Islamic Societies Review WEEKLY

Monday, April 15, 2013

Opposition leader jailed for insulting Kuwaiti ruler

Monday, April 15, 2013 No comments

Kuwaiti opposition leader and former MP Mussallam al Barrak (pictured) was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday after being convicted of making statements insulting the country's ruler, Sheikh Sabah al Ahmad al Sabah, at an October 15 rally.

A Kuwaiti court on Monday sentenced main opposition leader and former MP Mussallam al-Barrak to five years in prison after he was convicted of insulting the emir of the OPEC member country.

Barrak, a nationalist, was charged with making statements deemed offensive to the ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, at a public rally on October 15.

Criticising the emir is a felony that carries a maximum of five years in jail.

"The court has sentenced the defendant Mussallam al-Barrak to five years in prison with immediate effect," said judge Wael al-Atiqi in a half-packed courtroom in the Palace of Justice in the capital Kuwait City.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Barbara Boxer, AIPAC seek to codify Israel's right to discriminate against Americans

Sunday, April 14, 2013 No comments

A bill introduced by the California Democrat would uniquely exempt Israel from long-standing requirements imposed on all other nations

In order for the US to permit citizens of a foreign country to enter the US without a visa, that country must agree to certain conditions. Chief among them is reciprocity: that country must allow Americans to enter without a visa as well. There are 37 countries which have been permitted entrance into America's "visa waiver" program, and all of them - all 37 - reciprocate by allowing American citizens to enter their country without a visa.

The American-Israeli Political Action Committee (Aipac) is now pushing legislation that would allow Israel to enter this program, so that Israelis can enter the US without a visa. But as JTA's Ron Kampeas reports, there is one serious impediment: Israel has a practice of routinely refusing to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to enter their country or the occupied territories it controls; it also bars those who are critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestinian rights. Israel refuses to relinquish this discriminatory practice of exclusion toward Americans, even as it seeks to enter the US's visa-free program for the benefit of Israeli citizens.

As a result, at the behest of Aipac, Democrat Barbara Boxer, joined by Republican Roy Blunt, has introduced a bill that would provide for Israel's membership in the program while vesting it with a right that no other country in this program has: namely, the right to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free right of entrance. In other words, the bill sponsored by these American senators would exempt Israel from a requirement that applies to every other nation on the planet, for no reason other than to allow the Israeli government to engage in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination against US citizens. As Lara Friedman explained when the Senate bill was first introduced, it "takes the extraordinary step of seeking to change the current US law to create a special and unique exception for Israel in US immigration law." In sum, it is as pure and blatant an example of prioritizing the interests of the Israeli government over the rights of US citizens as one can imagine, and it's being pushed by Aipac and a cast of bipartisan senators.

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Saturday, April 13, 2013

Pakistan: Pervez Musharraf admits secret CIA drone deal with US

Saturday, April 13, 2013 No comments

Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former military ruler, has for the first time admitted doing a secret deal with America to allow CIA drone strikes against terrorist targets.

His comments contradict repeated Pakistani denials that the US has ever been given permission for the strikes. They come amid growing evidence that the country’s intelligence service is collaborating with its American counterpart.

In an interview with CNN, Mr Musharraf, who returned to Pakistan three weeks ago, said he had authorised strikes “only on very few occasions where the target was absolutely isolated and had no chance of collateral damage”.

The first strike on Pakistan soil came in 2004, five years into Mr Musharraf’s reign, killing a tribal leader seen as an enemy of the government. Since then there have been more than 300 strikes and more than 3,000 deaths.

Islamabad has publicly condemned the attacks, describing them as an infringement of Pakistani sovereignty.

They provoke intense anger and have been blamed for stoking anti-American sentiment in the country. Yet there has long been suspicion that Pakistan had given consent.

Russia strikes back with Magnitsky list response

Saturday, April 13, 2013 No comments

Russia has released the list naming 18 Americans banned from entering the Russian Federation over their alleged human rights violations, as a direct response to the so-called Magnitsky list revealed by the US on Friday.
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Before the Magnitsky list was released, Russia warned that the reaction would be in accordance with the “rules of parity.”

“We will not publish anything substantially different in terms of the numbers [of names] published by the American side,” explained Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The final version of the list of Russian officials and businessmen who will be banned from entering the United States while their stateside assets will be frozen includes 18 people. Sixteen of them are said to be “directly responsible” for Magnitsky’s death in prison, according to Washington's version of events.

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US officials involved in legalizing torture and indefinite detention of prisoners (The Guantanamo List)
1) David Spears Addington, Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney (2005-2009)
2) John Choon Yoo, Assistant US Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice (2001-2003)
3) Geoffrey D. Miller, retired US Army Major General, commandant of Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), the organization that runs the Guantanamo Bay detention camps (2002-2003)
4) Jeffrey Harbeson, US Navy officer, commandant of Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), the organization that runs the Guantanamo Bay detention camps (2010-2012)

US officials involved in violations of the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens abroad
5) Jed Saul Rakoff, Senior US District Judge for the Southern District of New York
6) Preetinder S. Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York
7) Michael J. Garcia, former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York
8) Brendan R. McGuire, Assistant US Attorney
9) Anjan S. Sahni, Assistant US Attorney
10) Christian R. Everdell, Assistant US Attorney
11) Jenna Minicucci Dabbs, Assistant US Attorney
12) Christopher L. Lavigne, Assistant US Attorney
13) Michael Max Rosensaft, Assistant US Attorney
14) Louis J. Milione, Special Agent, US Drug Enforcement Administration
15) Sam Gaye, Senior Special Agent, US Drug Enforcement Administration
16) Robert F. Zachariasiewicz, Special Agent, US Drug Enforcement Administration
17) Derek S. Odney, Special Agent, US Drug Enforcement Administration
18) Gregory A. Coleman, Special Agent, US Federal Bureau of Investigation

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Friday, April 12, 2013

Rebel Keeps Kurds’ Guns Close at Hand in Peace Talks With Turkey

Friday, April 12, 2013 No comments

ZARGALI, Iraq — In a safe house made of cinder blocks and surrounded by grazing goats and sheep, nestled high in the remote mountains of northern Iraq, a Kurdish fighter who has waged a guerrilla war against Turkey for nearly three decades remains defiant in the face of peace.

“Our forces believe they can achieve results through war,” said the fighter, Murat Karayilan, who commands the thousands of fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K.

For all the costs of the long war, Mr. Karayilan, his fighters and millions of Kurds believe it helped them achieve something they never would have without armed struggle: a recognition of Kurdish identity and more democratic rights.

Now, as the P.K.K. negotiates peace with Turkey to end one of the Middle East’s most intractable conflicts, it is clinging to its guns despite demands by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, that it lay them down as a condition of talks. This defiance suggests that the peace process, despite the hope it has engendered on both sides, could be longer and more arduous than at first anticipated.

“Our guerrillas cannot give up their arms,” said Mr. Karayilan, in an interview here in the safe house, which had a freezer full of ice cream and satellite television despite its remote location. “It is the last issue, something to discuss as a last issue to this process.”

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Iran Gets First Ever Kurdish Presidential Hopeful

Thursday, April 11, 2013 No comments

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iran’s first ever ethnically Kurdish presidential hopeful is counting on the votes of the young, and those of the country’s Kurdish minority. But first, he has to get the green light to run by Iran’s conservative Guardian Council.

“I will have 80 percent of the Kurdish votes due to the Kurdish national cause,” said Seyed Mohammed Bayatiyan, who is planning on running in the June election, the eleventh presidential polls since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. Kurdish support, he says, should win him seven million votes.
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Bayatiyan was born in Bijar district in 1973. His father, the founder of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards in the district, was killed by Kurdish Peshmarga forces.

From 1999 to 2006, Bayatiyan was the general secretary of the Iranian Islamic Council.

So far, 35 nominees have announced their nominations for the Iranian presidency.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Syria's al-Nusra pledges allegiance to al-Qaeda

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 No comments

The head of Syria's jihadist al-Nusra Front has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri - but distanced his group from claims it had merged with al-Qaeda in Iraq.
"The sons of al-Nusra Front pledge allegiance to Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri," Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani said in an audio message.
But, he added, "we were not consulted" on an announcement by al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Tuesday of a merger with al-Nusra Front.
"We inform you that neither the al-Nusra command nor its consultative council, nor its general manager were aware of this announcement. It reached them via the media and if the speech is authentic, we were not consulted," Jawlani said.
He added that the group would not be changing its flag or its "behaviour."
"Al-Nusra Front will not change its flag, though we will continue to be proud of the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, of those who carry it and those who sacrifice themselves and shed their blood for it," said Jawlani, acknowledging he had fought in Iraq alongside the ISI, al-Qaeda's Iraqi branch.

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Egypt's army took part in torture and killings during revolution, report shows

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 No comments

Egypt's armed forces participated in forced disappearances, torture and killings across the country – including in the Egyptian Museum – during the 2011 uprising, even as military leaders publicly declared their neutrality, according to a leaked presidential fact-finding report on revolution-era crimes.

The report, submitted to the president, Mohamed Morsi, by his own hand-picked committee in January, has yet to be made public, but a chapter obtained by the Guardian implicates the military in a catalogue of crimes against civilians, beginning with their first deployment to the streets. The chapter recommends that the government investigate the highest ranks of the armed forces to determine who was responsible.

More than 1,000 people, including many prisoners, are said to have gone missing during the 18 days of the revolt. Scores turned up in Egypt's morgues, shot or bearing signs of torture. Many have simply disappeared, leaving behind desperate families who hope, at best, that their loved ones are serving prison sentences that the government does not acknowledge.

The findings of the high-level investigation, implicating Egypt's powerful and secretive military, will put pressure on Morsi, who assumed power from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces after his election last June and has declined to prosecute any officers, despite allegations that some participated in abuse. They could also figure in the retrial of the toppled president Hosni Mubarak and his former interior minister Habib el-Adly, who are set to return to court on Saturday to face charges – perhaps supported by new evidence from the fact-finding committee – that they were responsible for killing protesters during the revolt.

"This chapter sheds light on new and extremely disturbing incidents that implicate the military in serious human rights violations," said Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. "In particular, it uncovers new details on one of the most secret aspects of the 18 days of revolt that ended with the ouster of Mubarak: the role played by the armed forces in supporting Mubarak against protesters from the date they were deployed on 28 January 2011, until the first military statement was issued in support of the protesters on 10 February."

Syria's Jihadists face test of government in eastern city

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 No comments

A month after they pulled down a statue of President Bashar al-Assad's once feared father, people in a city in eastern Syria are living under a Jihadist regime that could be a taste of what is in store for the country if Assad himself is overthrown.
Hardline Islamist brigades patrol streets abandoned by police. A religious court has replaced a collapsed judicial system, and minorities have fled, according to civic activists in Raqqa, the largest city to fall to the opposition since the uprising against four decades of Assad family rule broke out in March 2011.
The Jihadist show of force coupled with the absence of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, the main grouping of the political opposition, could consolidate an Islamist sweep in the north and east of the country. But the experience of Raqqa, where there have been demonstrations and strikes, shows that Islamist rule has got off to a difficult start.
The east, which accounts for all of Syria's oil output and most of its grain production, borders Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, where Sunni Jihadists opposed to the Iranian-backed Shi'ite government in Baghdad are also active.
Since falling, Raqqa has been in effect run by Ahrar al-Sham, one of the best organized of hundreds of opposition formations fighting to oust Assad, and its Islamist allies, opposition campaigners in the area said.
They said the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front has a strong presence in the city and cooperates with Ahrar. The Iraqi wing of al Qaeda announced on Tuesday that Nusra was now its Syrian branch and the two groups would operate under one name -- the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
Activist Maen Khader said Ahrar were quick to take control of the power and water departments, which are providing a mostly uninterrupted service, largely because a main hydro-electric dam on the Euphrates River, 40 km (25 miles) to the southwest in the town of Tabaqa, had been overrun by jihadists.
Unlike the town of Tel Abyad on the border with Turkey to the north, looting in Raqqa has been minimal, Khader said.

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Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Tunisia Now Exporting “Jihadis”

Tuesday, April 09, 2013 No comments

Tunisian families have begun to dread knocks on their doors, or late-night phone calls, fearing that the messenger will bear the news that their son has been smuggled out of the country to join the “jihad” in Syria.

Families here told IPS that they have no way of contacting their sons once they leave — whether by choice or coercion they will never know — for the warring nation nearly 3,000 miles away. At most, family members receive an inaudible telephone call from Libya, where the soon-to-be militants are trained, the muffled voice on the other end of the line saying a quiet and final goodbye.

After that point, no news is good news. If they are contacted again, it will only be an anonymous caller announcing the death of a son, brother or husband, adding that the family should be proud of their martyred loved one.

The next day, the family might find a CD, slipped under the door, containing filmed footage of the burial.

There are no reliable data on exactly when young Tunisian men began rushing to join the Free Syrian Army, currently engaged in a battle to depose Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, but experts and civil society activists are agreed on one thing: the number is increasing.

On Mar. 29, local sources reported that between 6,000 and 10,000 men have left the country, while the Algerian press say the number could be closer to 12,000.

Families tell IPS the self-proclaimed jihadists leave in secret, often under cover of darkness, and change their names en route so that Facebook and internet searches yield no results. They believe mosques and charity organisations serve as fronts for this “recruitment” process.

Widely considered the cradle of the Arab Spring, Tunisia has gained a reputation as a progressive country, bolstered by the strong democratic current that toppled former dictator Zine Abadine Ben Ali in January 2011. The election of the moderate Islamist party Ennahda in October 2011 further raised hopes that the country would stay on track towards a more inclusive future.

But beneath the moderate veneer, a strong ultra-conservative undercurrent remained, steered by Salafist-controlled mosques – like Fath, Ennassr, Ettadhamen, and the great mosque of Ben Arous located on the outskirts of Tunis – that are now serving as headquarters for the smuggling of fighters.