Calls to Spare Saudi Blogger Badawi from Public Flogging

BBC AMERICA: There are new calls for western governments to demand the release of Raif Badawi, who has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Saudi Arabia, and 1,000 lashes.

Badawi is a blogger who has written critical pieces about the Saudi government.

He has been told he will receive another 50 lashes on Friday. Lucy Manning reports. (+ BBC video) » | Thursday, January 15, 2015

Blogger Sunny Hundal on Raif Badawi in Saudi Arabia

BBC AMERICA: Blogger Raif Badawi has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for criticising Saudi Arabian clerics on his internet blog.

British blogger Sunny Hundal said this case, and others like it, mean the UK should stop "hugging" the Saudi regime.

In a personal film, he said it was time for the UK to cut these ties and "treat the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the contempt it deserves". » | Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Amnesty International: 'West Deeply Hypocritical Over Saudi'

BBC AMERICA: The funeral of King Abdullah is taking place in Saudi Arabia after his death overnight at the age of 90. His 79-year-old half-brother, Salman, has been confirmed as his successor.

The state of human rights and women's rights and the turbulent state of the region make the king's death and the succession particularly sensitive.

Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary general, said "Saudi has got away with much more than any other state" in term of human rights abuses.

He said that the West was hypocritical to support such a state. (+BBC video) » | Friday, January 23, 2015

Bahrain: We Must Speak Out about Brutality in the Gulf
THE OBSERVER – EDITORIAL: To have different levels of tolerance for different despots raises awkward questions

One obvious lesson for the west from recent upheaval in the Middle East is that propping up authoritarian regimes on the grounds that they make stable allies is a terrible policy.

The stability procured by despotism is an illusion. Brittle police states can contain, but never satisfy, a captive people's appetite for better lives. Eventually, they shatter and the more rigid the apparatus of repression, the more explosive the change when it comes.

That has been demonstrated clearly enough in North Africa and yet the west struggles to apply the lesson to the Arabian Peninsula. The contagious spirit of democratic springtime that provoked protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya also reached Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia. But there the west has been markedly less inclined to cheer it on.

The Observer carries the chilling testimony of a young Bahraini caught up in the small Gulf kingdom's brutal crackdown on civil dissent. It is a story that struggles to be heard as foreign media are increasingly denied access to the country and the local press is muzzled.

As many as 30 people are thought to have been killed as anti-government demonstrations have been violently suppressed. Hundreds of protesters have been detained and employees have been dismissed from state-owned enterprises in a move to purge dissent.

As our report makes clear, the unrest is increasingly sectarian in character. The Khalifa royal family and ruling elite are Sunni, while the majority of the population is Shia. That religious, cultural and economic division was politicised before the current crackdown, with the main parliamentary opposition coming from Shia parties. The government has flirted with a plan to ban those groups on the grounds of "disrespect for constitutional institutions". There has been widespread intimidation and abuse of Shia communities, carried out in part by security forces "invited" from neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

It would be unfair to say that the violence carried out by Bahraini authorities has passed entirely without comment from the UK. There have been pained expressions of discomfort and urgings of restraint on all sides.

Elsewhere in the region, those noises were precursors to more robust language. But in the Gulf there is a subtle difference of tone. In a statement to Parliament, William Hague, foreign secretary, was keen to recognise "important political reforms" which he welcomed in the context of "the long friendship between Bahrain and the UK". » | Editorial | Sunday, April 17, 2011

Saudi-backed Crackdown in Bahrain Exposes US Hypocrisy
THE SUNDAY TIMES (SRI LANKA): Although U.S. officials condemned Bahrain's use of deadly force against unarmed protestors on Wednesday, experts say the Obama administration is reticent to support the people because the Bahraini monarchy best serves U.S. regional interests. Critics accuse the U.S. of employing a double-standard - reluctant to oust the monarchy in Bahrain but more than willing to encourage Libyans to topple Moammar Gaddafi.

The U.S. is also hesitant to criticize Sunni ally Saudi Arabia, which invaded Bahrain on Tuesday at the request of Bahrain's Sunni royal family to quell Shiite protests. Mideast expert Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times can kick a door open in one's mind with his perspectives on these events, as he did on Thursday:

Let's imagine that neo-Napoleonic French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio "Bunga Bunga" Berlusconi decided to send North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops to help not the Libyan rebels but Muammar "King of Kings" Gaddafi to protect his "sensitive installations". After all, as Gaddafi assured the world, these rebels are "terrorists".

That's exactly what happened with the House of Saud sending armored carriers, tanks and 1,000 troops - part of "Peninsula Shield" forces - to Bahrain to repress an unarmed, civilian, domestic opposition (al-Qaeda or Iran "terrorists", take your pick) demanding political reform.

John Kerry said about the Libyan crisis that, "The US and world community must show they will not stand by while this thug Gaddafi uses air power to murder fellow Libyans." But why are Kerry and the world community willing to stand by as Bahrain's al-Khalifa family and the Saudis do the same? Escobar provides another mind-bending analogy: Imagine the outrage in the "international community" - and the calls to start carpet-bombing right away - if this was Iran invading Lebanon.

The U.S. fears it will lose its naval base in Bahrain should the government come under the control of Shiites - who, despite making up 70% of Bahrain's population, have lived under the thumb of Sunni royals for over 200 years. And such a move would tip the regional balance of power towards the Shiite Iranians. » | Michael Hughes | © Clarity Digital Group LLC | Sunday, March 20, 2011

Britain Walks Out of Iran's Ahmadinejad's Anti-Semitic Speech at UN
THE TELEGRAPH: Britain walked out of a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran at the United Nations on Wednesday night in protest at anti-Semitic remarks.

The speech came as the international community raised the pressure on Iran to acknowledge its nuclear programme ahead of key talks next week.

South American delegations also marched from the grand hall at UN headquarters when the controversial leader denounced what he said was a global Jewish conspiracy, amid a long rant against capitalism and Western hypocrisy.

He denounced a "small minority dominating much of the world through a complicated network", and went on to call Iran a "glorious, democratic nation".

The United States, Canada and Israel decided earlier to boycott the speech before the annual UN General Assembly, after Mr Ahmadinejad repeated his denial of the Holocaust in a speech in Iran on Monday. He has also regularly called on Jews to leave Israel. >>> Alex Spillius in New York | Thursday, September 24, 2009