Europe reports but unknown to the Council of Europe investigators, and aircraft active after the Council of Europe reports. It currently includes 54 aircraft, all of which have substantive documentary connections to entities involved in CIA renditions operations.

The groups charge, “It is demonstrable that EUROCONTROL holds relevant data on these aircraft, is able to disclose it, and has disclosed such data in the past for the same purpose. “

It reminded McMillan that EUROCONTROL had said, ““in the context of the EU’s single European sky, the EUROCONTROL Agency is committed to promoting the objective of transparency. It is currently working on adapting its internal data rules on public disclosure.”

On 20 October 2011, therefore, EUROCONTROL was asked for information or documents relating to the movements of 54 aircraft between 2001 and 2011.

On 2 November 2011, EUROCONTROL denied an October request but failed to provide any reason, stating simply that it was not covered by the regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. But “EUROCONTROL is mistaken” in asserting that this data must remain confidential, for the following reasons:

Similar data has already been disclosed by EUROCONTROL and is freely available in the public domain. Public documents attest to the response of EUROCONTROL to a similar request in 2008, asking for records from the data warehouse and Central Route Charges Office relating to all flights billed to specific route planning and operating companies from 2001 to 2008.1 This response includes over 150 pages of precisely the same type of information that we request.

Indeed, the information request in this previous instance was far broader than our request, since it has never been suggested, nor could it be maintained, that all flights billed to these companies were in any way connected with the renditions program.

In addition, many EUROCONTROL member states have already disclosed similar information, demonstrating that this kind of data can and should be released.

In public, EUROCONTROL makes commendable claims of transparency. In its message to Access Info Europe on 12 October, the company stated a commitment to matching transparency standards set by the European regulation 1049/2001, despite not being legally bound. However, by refusing to disclose the information, or to identify a legitimate reason for non-disclosure, EUROCONTROL has failed to meet even the minimal transparency standards to which it aspires.

The alarming disparity between Euro control’s professed commitment and its actions highlights a dangerous gap in European transparency standards. If small bodies holding public information cannot meet national standards, both national and EU transparency efforts can be swiftly undermined. Access Info Europe calls on all bodies that hold public information to uphold at least the same transparency standards as their member states.

There is an overriding public interest obligation on EUROCONTROL to disclose the records we have requested. EUROCONTROL is the primary – and in some cases the only – repository of information crucial to the investigation of serious crimes and breaches of rights recognized by the European Convention and other conventions cited above.

As such, EUROCONTROL has a duty to comply with any such investigation, and any failure to disclose relevant information would render it complicit in the continuing cover-up of these crimes.

The signatories to the letter are awaiting Euro control’s response.

William Fisher has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the international affairs area in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He began his working life as a reporter and bureau chief for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Associated Press in Florida. He now reports on a wide-range of issues for a number of online journals.

Aerial views of protesters clashing with police during an uprising earlier this year. Photo: Yana Kunichoff/Truthout

Some mainstream media are suggesting that the Bahraini version of The Arab Spring is over. Crushed was the word used by one of the mainstream US newspapers.

But the Sunni King of the tiny oil-rich country, Hamad-Bin-Isa-Al-Khalifa, says the independent report he commissioned is being implemented. The report concluded that peaceful demonstrators were being attacked by soldiers, arbitrarily arrested, taken to prison and tortured. The King has, unexplainably, accepted the report’s findings and promised to work with the people on long-overdue reforms. He is seeking patience from his majority Shia subjects.

But these subjects – at least what appears to be a substantial proportion of them – have run out of patience. They have been shot at, killed and wounded, arrested and tortured since March. They have no faith in the King’s reforms. They think he’s stalling to buy time. They are telling a very different story.

Their story is about peaceful demonstrations being broken up by security forces with live fire in addition to tear gas, batons and water canon.  Their story is about continuing middle-of-the night home invasions by security men, threatening whole families, arresting the men, and taking them away to an uncertain future. Their story is about sick people in jail not getting adequate medical attention and prisoners being routinely tortured. Their story is about thousands of teachers, doctors and nurses being fired from their jobs. Their story is about thousands of students expelled from the university.

These Bahrainis will be satisfied with nothing less than the abdication of the King, the removal of his family from the most senior government posts, a new constitution and an election to create a parliamentary democracy. The King has won no trust from this group. Their mantra here, as it was for Mubarak in Tahrir Square in Egypt, is: The King Must Go!

There are other Bahrainis, however, who appear willing to attempt to participate in a dialogue with the Royals to determine for themselves whether His Majesty is serious about real reforms. But thus far, there has been virtually no action taken by the Government to begin creating any sort of dialogue.

So while the Royal family and its government remain unified and determined, a small divide has opened among two factions of protestors. How this will play out over time is unclear. But time appears to be on the side of the King, in whose name security forces, backed by the presence of troops from Saudi Arabia, appear prepared to continue their brutal crackdowns on dissidents.

That became clear this weekend.

Saudi-backed regime troops attacked anti-government protesters demanding an end to the rule of the Al Khalifa family in the eastern Bahraini town of Toobli. Clashes between protesters and government forces have also been reported in a number of other villages and towns across the Persian Gulf sheikdom. The troops used tear gas to disperse the protesters. Several protesters have so far been killed and hundreds injured.

Following is a lightly edited report from the spokesperson for the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Maryam Al-Khawaja. She is believed to be in London. Her father, her sister and her sister’s husband and their two-year old son, are currently in prison in Bahrain.

Death of three civilians:

23 Nov 2011, Abdul Nabi Kadhem (44), fatally wounded when his car was intentionally hit by fast-moving police vehicle, forcing him to collide with a standing wall of a building. This was the morning of the ceremony for the release of the report.

7 Dec 2011, Zahra Saleh, (27), was hit with metal rod in head on 18 Nov. The government insists that the protesters were the ones who hit her and that she had turned to the security forces for protection. My colleague went to the hospital, as well as a member of AlWefaq party, to try to speak to Zahra; both of them were stopped, questioned then turned away by Ministry of Interior employees. Also, in Bahrain, it is highly unlikely for anyone to turn to police for protection, especially someone who was supporting the protest movement as was seen on her facebook page.

11^th Dec 2011, Sajida Faisal (5 days old) dies from teargas suffocation, according to her parents:

Attacks on all-types gatherings:

-       Mourners have been attacked in Aali.

-       Religious processions were attacked in Muharraq by the security forces, then by the thugs.

-     Ministry of Interior yesterday prevented an “authorized” sit-in by sacked workers in front of the civil service bureau, and dispersed the crowds by force.

-       Protests, small or large, continue to be attacked in the same way. Security forces continue to shoot excessive amounts of teargas on residential areas as collective punishment. Teargas used is made in USA, France and Brazil.

Injuries showed the continued use of: Shotgun, teargas and rubber bullets. Tonight there were heavy attacks on protesters in several villages, this came after a huge protest earlier in the day in front of the United Nations building due to a visit by OHCHR staff to the country.

Prrotesters have planned to set up a similar “Pearl square gathering” with tents but along the Budaiya Highway. The organizers have urged people not to block the roads, and to remain peaceful at all times.

It is important to note that despite the many injuries we saw today (including pellets in eyes), protesters are still not able to seek medical attention at the hospital as it continues to be under the control of the army, and instead have to attempt to treat themselves at home.

·       Arrest continued following the daily protests. Arrested people not necessary protesters. Many are children under 18.

·       We have received a number of cases from families that their detained relatives are still being subjected to torture.

·       Religious places…attacked with teargas canisters in two occasions, in Aali during mourning of AbdulNabi, and later after attacking a religious procession in Muharraq.

·       Several journalists (including columnist Nicholas Kristoff) have faced harassment including brief detention and being tear gassed (EPA/DPA, Reuters, NYTimes, Washington post)

·       Trials continued of teachers, doctors and others. Three athletes were sentenced up to 1 year. (It’s not clear if these are included in the recent pardon for athletes). Human Rights Watch observer was banned from entry to court. Teachers trial adjourned to the 19^th. Mustafa AlMoamen, brother of Ali AlMoamen who was killed on 17^th February, was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment today for illegal gathering and inciting hatred against the regime, not first case where brother of someone killed is imprisoned. The judge is a member of the royal family. Trials of doctors postponed until January 9^th. Continuation with case against 28 doctors charged with misdemeanors, adding charge of possession of white weapons. Case against 139 people for illegal assembly postponed until March.

·       New batch of government employees including teachers has been suspended from work for up to 10 days (no salary). New sacking happened at ministry of Justice (Minster is a member of the formed committee to follow up BICI recommendations). News in papers yesterday of reinstatement of 480 sacked workers not true as my colleague met with the health workers who stated that no one had been returned to work.

·       The case of dismissed workers can be example of how the king is not obliged to BICI recommendations. On 1 July Bassiouni (head of the Commission) told the media ”King PROMISED me to return those dismissed for expressing their opinions” and the govt issued PR releases saying  ”PM gave the private sector 10 days to reinstate wrongfully sacked employees“, however thousands still sacked.

·       Attempt to hinder and hijack civil society associations: the recent dismiss of the legitimate elected board of the Bahrain Bar Society:

·       Conditions at central prison,“Jaw”, has become even worsen after the publication of report. Less hours outside cell, restrictions on excercize of religious rituals, no hot water for showers, families not allowed to bring winter clothes, despite number of detainees suffering from Sickle Cell Anemia and other health problems.

·       Hunger strike started at cell 7 in the Dry Docks prison, and the Central police station against arbitrary arrest, torture and demanding their release. Two of the detainees who were taken to court today fainted as they are entering their 5th day or hunger strike. When the trial hearing adjourned, detainees Sayed Ahmed Neama, Mohamed Saleh and Abdullah Maki were beaten by the police in front of the lawyers.

·       Violence inciting increased online by the pro-gov, some with real names like the ex-colonial Adel Falifel, sending threats directly to Human Rights defenders while no action taken against him (this is a country which arrested people for their pro-democracy online posts). Adel Fulaifal is a known torturer from the 90′s and the reason he was not held accountable is because of Decree 56 which was issued by King Hamad granting amnesty to all those guilty of crimes of torture during the 90′s. Many still hold positions in government.

·       The National Commission said its priorities are the dismissed workers and students, and the religious places, which are indeed priority, but how come the martyrs and detainees are not on the very top priority list?

·       It seems the PM is now publicly inciting against the pro-democracy protesters (Arabic):

 Government Actions since the report:

·         Interview with the King yesterday, in which he “denied systematic rights abuses during the handling of protests earlier this year” and insisted some protesters were being trained in Syria.

·         Labyrinth of follow-up committees:

• National Commission:  18 members appointed by the king, mostly members of the Shura council, human rights activist (Abdullah AlDurazi), minister of justice, others. After their first meeting they have been divided into new 3 sub- committees to deal with legislative issues, judicial issues and national reconciliation. Two members of Alwefaq were invited by they have rejected the invitation.
• Following their first meeting the commission announced that “All proposals brought forward for discussion will be approved by consensus”.

Government work group:  formed by the PM as per the king order. They have to study the BICI report and to cooperate with the National Committees to implement the recommendations.

·       Reform to MOI:

o   Appointment of John Timoney, the former Miami Police Chief known for brutality and Former Metropolitan police Chief John Yates known for a phone hacking scandal.

o   Bahrain’s head of public security Tariq bin Dinah was dismissed then appointed security adviser.

o   Minister said there would be cooperation with international organizations to develop a curricula to train ministry personnel. This will lead to the drafting of a code of conduct for the police force. He confirmed the commencement of a study to draft legislations that would guarantee visual and audio recording for all official questioning of detainees.

o The Prime Minister today participated in the Ministry of Interior’s celebration of the “policeman day”.

·       Authorities in Bahrain say prosecutors have charged 20 members of the security forces for alleged abuse of protesters they are responsible for ”instances of excessive force and mistreatment of detainees”.

·       Royal pardon to 100 athletes, not unconditional release with dropping of all charges. No other releases, not even those mentioned in the tortured cases.

·       National Security Head Sheikh Khalifa bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa promoted to General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Defence and the king’s advisor with Minster rank.

·       A new head (Adel bin Khalifa Hamad Al Fadhel) was appointed for the National Security Apparatus. Its responsibilities have been amended so that the NSA has no right to arrest suspects, while its duties are limited to collecting intelligence information, and detecting and uncovering detrimental activities relating to spying, and collaboration with foreign countries and terror in order to safeguard national security, institutions and systems. The NSA shall refer to the Interior Ministry all cases requiring arrests.

[We have called for the dissolution of the National Security Apparatus and the Special Security Apparatus and the return of their jurisdictions to the regular security apparatuses; ]

·       Government announced that the Red Cross allowed access to the prisons. This might be the only real step, but if these visits actually start now and not after two years [we are calling on Bahrain to sign the Optional Protocol against Torture, which involved that there will be a standing committee to visit the prisons any time and that the visits could be sudden]

·       The Interior Minister issued an order to the public prosecutor to investigate all deaths and torture cases implicating the police. Both the Minister of Interior and the public prosecutor should be investigated and tried for violations against human rights. End of Report.

Unlike many other nations involved in versions of the Arab Spring, Bahrain pays careful attention to the positions taken by the U.S. Government. Bahrain has a strategic importance to the US because it is the home of the US Fifth Fleet.

Thus far, the US has spoken out against the brutality involved in the pro-democracy demonstrations, but has not taken sides. It finds itself eager not to anger the Saudis, who provided troops to Bahrain some months ago at the request of the King. The Saudis were unhappy with the speed at which it says President Obama threw Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak under the bus.

The US is also interested in minimizing the influence of Iran among Bahraini Shia, who make up a majority of the subjects of the Sunni King. The US applauded the King’s appointment of an independent fact-finding commission headed by a well-known international jurist, and has urged the King to lose no time creating a structure for constructive dialogue.

But a one-party dialogue is a monologue. And just how Bahrain will reach a point of dialogue is unclear when peaceful protesters continue to fill the streets and the security forces continue to kill, injure and imprison them.

Wlliam Fisher has managed economic development programs for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere for the past 25 years. He has supervised major multi-year projects for AID in Egypt, where he lived and worked for three years. He returned later with his team to design Egypt’s agricultural strategy. Fisher served in the international affairs area in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. He began his working life as a reporter and bureau chief for the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Associated Press in Florida. He now reports on a wide-range of issues for a number of online journals.

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: sunilgarg, kzappaster, ~Brenda-Starr~)

This report was written by Jason Leopold and originally published on Truthout

President Barack Obama would like the world to know that the US can do whatever it damn well pleases, thank you very much.

Obama also wants the whole, wide world to get this through its thick skull: only rogue governments that implement a policy of rendition, torture, indefinite detention and extrajudicial assassination are guilty of human rights abuses and should be held accountable.

That’s the clear-cut message Obama articulated late last Friday when he issued a proclamation commemorating the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“All people should live free from the threat of extrajudicial killing, torture, oppression and discrimination, regardless of gender, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or physical or mental disability,” Obama’s proclamation states.

Apparently, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president doesn’t believe the indefinite detention of detainees at Guantanamo, especially those who have already been cleared for release; or the administration’s refusal to allow prisoners detained and tortured by the US government in Afghanistan, rises to the level of human rights abuses as outlined in his stunningly hypocritical proclamation. Nor does the former constitutional law professor believe that the extrajudicial killing of Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and propagandist Samir Kahn, US citizens accused of aiding terrorists who were assassinated without due process by a drone strike Obama personally authorized, is a human rights issue.

Obama’s proclamation also contained another embarrassing contradiction: it declared the week of December 10th as Human Rights Week, the same week Congress debated and is set to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a controversial piece of legislation that would give the president the power to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial or a court hearing anyone suspected of terrorist activity in the US.

On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama’s senior advisers would recommend to the president that he should not veto the bill, as Obama had promised to do, because Congress made minor changes Monday to the provisions in the legislation related to the treatment of terrorism suspects with which the administration is now satisfied.

When the US voted in favor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it promised to uphold several ideals, including one that said, “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile.”

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said if Obama signs the bill, he will “go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”

[UPDATE: The Senate passed the NDAA Thursday afternoon by a vote of 86-13, exactly 220 years to the day the Bill of Rights was ratified. The NDAA will now be sent to Obama where he is expected to sign it into law.]

Obama’s quagmire of contradictions on human rights is laid bare in a powerful and timely new book written by Juan Méndez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur For Torture and Marjory Wentworth, a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, teacher and longtime human rights activist.

In “Taking A Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights,” Méndez and Wentworth interweave Méndez’s personal story as a lifelong human rights activist and lawyer into human rights themes.

“Each chapter is [centered] around a particular human rights issue, [Méndez's] role in shaping the dialogue around the issue and ideas for the future,” Wentworth said during an online book salon at Firedoglake two weeks ago hosted by this reporter.

Since his first days in office, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have promoted the narrative that the US is a human rights leader. But as former Amnesty International Secretary General Ian Martin notes in his introduction to “Taking A Stand,” that assertion has been severely “undermined by [the US government's] inability to rise above political alliances and increasingly by its own direct violations of human rights.”

Obama has severely damaged the US’s standing in the world by refusing to investigate and prosecute the widespread human rights abuses that took place during George W. Bush’s tenure in office, Méndez said he has invited “other nations to follow the U.S. example of impunity for torture” and has provided “rogue regimes with a ready-made excuse for rejecting international community concerns about their own abuses,” Méndez and Wentworth write in a chapter devoted to accountability.

Méndez described Obama’s attitude, during the Firedoglake book salon, as a “twisted version of US exceptionalism,” where the “rules” only apply to “others.” Here’s a fresh example of that type of “twisted exceptionalism”: On Wednesday, the State Department announced that the US government had implemented sanctions against two Iranian officials for committing “serious human rights abuses,” including the indefinite detention of Iranian citizens, in connection with massive protests that took place in the country in 2009 over the disputed presidential election.

“This is the fourth time we have designated individuals and entities under human rights sanctioning authority” under a September 2010 executive order signed by Obama, said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, a former top aide to Dick Cheney who misled the media about the extent of the CIA’s rendition program and asserted that the Bush administration did not torture detainees. [h/t Jeffrey Kaye]

According to a State Department fact sheet issued in 2010, Iranian “protesters were detained without formal charges brought against them and during this detention detainees were subjected to beatings, solitary confinement and a denial of due process rights at the hands of [Iranian] intelligence officers….”

“In addition, political figures were coerced into making false confessions under unbearable interrogations, which included torture, abuse, blackmail and the threatening of family members,” the State Department’s fact sheet said.

Sound familiar? Under policies sanctioned by Bush, Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, war-on-terror detainees were imprisoned at secret, black site facilities and at Guantanamo Bay without formal charges brought against them. Those prisoners were also subjected to beatings, solitary confinement and a denial of due process rights and were coerced into making false confessions under unbearable interrogations, which included torture, abuse, blackmail and the threatening of family members.

Need another example of the administration’s “twisted version of American exceptionalism”? Last June, the White House issued a statement condemning Hamas for abducting Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit five years ago and holding “him hostage without access by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in violation of the standards of basic decency and international humanitarian demands.”

“Abduction,” also known in US intelligence circles as “extraordinary rendition,” and hiding prisoners from the ICRC, sounds familiar as well. Of course it does, the latter was a policy enacted by Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and other former Bush officials. In fact, a January 2, 2004, memo drafted for military police and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and signed by Col. Marc Warren, the top legal adviser to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was commander of US forces in Iraq, was entitled “New plan to restrict Red Cross access to Abu Ghraib.” The contents of that memo have never been released.

Moreover, in 2004, Rumsfeld admitted that at the request of then-CIA Director George Tenet, he authorized the US military in the fall of 2003 to hide an Iraqi prisoner from the ICRC and other organizations that monitor the treatment of prisoners.

Rumsfeld told reporters at a June 17, 2004, press briefing that Tenet sent him a letter asking the US military to imprison the Iraqi who was believed to be a high-ranking member of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish terrorist group suspected of links to al-Qaeda. Tenet further told Rumsfeld to be sure the detainee was kept off the prisoner rolls, which he was for six months.

The White House’s decision to weigh in on Shalit, who Hamas has since released, is another example of the Obama administration’s contradictory stance on human rights whenever Israel’s track record is raised.

In their book, Méndez and Wentworth documented Israel’s own human rights abuses, and they were critical that the US condemned a report of a United Nations investigative team led by Richard Goldstone regarding Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. Méndez said he cannot explain why “Israel is generally shielded from effective action on human rights,” by the US, but he does not believe its purely a political decision.

“I suspect the [US government's] reasons are complex and not just political expedience,” Méndez said during the book salon. “But complexity is no excuse in this case, especially because the US could use its influence positively and, in general, I don’t think it does. Israel is by no means the worst offender in the region, nor are some forces innocent of abuse on the Palestinian side either. But the human rights issues are real and Israel’s ability to fend them off with support of the US and other Western governments is not only a problem for the victims of abuse; it is also an obstacle to peace.

Overall, Méndez said Obama’s “failure of leadership” and his decision to “look forward, not backwards,” on human rights abuses that took place during the Bush years is “seen [by foreign government leaders] as a decline in [US] influence and moral authority … that hurts other foreign policy interests as well.”

Speaking of “looking forward,” this is perhaps the best example of Obama’s “twisted version of American exceptionalism”: in March of 2010, Obama spoke to an Indonesian television reporter who queried him about whether he was satisfied the Indonesian government was taking proper steps to address past human rights abuses.

Obama said, “We have to acknowledge that those past human rights abuses existed. We can’t go forward without looking backwards.” (Emphasis added.)

Méndez and Wentworth understand that Obama will never exercise his responsibility as dictated in the Convention Against Torture, and initiate an investigation into past human rights abuses that took place during the eight years George Bush occupied the White House.

“Juan and I feel strongly that you pay for it in the end,” Wentworth said in an interview following the book salon. “I think we’re going to pay a price in ways we don’t even know.”

Méndez agreed, but he still remains hopeful.

“None of us can really hold our breath while we wait for the [US government] to live up to its obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish every act of torture committed by its agents,” Méndez said during the book salon. “The lack of delivery on the promise to have a day of reckoning [which Attorney General Eric Holder had said the public was owed] is truly disappointing. But again, experience shows that issues of accountability do not go away. Of course, it is preferable to have accountability in real time. But justice, even if it comes late, will come and be welcome.”

That brings to mind the maxim, “the wheels of justice grind slowly but exceedingly fine,” which would apply to recent court action in Argentina where a dozen former military and police officials, including a Navy officer who earned the nickname “Angel of Death,” were sentenced to life in prison last month for the kidnapping, murder and torture of leftist activists during the height of the country’s military dictatorship in the 1970s. Méndez was one of the activists tortured. There’s a riveting section in “Taking A Stand” where he describes in detail how his torturers used an electric prod on his genitals and other parts of his body until he begged them to kill him. That he survived and went on to shape the modern human rights movement is nothing short of a miracle.

Méndez’s criticisms of the US government’s human rights record is not limited to its treatment of war-on-terror detainees. He also butted heads with the Obama administration over the military’s treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst who is accused of leaking government secrets to WikiLeaks and faces life in prison. A pretrial hearing for Manning is scheduled for Friday at Fort Meade, Maryland.

Méndez said he became concerned about Manning when he started to hear reports about his abusive treatment, which included being held in solitary confinement for 23-hours a day, during his incarceration at Quantico. Méndez said he had “frank conversation[s] with the [Department of Defense] about the conditions of [Manning's] incarceration” and requested that he be permitted to visit and speak with the soldier confidentially.

“I was allowed to see him but with no guarantees of confidentiality, terms that I could not accept,” Méndez said during the Firedoglake book salon. “I offered to see Manning nonetheless, through his lawyer, if he wanted to see me, but he preferred not to waive his right to a truly private conversation. In the meantime, when he was moved from Quantico to Fort Leavenworth, his conditions changed and since last April he is no longer in solitary confinement. I am still insisting on seeing him. In a few weeks I will release my views on the case, since the exchange of information with the [US government] is essentially over.”