“At a session of the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review — where a selection of member states have their performance on human rights assessed — Norway’s record came under the microscope. The conspicuous critics at this Geneva meeting? Russia and Saudi Arabia, members of the United Nations’ 47-nation Human Rights Council and well-known paragons of global norms and freedoms, of course.
Representatives from Saudi Arabia accused Norway of endangering the religious rights of Muslims in the country. …………… Saudi Arabia, of course, is notorious for its draconian laws that, among other harsh measures, ban women from driving, curb the religious expression of non-Muslim non-Wahhabi minorities…..…….”
I must have been away to
another planet. Now, coming back to Earth, I find that Saudi
Arabia is angry at Norway for lack of religious tolerance and freedom. During
my absence on that other faraway planet the Wahhabi kingdom must have allowed
the establishment of churches and temples and synagogues. The religious police
must have stopped raiding private homes and arresting people for decorating
their own private Christmas trees. They must have stopped crucifying and
beheading people for apostasy. Freedom of speech and religion must have become
enshrined in constitutional amendments within a Saudi Wahhabi Bill of Rights.
Wait a minute, there is no Saudi constitution……….
It is the Universal Law of Petroleum that drives all this Saudi drivel. As for Mr. Putin, that former
KGB man could not give a fig about religion…….
“Oklahoma prison officials halted an inmate’s execution on Tuesday after a new drug combination left the man writhing and clenching his teeth on the gurney. He later died of a heart attack. Clayton Lockett, 38, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of three drugs in the state’s new lethal injection combination was administered. Three minutes later, though, he began breathing heavily, writhing, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow. The blinds were eventually lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching what was happening in the death chamber, and the state’s top prison official eventually called a halt to the proceedings. Lockett died of a heart attack……………”
This is like concentration camp stuff. Experimenting with new drugs to kill convicts……
“A court in southern Egypt on Monday decreed a mass death sentence for nearly 700 people, including the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement of Egypt’s ousted Islamist president. On the same day, another Egyptian court banned the April 6 movement, which was among the primary engines behind the landmark 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt’s sharp turn toward authoritarianism in the nearly 10 months since an interim government took power has provoked expressions of concern from human rights groups and Western governments, but little in the way of meaningful punitive actions against the military-backed regime………………”
The best scenario, an optimistic scenario, in this impending Egyptian butchery is that it is just a political show. They are setting the stage for a great show of mercy by the new dictator. The Kangaroo courts continue their job, preparing the way for a new dictator for life in Cairo. He, Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi will probably show “restraint” and “mercy” after pleas from allies and suppliers in the West. He will likely show calculated moderation by commuting most of these hundreds, thousands by then, of death sentences to life in prison. All these people, including tens of thousands awaiting trial, will end up in prison for life simply because they exercised their right of protest.
The Western world will be relieved for it, and it will applaud this military justice that it would not accept in the West. But that will be okay: these are only Arabs and in some places life can be cheap and freedom might be overrated. Cheers
mhg
“Iraq’s Council of Ministers should withdraw a new draft Personal Status Law and ensure that Iraq’s legal framework protects women and girls in line with its international obligations. The pending legislation would restrict women’s rights in matters of inheritance and parental and other rights after divorce, make it easier for men to take multiple wives, and allow girls to be married from age nine. The draft law, called the Jaafari Personal Status Law, is based on the principles of the Jaafari school of Shia religious jurisprudence, founded by Imam Jaafar al-Sadiq, the sixth Shia imam. Approved by the Council of Ministers on February 25, 2014, it must now be approved by the parliament to become law……………….”
This will be a crime against humanity because it will legalize and enable many multiple crimes of pedophilia in Iraq. Child marriage is a barbaric practice and a crime against humanity and it robs the victims of their childhood. It is an act of human trafficking, since the ‘bride’ is too young and has no power of decision and is effectively sold by her male guardian. Some Muslim states are hesitant, nay are afraid to enact laws against child brides, because of something that allegedly happened about 15 centuries ago. But that was then, this is now.
“A jury has acquitted two former Fullerton, California, police officers on trial in the beating death of Kelly Thomas, a mentally ill and homeless man. The verdict was read in a Santa Ana courtroom Monday afternoon. Eight women and four men began deliberating the case on Thursday. “I’m just horrified. They got away with murdering my son,” Cathy Thomas, the victim’s mother, told reporters after the verdict was read. The victim’s father, Ron Thomas, said that everyone now needs to be afraid. “This is carte blanche to police officers to do whatever they want,” he told reporters. The beating of Thomas in a transit parking lot was recorded by security cameras on the night of July 5, 2011. The surveillance camera footage shows Thomas being beaten, clubbed and stunned with a Taser by police. The video sparked a nationwide outcry. Former officer Manuel Ramos was charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. A second former Fullerton officer, Jay Cicinelli, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force. Both were found not guilty on all charges…………..”
“[Manama] Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior is planning to import 1.6 million tear gas canisters and 90,000 tear gas grenades, according to a leaked document, published today by research and advocacy group Bahrain Watch. The document — apparently a tender issued by the Ministry of Interior’s Purchasing Directorate — shows that Bahrain’s security forces are stockpiling massive amounts of tear gas, despite serious concerns of international NGOs and the United Nations Human Rights Council. These groups have called Bahrain’s use of tear gas “unnecessary and indiscriminate”, and “lethal”. This planned new shipment will supply Bahrain with more tear gas canisters than the entire population of the country. The document, signed by “Assistant Undersecretary Abdulla Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa”, calls for all proposals to be submitted “not later than 16th July 2013”. Ministry of Interior tenders are typically not available on the Government’s Tender Board website. This is the first time that an apparent tender for tear gas has been made public. The tender calls for arms companies to supply Bahrain with the following items:……… Bahrain Watch understands that no shipment related to this tender has yet been made, however, such a shipment could begin at any time………………..”
His excellency the Bahrain shaikh who controls these imports claims that the tear gas canisters will be used in case Bahrain is invaded by Iranians or Qataris or Klingons, or anyone else who is not part of the Saudi military and security services.
Bahrain’s ruling family and their tribal allies have been notorious for trying to alter the demographics of the country by recruiting and naturalizing mercenaries with military, security, and interrogatory and torture experience. The mercenaries come from select Arab countries and select South Asian countries, and the key criterion is called ABS (Anybody But a Shi’a). Bahrain has limited resources and mercenaries and their families are a costly drain, even if they come from very poor countries, even with all the money other GCC potentates send over to prop up the ruling family. Now they may have found a solution: millions of tear gas canisters. They can naturalize tear gas canisters at hardly any cost. They can even get them to vote in the strange elections they occasionally have in Bahrain. And the best part is: nobody inside or outside Bahrain can tell the difference between these canisters and the current members of the funny legislature, mostly appointed and selected by the rulers. Come to think of it, nobody inside or outside Bahrain should be able to tell the difference between these canisters and the Bahrain Council of Ministers. As we say on the Gulf: one goo’ti looks like just another goo’ti. Not a bad idea, huh? And they did not need to pay Tony Blair millions of dollars in consulting fees for the idea. Or maybe they did.
“Hey! diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon…………” Mother Goose
Saudi media report that Servant of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz affirmed, in a statement read for him by Prince Khalid Al-Faisal of Mecca during a conference about human rights and Islamic Shari’a and International laws, that Saudi Arabia is a state based on Islamic Shari’a and is completely committed to international laws and agreements regarding Human Rights. There are some exceptions, but they are only about a million or two and only in small print. The prince did not, however, add that the cow jumped over the moon and the dish ran away with the spoon. Not in so many words, not yet.
Neck of the woods “Iran has been accused of torturing to death a blogger who was arrested last week for criticising the Islamic republic on Facebook. Iran’s cyber-police, known as Fata, picked up Sattar Beheshti from his home in Robat-Karim last week on suspicion of “acting against the national security” because of his online activities on social networking sites. He was then taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. Beheshti’s family heard no news of him until Wednesday, when they were phoned by prison officials asking them to collect his body from the Kahrizak coroner’s office. The opposition has accused Iranian officials of torturing the 35-year-old blogger to death. Beheshti’s body was washed according to Islamic rituals on Thursday in Behesht-e-Zahra’s cemetery, south of Tehran, and later buried in his home town amid a tight security presence. Only one family member was allowed to attend the ceremony, carried out by security officials..………….” Cheers
mhg
Remember the long ago old days, until a few weeks ago, when Myanmar (actually Burma) was on the “dreaded list”? Not as dreaded as the Cuban or Iranian or the Sudanese list, but dreaded nevertheless. Wait: did I add “Sudan” to the list? Isn’t that the Arab African country whose president has an arrest warrant for him since March 2009? An arrest warrant by the International CourtOfSomethingOrAnother. Yet he is selling oil as freely as, say, Saudi Arabia or Texas or Alaska. I need to research this some more, the legal aspects of it. The sale of oil and the import of weapons. Then the way he travels freely around the Middle East. You’d think Interpol, which is always eager to arrest Saudi dissidents and send them back home to be flogged and beheaded (Kashghari, et al), would act against al-Bashir as soon as his sorry arse lands in Cairo or Tehran or other places. Back to Burma. Weren’t the ruling military junta accused of smuggling everything under the sun only a few weeks ago? Precious stones, rubies, drugs, possibly people including trafficking in “mothers”? And committing “small” genocides here and there? Doesn’t this sound a little like the Qaddafi deal with the West in Libya a couple of years before the Arab uprising? Would Tony Blair again show up and kiss the cheeks (both cheeks) of the junta leader? One difference: Libya did not have someone like Aung San Suu Kyi. That would be funny: a Libyan or Syrian or Egyptian Aung San Suu Kyi. If there was some Arab woman like her, she can’t be a Muslim Brother. Would she be a Muslim Sister or a Muslim Mother? Maybe the next time some Saudi woman gets behind the wheels and drives a car the West would declare her an Arabian Jeanne d’Arc, Maid of Hijaz (sorry, Najdis). The Scandinavians would quickly give her a Nobel Prize for driving under duress for fifteen minutes. Some may claim that she would probably deserve it as much as that Yemeni lady, certainly as much as Arafat. Cheers
mhg [email protected]
A picture worth a thousand words:
One angry young Bahrain woman standing up to heavily-armed, ready for battle, regime thugs and hired foreign mercenaries and Salafi invaders. This picture reflects the situationin occupied Bahrain.
