Shi’ite Muslims Around the World Celebrate Ashura

An Afghan Shi'ite beating himself with chains and blades

TIME: Shi'ite Muslims from Lebanon to Afghanistan mark Ashura, a day of mourning, celebration and remembrance

Shi’ite Muslims celebrated Ashura on Thursday, marking a day of pain, pilgrimage, and pageantry that is one of the holiest in their religion.

The word Ashura means 10, and the holiday is the tenth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. For Shi’ite Muslims, those ten days are a period of mourning and remembrance, where they commemorate the death of Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the central figures in the Shi’ite denomination, Hussein was beheaded in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD, and his martyrdom was a defining event in the split between Sunnis and Shi’ites. » | Nate Rawlings | Thursday, November 14, 2013

Uprising in Saudi Arabia? America Won’t Allow It

THE FIRST POST: Alexander Cockburn: There’ll be little talk in Washington of democracy in action if Shia protests catch hold

POSE a threat to the stability of Saudi Arabia, as Shia protesters are said to to have done in Awamiya, according to reports this week from the country's oil-rich Eastern Province, and you're brandishing a scalpel over the very heart of long-term US policy in the Middle East.

The US consumes about 19 million barrels of oil every 24 hours, about half of them imported. At 25 per cent, Canada is the lead supplier. Second comes Saudi Arabia with 12 per cent. But supply of crude oil to the US is only half the story. Saudi Arabia controls OPEC's oil price and adjusts it carefully with US priorities in the front of their minds.

The traffic is not one-way. In the half-century after 1945, the United States sold the Saudis about $100 billion in military goods and services. A year ago the Obama administration announced the biggest weapons deal in US history – a $60 billion programme with Saudi Arabia to sell it military equipment across the next 20 to 30 years.

Under its terms, the United States will provide Saudi Arabia with 84 advanced F-15 fighter planes with electronics and weapons packages tailored to Saudi needs. An additional 70 F-15's already in Saudi hands will be upgraded to match the capabilities of the new planes.

Saudi Arabia will purchase a huge fleet of nearly 200 Apache, Blackhawk and other US military helicopters, along with a vast array of radar systems, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, and guided bombs. The US trains and supplies all Saudi Arabia's security forces. US corporations have huge investments in the Kingdom. Read on and comment » | Alexander Cockburn | Friday, October 07, 2011

Saudis Crush Dissent and Point Finger at Iran for Trouble in Eastern Province

THE GUARDIAN: Kingdom wary of popular uprising warns unrest will be crushed with 'an iron fist' and plays down protests, blaming outsiders

Saudi Arabia has made clear it will not tolerate unrest in its eastern province, where 14 people, 11 of them policemen, were injured in protests this week. Any further trouble would be crushed with "an iron fist," the government warned, anxious to avoid any perception that the first green shoots of the Arab spring have started to emerge in the Gulf's conservative heartland.

It is no surprise that the regime's instinct has been to play down the dimensions and significance of the trouble – an "isolated incident" is the official line in Riyadh. Initial evidence of an over-reaction by security forces gave way to a pullout from the flashpoint, Awamiyah, near the regional capital Qatif, where the Saudi interior ministry accused protesters of carrying arms and throwing petrol bombs. YouTube pictures showed some of that — along with the sound of gunfire and cries of "Allahu Akbar."

It also alleged that the trouble was directed by an unnamed "foreign country" – no prizes for guessing that meant Iran. Unofficial Saudi experts were far less coy, comparing what happened in Awamiyah to the tactics used by Shia protesters in nearby Bahrain during the Pearl Revolution earlier this year, which was also widely, and misleadingly, blamed on meddling by the Islamic republic. Reinforcing Saudi suspicions, Iranian media have hailed the trouble as a "popular uprising" against the monarchy. » | Ian Black | Thursday, October 06, 2011

Saudi Arabia: Police 'Open Fire' on Protesters
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Saudi forces reportedly laid siege to a Shia village in the east of the kingdom yesterday following the eruption of clashes, raising fears that the world’s biggest oil producer may not be immune to the unrest sweeping the Middle East.

Exiled Saudi dissidents said police had sealed off the village of Awwamiya [sic] after using live fire to disperse Shia protesters on Monday night. They claimed 20 people had been wounded in the worst violence in Saudi Arabia’s [e]ast, home to much of the Sunni kingdom’s Shia minority, for years.

Observers say Sunni-Shia tension is rising in the kingdom and could be exploited by Iran, Saudi Arabia’s greatest rival in the region. » | Tuesday, October 04, 2011

THE INDEPENDENT: Saudi police open fire on civilians as protests gain momentum: Insecure Saudis crack down on freedom protest » | Patrick Cockburn | Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Mistrust Abounds as Bahrain to Lift Emergency Law
ZAWYA: MANAMA - Tanks have begun withdrawing from Manama's streets ahead of the planned lifting Wednesday of a state of emergency enacted amid a crackdown on demonstrators but mistrust still abounds in Bahrain.

Backed by Saudi-led Gulf troops, Bahraini forces in mid-March crushed the Shiite-led pro-democracy demonstrations that had paralysed central Manama, the capital of Sunni-ruled Bahrain, for a month.

Authorities continued with a crackdown on Shiites, who make up the majority of the kingdom's population, storming their villages and arresting hundreds of men and women, mostly for the mere accusation of supporting the peaceful protests.

But with the apparent gradual return to normality, stories are told behind closed doors of continued persecution of Shiites and mass dismissals from public-sector jobs for people accused of participating in the protests.

Sunnis, on the other hand, have been radicalised, with many of them welcoming the government's heavy-handed approach as a measure that saved the tiny kingdom from an Iranian-backed[A] Shiite plot to overthrow the regime.

Many do not trust the Shiites. » | Ali Khalil | Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Saudi Troops Sent to Crush Bahrain Protests 'Had British Training'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Saudi Arabian troops sent into Bahrain to crush a popular uprising may have had British military training, the Government has admitted.

The British Government has said it is "deeply concerned" by reports of human rights abuses in Bahrain, where the ruling royal family has used Saudi troops to put down Shi'ite demonstrations.

The Sunni royal family in Saudi Arabia fears the growing influence of Shi'ite Iran in the Middle East, and is helping Bahrain's Sunni rulers retain power.

The Ministry of Defence has now admitted that members of the Saudi Arabian National Guard sent into Bahrain may have received military training from the British Armed Forces in Saudi Arabia.

The revelation is likely to renew allegations that the Coalition is sending mixed messages on democracy in the Middle East.

Despite British criticism of the Bahrainis' actions, David Cameron last week welcomed the Crown Prince of Bahrain to Downing Street, drawing criticism from human rights groups. » | James Kirkup, Political Correspondent | Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Patrick Cockburn: Bahrain Is Trying to Drown the Protests in Shia Blood
THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: World View: Claiming that the opposition is being orchestrated by Iran, the al-Khalifa regime has unleashed a vicious sectarian clampdown

"Let us drown the revolution in Jewish blood" was the slogan of the tsars when they orchestrated pogroms against Jews across Russia in the years before the First World War. The battle-cry of the al-Khalifa monarchy in Bahrain ever since they started to crush the pro-democracy protests in the island kingdom two months ago might well be "to drown the revolution in Shia blood". Just as the tsars once used Cossacks to kill and torture Jews and burn their synagogues, so Bahrain's minority Sunni regime sends out its black-masked security forces night after night to terrorise the majority Shia population for demanding equal political and civil rights.

Usually troops and police make their raids on Shia districts between 1am and 4am, dragging people from their beds and beating them in front of their families. Those detained face mistreatment and torture in prison. One pro-democracy activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, brought before a military court last week with severe facial injuries, said he had suffered four fractures to the left side of his face, including a broken jaw that needed four hours' surgery.

The suppression of the protests came after Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Co-operation Council – also known as the "kings' club" of six Gulf monarchs – sent 1,500 troops to Bahrain to aid the crackdown, which began on 15 March. It soon became clear that the government is engaged in a savage onslaught on the entire Shia community – some 70 per cent of the population – in Bahrain.

First came a wave of arrests with about 1,000 people detained, of whom the government claims some 300 have been released, though it will not give figures for those still under arrest. Many say they were tortured and, where photographs of those who died under interrogation are available, they show clear marks of beating and whipping. There is no sign yet that King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa's declaration that martial law will end on 1 June is anything more than a propaganda exercise to convince the outside world, and foreign business in particular, that Bahrain is returning to normal.

The repression is across the board. Sometimes the masked security men who raid Shia villages at night also bulldoze Shia mosques and religious meeting places. At least 27 of these have so far been wrecked or destroyed, while anti-Shia and pro-government graffiti is often sprayed on any walls that survive. » | Patrick Cockburn | Sunday, May 15, 2011

Bahrain Targets Shia Religious Sites
Part three in our exclusive series on Bahrain reveals that the government destroyed Shia mosques and religious institutions as part of its crackdown on dissent

Security Forces Target Bahrain Medics
The second part of Al Jazeera's exclusive report on Bahrain looks at the abuse of medical workers as part of the government's crackdown on dissent

While Bahrain Demolishes Mosques, U.S. Stays Silent
KANSAS CITY STAR: In the ancient Bahraini village of Aali, where some graves date to 2000 B.C., the Amir Mohammed Braighi mosque had stood for more than 400 years - one of the handsomest Shiite Muslim mosques in this small island nation in the Persian Gulf.

Today, only bulldozer tracks remain.

In Nwaidrat, where anti-government protests began Feb. 14, the Mo'men mosque had long been a center for the town's Shiite population - photos show it as a handsome, square building neatly painted in ochre, with white and green trim, and a short portico in dark gray forming the main entrance.

Today, only the portico remains.

"When I was a child, I used to go and pray with my grandfather," said a 52-year-old local resident, who asked to be called only "Abu Hadi." "The area used to be totally green, with tiers of sweet water wells.

"Why did they destroy this mosque?" Abu Hadi wailed. "Muslims have prayed there for decades."

In Shiite villages across this island kingdom of 1.2 million, the Sunni Muslim government has bulldozed dozens of mosques as part of a crackdown on Shiite dissidents, an assault on human rights that is breathtaking in its expansiveness.

Authorities have held secret trials where protesters have been sentenced to death, arrested prominent mainstream opposition politicians, jailed nurses and doctors who treated injured protesters, seized the health care system that had been run primarily by Shiites, fired 1,000 Shiite professionals and canceled their pensions, detained students and teachers who took part in the protests, beat and arrested journalists, and forced the closure of the only opposition newspaper.

Nothing, however, has struck harder at the fabric of this nation, where Shiites outnumber Sunnis nearly 4 to 1, than the destruction of Shiite worship centers.

The Obama administration has said nothing in public about the destruction. Continue reading and comment » | Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers, with contributions from Hannah Allam in Cairo | Sunday, May 08, 2011

Crackdown reins in Bahrain activists
The once massive pro-democracy protests in Bahrain has been reduced to small clashes between youth and police in predominantly Shia areas.



Security forces have allegedly launched a brutal crackdown on protesters with beatings and sweeping arrests. Nearly 1000 demonstrators have been imprisoned, among them doctors, artists and lawyers. 



The UN High Commissioner for Human rights Navi Pillay says severe torture is being used against prisoners, and he is calling on the Bahraini government to stop intimidating and harassing human rights defenders and political activists. 



May Welsh reports. [May 6, 2011]

FACTBOX-Key political risks to watch in Saudi Arabia
REUTERS: May 3 - The world's No. 1 oil exporter faces the twin challenges of creating jobs for a young population at a time of unrest in the Arab world, and pursuing economic reforms with a royal succession looming.

The stability of Saudi Arabia is of global importance since the kingdom sits on more than a fifth of oil reserves, is home to the biggest Arab stock market, is a major owner of dollar assets and acts as a regional linchpin of U.S. security policy.

King Abdullah, who is around 87, unveiled $93 billion in social handouts in March, on top of another $37 billion announced less than a month earlier.

But this apparent effort to insulate the kingdom from Arab popular protests sweeping the region has not stopped activists, including liberals, Shi'ites and Islamists, calling in petitions for more political freedom. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with no elected parliament.

Riyadh has not seen the kind of mass uprisings that have shaken the Arab world this year, but Shi'ites in the kingdom's oil-producing east have staged a number of protests.

Almost no Saudis in Riyadh answered a Facebook call for protests on March 11 in the face of a massive security presence.

Saudi Arabia has been ruled by the Al Saud family for 79 years, with influence from clerics following the austere Wahhabi school of Islam, and many oppose the very reforms the king has started.

However, slowing down reforms to modernise education might affect government plans to create jobs -- unemployment last year reached 10 percent.

And with around 70 percent of Saudi Arabia's almost 19 million people under the age of 30, the pressure to find them gainful employment is huge. » | RIYADH | Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Bahrain Protests: 'Ex-Shia MPs Detained' Amid Crackdown
BBC: Bahrain has arrested two former members of parliament from the main Shia opposition party, al-Wefaq, members of the group say.

The arrest of Matar Matar and Jawad Fairuz is the latest step in Bahrain's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

The Sunni rulers declared martial law in March to crush the protests led by the country's Shia majority, who are demanding greater political rights.

Since then, hundreds of people have been detained. Four have died in jail.

The unrest in Bahrain started on 14 February, when protesters - emboldened by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt - took to the streets urging democratic reform. Some have called for the overthrow of the monarchy.

About 30 people, including four policemen, were killed during weeks of unrest, until the ruling al-Khalifa family called in troops from other Sunni-ruled Gulf neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, to put down the protests. » | Tuesday, April 03, 2011

Bahrain in the Shadow of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States
CNN: There are disturbing accounts from major human rights organizations about abuses in Bahrain and the systematic state violence that has been unleashed on the opposition movement against the monarchy of the Al-Khalifa family.

And yet Bahrain has not become the story because the movement for social justice, government accountability and independence is being violently suppressed, but because of wider strategic calculations that bind the fate of the island to the future of regional politics.

There are at least three strategic issues at stake when it comes to the political present and future of the country. First, Bahrain hosts a major naval base for the U.S. fifth fleet, and the ruling Al-Khalifa family has been a trusted ally of the United States for several decades.

Yet Bahrain's rulers have not taken advantage of the security guarantees provided by successive U.S. governments in order to open up the political system or to sponsor a rather more equitable social and economic order.

According to the constitution of Bahrain the king appoints all members of the upper house of the parliament, while the lower house was voted into office in 2010.

But this has not lead to real political representation of the majority Shia population or to a system of wealth distribution that is equitable. In fact, Bahrain continues to be one of the few hereditary monarchies of the world.

In the absence of a strong legitimacy of the state, systematic violence has functioned as a short cut to safeguard the regime. Hence, the current crackdown, which has not drawn much criticism from the United States and the European Union, who were/are by far louder about the situation in Libya (and indeed about anything that happens in Iran). » | Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Special to CNN | Monday, April 25, 2011

Editor's note: Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is University Lecturer in Comparative and International Politics at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of "Iran in World Politics: the Question of the Islamic Republic," and his most recent book, "A metahistory of the clash of civilizations: Us and them beyond Orientalism" has just been published by Columbia University Press and Hurst.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Arshin Adib-Moghaddam.

Listening Post - Bahrain: Below the Radar
On this week's show: Bahrain - a small kingdom cracking down on the media in a big way. Plus, a look at state media in post-revolution Egypt

Bahrain Security Forces 'Tortured Patients'
THE INDEPENDENT: Bahrain’s security forces stole ambulances and posed as medics to round up injured protesters during a ferocious crackdown on unarmed demonstrators calling for reform of the monarchy, an investigation by a rights group reveals today.

The first major report on repression of the medical profession during the country’s crisis details how a doctor was abducted during an operation and injured patients lying in hospital were tortured and threatened with rape.

The investigation by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) followed a report by The Independent yesterday detailing threats faced by medical staff who treated victims of the repression. More than 30 medics have been taken away by security forces and have had little or no contact with their families.

The report said it found that security forces targeted Shia doctors in particular. The crackdown has created such a climate of fear that wounded people were too frightened to go to hospital to seek treatment. » | Patrick Cockburn | Friday, April 22, 2011

Bahrain Escapes Censure by West as Crackdown on Protesters Intensifies
THE INDEPENDENT: Saudi troops' demolition of mosques stokes religious tensions

Bahraini government forces backed by Saudi Arabian troops are destroying mosques and places of worship of the Shia majority in the island kingdom in a move likely to exacerbate religious hatred across the Muslim world.

"So far they have destroyed seven Shia mosques and about 50 religious meeting houses," said Ali al-Aswad, an MP in the Bahraini parliament.

He said Saudi soldiers, part of the 1,000-strong contingent that entered Bahrain last month, had been seen by witnesses helping demolish Shia mosques and shrines in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

Mohammed Sadiq, of the Justice for Bahrain organisation, said the most famous of the Shia shrines destroyed was that of a revered Bahraini Shia spiritual leader, Sheikh Abdul Amir al-Jamri, who died in 2006. A photograph taken by activists and seen by The Independent shows the golden dome of the shrine lying on the ground and later being taken away on the back of a lorry. On the walls of Shia mosques that have been desecrated, graffiti has been scrawled praising the Sunni King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and insulting the Shia.

The attack on Shia places of worship has provoked a furious reaction among the 250 million Shia community, particularly in Iran and Iraq, where Shia are in a majority, and in Lebanon where they are the largest single community.

The Shia were already angry at the ferocious repression by Bahraini security forces of the pro-democracy movement, which had sought to be non-sectarian. After the monarchy had rejected meaningful reform, the wholly Sunni army and security forces started to crush the largely Shia protests on 15 and 16 March.

The harshness of the government repression is provoking allegations of hypocrisy against Washington, London and Paris. Their mild response to human rights abuses and the Saudi Arabian armed intervention in Bahrain is in stark contrast to their vocal concern for civilians in Libya. » | Patrick Cockburn in Cairo | Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A Chilling Account of the Brutal Clampdown Sweeping Bahrain
THE OBSERVER: Mahmoud, a Shia who lives near Bahrain's capital tells how Saudi soldiers wage a campaign of sectarian violence

Since the Gulf soldiers came to Bahrain, life in the Shia villages and suburbs of the capital, Manama, has been non-stop intimidation, violence and threats. Even trying to move around in normal ways has become life-threatening. They are trying to beat down the opposition with a long campaign against us.

I live in one of the villages near Manama. One night about 7.30pm, I parked in front of my father-in-law's house and walked towards the door, when at least 50 armed and masked thugs – they were not in security forces uniform – appeared from one of the village lanes and told me to stop, pointing their shotguns at me. I ran away and they followed, but I managed to hide in one of the houses and they did not see me.

I heard them talking to each other, saying: "Don't worry, we will find him." I was taking a look from the window and they stayed at the car park opposite the house I was hiding in, and they were smashing the windows of parked cars and wrecking and stealing from them. Some had Saudi accents; they are very different from Bahraini and easy to tell.

At 8pm most nights people go up on their roofs and chant Allahu Akbar ["God is greatest"] and the thugs start shooting randomly in the air and at the top of the roofs. That night the area was covered with tear-gas grenades and rubber bullets, while the roads around the house were deserted except for thugs. » | 'Mahmoud' | Saturday, April 16, 2011

Bahrain Braced for New Wave of Repression
THE OBSERVER: Arrests and troop movements signal another government crackdown on protests in the tiny Gulf state

Bahrain is braced for a fresh bout of violent repression as new arrests and the alleged death of a female student fuel sectarian tensions in the tiny Gulf state.

Armoured vehicles and security forces were reported to be gathering in the streets of the capital, Manama, and in surrounding suburbs and villages.

Meanwhile, evidence has emerged that Saudi forces have been involved in violence against the opposition in the mainly Shia villages and suburbs around Manama. In a graphic eyewitness account of the repression given to the Observer, a Bahraini who has been caught up in the violence claimed that officers with Saudi accents, in plainclothes but armed with automatic weapons, had led attacks on members of the Shia opposition on several occasions over the past month.

When Saudi and UAE troops from the Gulf Peninsula Shield force entered the kingdom at the request of the government last month, it was said that they were there to guard strategic buildings and infrastructure.

Reports from the city said that a young woman – beaten up last month by government supporters at Bahrain University – had died. A family member confirmed her death but the circumstances remained unclear. Arrests of lawyers and doctors working for the opposition continued. » | Foreign staff | Saturday, April 16, 2011

Bahrain: Is a U.S. Ally Torturing Its People?
TIME: On March 17, Ibrahim Shareef, the head of the anti-government activist movement Waad, was snatched from his home at gunpoint by what his family describes as Bahraini security forces. Thrown into a waiting sport utility vehicle, he was driven off into the night. Today he's still missing, whereabouts unknown.

As the island kingdom's Sunni regime continues to crack down on anti-government activists and prominent Shi'ites, Shareef and more than 460 others are believed to be in government custody. New arrests happen daily in the country, which is home base of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. Bahrain was designated an official Non-NATO ally in October 2001, after the 9/11 attacks on America.

While there have been wild rumors of the whereabouts of the arrested dissidents, the likely truth is dire enough. Nearly all may be held in prisons around Bahrain, with an unknown number undergoing questioning and torture. On Wednesday, opposition party al-Wefaq claimed that at least four detainees had been killed since April 2, from injuries sustained from police-inflicted torture. Human Rights Watch says another three died in March, including one man who arrived in custody with knees blown out by ammunition fired at close range. » | Karen Leigh | Thursday, April 14, 2011