Secondo Protocollo United Kingdom

Italy close to the regime: Berlusconi wants impunity on its crimes

2010-08-21T04:55:00.000-07:00

Everyone knew that would have imposed a genuine dictates to those who had dared to criticize him (read Finian). In essence, Mr. Berlusconi wants its total impunity, justice will bend to their will, or will go to vote. Of course, in this decision, the role of President of the Republic is not even covered in style Berlusconi.

PDL strong theme of the meeting of yesterday was as usual justice. Berlusconi wants his reform. Reform of the CSM (too hostile to B), short process (you never know, the Constitutional Court in December may find unconstitutional "such failure"), a new Lodo Alfano, separation of the careers of judges and, above all, revival of Law on interception is so dear to mobsters and criminals but also includes very strong restrictions on press freedom. Everything Else (federalism, fiscal reform, and security plan of the south) are just an option, smoke and mirrors.

Berlusconi did not affect the four optional (already present in other government program), he is concerned that only about justice, the only point disputed by Finian puts it above any other Italian citizen, above the law.

No mention, of course, the laws against corruption, reform electoral law and the Ministry of Economic Development to which the Premier still has the interim. These are things that are of "interest", rather, are things that ruin it (interest). Not quite the time with all these "friends" accused of corruption and make the ridge through cracks and lodges on public procurement. Better to wait and think about how to place them beyond the "communist magistrates who as usual want to subvert the popular decision."

Everything as expected in fact. Nothing new, indeed, important confirmation on the fact that some gentlemen, the Constitution is only an "unlawful refusal" that the President should stay good and quiet and those who dare challenge the system finds a minimum on the cross and targeted from all over the guns of the press premierina. The only doubt that assails me is about the statement that Berlusconi on his part "there has never been the wish to promote the campaign against Gianfranco Fini. But what was that a joke?
From Free Italian Press

Gaetano Sparti: as a small event becomes an international incident

2010-07-26T05:15:00.001-07:00

The more we go back to the case of Gaetano Sparti, seized more than two years in the UAE and literally abandoned by the Italian institutions, and more comes out the stench of rotten one (apparently) little story like this hiding. Is there really all that much we are obliged to prepare a long dossier to summarize the history and the Italian and international implications that it entails.

However, as we prepare detailed dossiers on which we work for weeks but because of the continuous and daily updates fail to finish, it will be appropriate to make a brief summary presents the major implications that this murky case.
Stakeholders - stakeholders are Sparti Gaetano, Italian engineer, a former official of Italy Nalco, Nalco Company Corporate Affiliate. On the other hand is the Nalco Gulf, based in Dubai and also Nalco Company Corporate Affiliate.

The accusations - The Nalco Gulf initially accused of embezzling Gaetano Sparti in association with the Max Goeldi, an Indian national employed by Nalco Gulf, a considerable amount equal to U.S. $ 1,938,834 and had founded, again with Max Goeldi, a company that did the same work through the system known as Nalco Gulf Rak Free Zone, a single, existing only in the UAE that allows the opening of companies and bank accounts without many formalities (we have done in half an hour) and without any control, which allows these "fake farms" to overcome all the checks and embargo, and then all the marketing in any country.

The preliminary investigation - The March 14, 2008 Gaetano while Sparta is preparing to return to Italy was stopped by police in Dubai and the passport was impounded because of accusations made against him by Nalco Gulf. Thus begins the preliminary investigation that in one way or another drag on for over a year and a half, during which Mr. Sparta can not leave the UAE and is forced to live (own expense) at a hotel in Dubai. Beginning to emerge early quirks. The judge in charge of preliminary investigations refers constantly to the hearings and can not find any evidence against Gaetano Sparta. Yet still refusing to return the passport holding it in fact seized. The Ministry of Justice of Abu Dhabi but is not that Gaetano Sparti is inserted in the black list of those who can not leave the country and therefore it is sufficient that the Italian authorities to issue him a new passport for him to return to Italy, plus operation that would be more seen that permitted the long period passed since the seizure of the passport. The Italian authorities however refuse to do so trivial and baseless excuses. Not really want to spoil relations with the emirate of Dubai (which reports will see them in detail in the dossier in preparation). Meanwhile, our association seeks in all ways to make known to the press and several Members of the scandalous affair suffered by Gaetano Sparti, but every reporter and / or Member who asks questions about this story is immediately stopped by "the highest level of foreign ministry "on the grounds of" a very complex case where (even) have involved the secret services of different countries. " Actually there's nothing like that but there is only a billion-dollar business with the UAE and in particular with the emirate of Dubai that the Ministry does not want to ruin for a single (small) plus man who had the 'daring to defend himself by pulling out the truth about all the shady deals that multinational companies can do in the emirate. Finally after a year and a half Gaetano Sparti is indicted on charges of "failing to prevent Mr. Max Goeldi to appropriate that sum (in practical terms is accused of negligence). Gone the other allegations. The passport continues to be detained in Dubai, Abu Dhabi continue to say that Mr. Sparta could leave the country at any time, we continue to ask for a copy of the passport, the Foreign Ministry continues to refuse to do it.

The process - And here we are at long-awaited trial. Here is a premise: UAE Shariah, ie Islamic law. According to Sharia law a person accused of any crime must be brought before a judge within a short time (the average time in the UAE are of three months). Gaetano scores are passed to a year and a half. Without that necessary premise we turn to talk about the process. The court begins the same story of his predecessor employed to preliminary investigations, that starts to continuously postpone the hearings and any excuse. The Nalco Gulf is represented in this process by none other than Habib Mohamed Sharif Al Mula then that is nothing but the lawyer Emir of Dubai. A lawyer typically costs a few million dollars for the whole Malpractice plus very doubtful. But are not the only oddities. Witnesses fail to appear and when they are accompanied by leadership of Nalco Corporate (not so those of Nalco Gulf), so we are at the highest levels. The Summits of Nalco can safely attend hearings and to suggest to the witnesses. The same thing is not permitted to Italian consular representative who is forced to wait outside the classroom. Why? In any case after a year you come to the decision. It must be said that no charges against Mr. Gaetano Sparti been proven, however, after all this time that Mr. Gaetano was kept sequestered could hardly let him go with apologies, that is sentenced to three months for negligence. Note that the same penalty was saddled Goeldi Max, however, be properly accused of over one million dollars. Why?

The appeal - At this point Mr. Gaetano Sparti initially decided not to appeal and serve his sentence of three months. His reasoning is simple: three months, and I'm going home. If I make the call keep me here for another year. Just one might think. But no. The lawyer of Mr. Sparta explains that Nalco could seek civil damages of several million dollars, according to UAE laws, until Mr. Sparta has not paid should remain in prison. So is trapped. So you decide to make the call. Important Note: Three days after the ruling Mr. Gaetano Sparti be informed in writing that can not leave the country, that his name was entered into that famous black list where not there before and that was why we asked a copy of your passport at the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry itself has always been inexplicably refused to do. Why?

The reason for the whole story - hard to explain in a few lines because all of this sordid story that involves an Italian. For this reason we decided to prepare the dossier. However we want to give a preview, just to not leave the reader empty-handed. First of all, who is the Nalco? The Nalco is an American multinational corporation with offices worldwide and quoted that produces and sells products related to the oil sector and that of water purification. In fact, the activities and connections of Nalco are many more, but as I said we'll talk about the issue. Just to give a small preview we refer to this article on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and tell you a little background regarding BP, Nalco, and incredible, Goldman Sachs and that should make the idea of power this multinational. You must know that Goldman Sachs was a shareholder, along with a cartel of six other owners of the Federal Reserve (the bank that governs the U.S. dollar), BP. Shortly before the disaster to happen (by chance) Goldman Sachs sells almost all its shares in BP (4.68 million out of 6) for a total of 276 million dollars. Okay you say, nothing strange. But you know what does he do with that money to Goldman Sachs? Nalco invests them all on that, coincidentally, just weeks after cashing millions of dollars with its product called "Corexit" which is used (wrongly) to clean up the damage caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Foresight? Doubt it. We have told this little episode (one of many) just shows how we are interests behind Nalco, interests (directly or through affiliates) also involve different "personalities Italian" the highest level. How could objectively claim that someone intervene to Mr. Gaetano Sparti where there is the other side Nalco, Goldman Sachs, the emir of Dubai, a system to bypass the embargo that earns millions of dollars to a lot of people including "tall Italian characters? Do you understand now why all those who have highlighted? Understand why despite the promises made to Mr.. Gaetano Sparta was not even allowed access to the support fund of the Consulate General in Dubai, although this happens to any Italian citizen who is in trouble abroad? They simply and deliberately isolated and seized with the aim not to return to Italy. The reasons for this choice are many and perhaps all valid when viewed by the person who does business with this gang. But now the case of Gaetano Sparta becomes an international case and if anyone thinks it can be left to rot in Dubai is really big mistake. From today, all nodes will be to comb. Then see what heads will fall first. Meanwhile for those who wish to read other interesting little things on this matter may do so by following this discussion on our forum (need to be able to read a simple registration.)

Remove Catherine Ashton from the role of represented European Affairs. Support Hamas

2010-07-20T02:16:00.000-07:00

The umpteenth harmful visit of the High Representative for European foreign policy, Catherine Ashton, in the Gaza Strip coupled with the nth argument in favor of oppressive policy of Hamas urge us to ask the European bodies responsible for the replacement of the HR policy that European foreign, or alternatively, to require an act of courage of Ashton with the presentation of his immediate resignation as an employee.

The reasons for our request are as follows:

1 - Ashton speaking on behalf of the entire European Union calls for the full opening (men and material) of the crossings into Gaza by Israel knowing that such an eventuality would allow Hamas terrorists to infiltrate Israel to carry out bombings and to enter the Gaza Strip for use in war materials and weapons of all kinds. Ashton's position is even more irresponsible because the terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip has made no secret of wanting to destroy Israel. It is clear from this that the request of Ashton is deliberately designed to encourage Hamas and so the potential destruction of the Jewish state. I do not believe that this is the position of the European Union.

2 - Ashton has deliberately avoided any mention of the continuing violations of fundamental human rights perpetrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. According to the summary that says "silence", one can only interpret this behavior as a clear agreement as to the repressive policies of Hamas. What is in total disagreement with the policies and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.
3 - Ashton entirely personal opinions expressed by pretending to be a common European

4 - with his statements Ashton openly supports the policy of Hamas, we recall, is considered by the European Union that she is a terrorist group

5 - now in his numerous visits to Ashton was never interested in development projects in the Gaza Strip financed by European funds and usurped by Hamas, in fact, propose new and more appropriate funding knowing that these funds will end in the hands of terrorist group . The Ashton has never even bothered to ask the NGOs of the ECHO (the most serious) why the projects submitted to them were never implemented and the reasons why the funds bestowed by ECHO bounces to the impossibility to implement these projects because of opposition from Hamas in any development project.

6 - Ashton's visit in July 18 he visited the summer camps UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestinian refugees) for the youth of Gaza, expressing "satisfaction" for their work in these fields, but did not said a word or expressed conviction on the two camps run by UNRWA always destroyed by Hamas to mixed (boys and girls) did not express any words of condemnation for NGOs devastated and then expelled in recent days by Hamas proving once again that his line is to support the terrorist movement.

7 - Ashton finally has asked to see the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, as requested by many, simply to "whisper" a general request for release. The European Union, whose representative is Ashton, but had expressed a "firm conviction" and had asked at least one visit to the International Red Cross to Corporal Shalit. None of this has been asked by Ashton.

For these reasons and because of statements made by Catherine Ashton in recent months, statements, all focused on support to Hamas (and not the Palestinians) ask the European Union, the registries, the Italian Foreign Minister and MEPs elected for the 'Italy, to request the immediate removal of Catherine Ashton from the role of High Representative for European foreign policy as blatantly inconsistent with the views expressed repeatedly on the issue of the Middle East by the European Union. Hamas is a terrorist group taking hostages 1.5 million Palestinians and violates basic human rights every day. Europe can not have a foreign minister (or equivalent), which openly supports this terrorist group.

Request sent to the President of the European Commission for Foreign Affairs, Gabriele Albertini, the vice presidents, Fiorello Provera (Italy), Ioan Mircea Pascu (Romania), Dominique Baudis (France) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (France) and by petition (here link) to the European Parliament.

U.S., EU and U.N. sanctions on Iran

2010-07-17T02:40:00.000-07:00

A new round of U.S. and European sanctions targets Iran's dilapidated oil sector from top to bottom, msking it more difficult to maintain output capacity and domestic supplies of fuel.

Following are some details of the sanctions imposed on Iran by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union:

* U.S. SANCTIONS:

-- Sanctions imposed after Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy and took diplomats hostage in 1979 included a ban on most U.S.-Iran trade.

-- Goods or services from Iran cannot be imported into the United States, either directly or through third countries, with the following exceptions: gifts valued at $100 or less; information or informational materials; foodstuffs intended for human consumption; certain carpets and other textile floor coverings and carpets used as wall hangings.

-- In 1995, President Bill Clinton issued executive orders preventing U.S. companies from investing in Iranian oil and gas and trading with Iran. Tehran has looked for other customers.

-- The same year, Congress passed a law requiring the U.S. government to impose sanctions on foreign firms investing more than $20 million a year in Iran's energy sector. It was extended for five years in September 2006. No foreign firms have yet been penalised, though many have severely curtailed their operations in Iran.

-- In October 2007 Washington imposed sanctions on Bank Melli, Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat and branded the Revolutionary Guards a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction. In October 2009, the Treasury also sanctioned Bank Mellat in Malaysia and its chairman.

-- The Treasury this month added Post Bank of Iran to its list of specially designated proliferators of weapons of mass destruction. It is the 16th bank in Iran that Washington has sought to cut off from the international financial system.

-- The Treasury has identified some 20 petroleum and petrochemical companies as being under Iranian government control -- an action that puts them off limits to U.S. businesses under a general trade embargo.

-- Congress approved on June 24 tough new unilateral sanctions aimed at squeezing Iran's energy and banking sectors, which could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Tehran.

-- The legislation will sanction companies for supplying Iran with refined petroleum products with a fair market value exceeding $1 million or that during a 12-month period have an aggregate fair market value of $5 million or more. Companies that fail to abide by the sanctions will face tough penalties, such as being banned from the U.S. financial system or being denied US contracts.

-- The legislation also imposes sanctions on international banking institutions involved with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its nuclear programme or what Washington calls its support for terrorist activity. It effectively deprives foreign banks of access to the U.S. financial system if they do business with key Iranian banks or the Revolutionary Guards. -- U.S. sanctions against Iran can be found on the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control website: http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/iran/iran.shtml and http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2194/text

* U.N. SANCTIONS:

-- The Security Council has imposed four sets of sanctions on Iran, in December 2006, March 2007, March 2008 and June 2010.

-- The first covered sensitive nuclear materials and froze the assets of Iranian individuals and companies linked with the nuclear programme. It gave Iran 60 days to suspend uranium enrichment, a deadline Iran ignored.

-- The second included new arms and financial sanctions. It extended an asset freeze to 28 more groups, companies and individuals engaged in or supporting sensitive nuclear work or development of ballistic missiles, including the state-run Bank Sepah and firms controlled by the Revolutionary Guards.

-- The resolution invoked Chapter 7, Article 41 of the U.N. Charter, making most of its provisions mandatory but excluding military action. Iran again ignored an order to halt enrichment.

-- The third measure increased travel and financial curbs on individuals and companies and made some of them mandatory. It expanded a partial ban on trade in items with both civilian and military uses to cover sales of all such technology to Iran, and added 13 individuals and 12 companies to the list of those suspected of aiding Iran's nuclear and missile programmes. In September 2008, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution again ordering Iran to halt enrichment. Iran again disregarded the order.

-- The Security Council resolution passed on June 9 called for measures against new Iranian banks abroad if a connection to the nuclear or missile programmes is suspected, as well as vigilance over transactions with any Iranian bank, including the central bank.

-- It also expanded a U.N. arms embargo against Tehran and blacklisted three firms controlled by Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and 15 belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The resolution also called for setting up a cargo inspection regime similar to one in place for North Korea.

-- Annexed to the draft resolution was a list of 40 companies to be added to an existing U.N. blacklist of firms.

* EU SANCTIONS

-- The EU has imposed visa bans on senior officials such as Revolutionary Guards chief Mohammad Ali Jafari, former Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and former atomic energy chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh, and on top nuclear and ballistic experts.

-- Britain announced last October it was freezing business ties with Bank Mellat and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, both of which have previously faced sanctions from the United States. Britain cited fears they were involved in helping Iran develop nuclear weapons.

-- New sanctions, which EU leaders agreed in June, will focus on trade, Iran's transport sector, and key sectors of the gas and oil industry.

-- Energy sector sanctions would prohibit "new investment, technical assistance and transfers of technologies, equipment and services related to these areas, in particular related to refining, liquefaction and liquefied natural gas technology".

Murmurs of Ahmadinejad’s Impeachment

2010-07-10T02:25:00.001-07:00

By Bahram Rafiee - In a pointed speech on Tuesday, the head of the Majlis Research Center Ahmad Tavakkoli blasted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reminded him that the Majlis can legally remove him through impeachment or a vote of no confidence. Tavakkoli made the remarks in response to Ahmadinejad’s refusal to implement certain Majlis bills and articles of the Constitution, as well as numerous statements that the chief executive had made in which he accused the Majlis of passing bills that violated the Constitution or Islamic law.

In his speech yesterday at the Majlis, Tavakkoli said, “The president has a peculiar interpretation of Article 113 [of the Constitution], which states that the president must execute the Constitution. According to that interpretation, he allows himself to not implement a law if he believes it to be unconstitutional; to not implement a law if he believes it not to be expedient; or even worse, to say in front of people on television that he would not implement a law; or that he would not send administrative orders to the Majlis speaker by changing their names from ‘order’ to ‘recommendations’; or even more blatantly, as happened recently unfortunately, to demand that administrative orders and guidelines not be sent to the Majlis. He also refuses to attend Expediency Council meetings in violation of Article 112 of the Constitution and the supreme leader’s orders. He resists the subjection of his closest allies to the normal legal procedure rules. These behaviors not only weaken the judiciary and law, but also teach others how to disrespect the law.”

Without naming Ahmadinejad, Tavakkoli added, “The Constitution clearly states each branch’s duties and responsibilities. If there is a disagreement over its interpretation, it empowers the Guardian Council to resolve the disagreement. If there is disagreement over the interpretation of other laws, it empowers the Majlis to resolve them. It empowers the president, who is directly elected by the people, to execute the laws. It requires him to sign the Majlis bills in accordance with the relevant procedures and communicate them to officials for implementation.”

Tavakkoli, who is a member of the hardline Principalist faction in the Majlis, then outlined Majlis’s powers with respect to the chief executive: “The Constitution empowers the Majlis to confirm that administrative orders are not opposed to the letter or spirit of laws. It empowers the Majlis to confirm ministers, and holds them and the president accountable to the Majlis (Articles 122 and 137). It holds sufficient the signatures of 10 representative to impeach a minister and the signatures of one-third of lawmakers to impeach the president, whose incompetence can be announced after two-thirds of the lawmakers cast a vote of no confidence, even if these lawmakers represent voters who comprise fewer than half of those who voted for the president.”

Guinea-Bissau could head towards new chaos

2010-07-09T01:58:00.000-07:00

Years of struggle to provide Guinea-Bissau with political stability and economic progress may be at stake if the country's uneasy military forces are not brought under control, the UN warns.

The progress made by Guinea-Bissau following last year's political crisis could be jeopardised unless major reforms in the areas of defence and security are carried out, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in his newest periodical report of the country.

Recent months have witnessed rising political and security tensions in the country, where a series of political assassinations last year had threatened security and stability but where order was restored with the election of Malam Bacai Sanhá in the June 2009 presidential election.

However, as the UN notes in its latest report on developments in Guinea-Bissau, the brief detention of the Prime Minister and of the Chief of General Staff and other senior military officers by some members of the armed forces on 1 April constituted "a major setback" to the process of consolidating stability and implementing key reforms.

In addition, the violation of the UN premises on 1 April by elements of the armed forces was "unacceptable and condemnable," says the UN Secretary-General, who urged the national authorities to comply with their obligation to protect UN installations, personnel and assets.

"The important progress made by the government and people of Guinea-Bissau towards strengthening democratic institutions and implementing major reforms, which had generated positive momentum with and among international partners, could rapidly be compromised unless drastic changes are made by key national stakeholders to advance crucial reforms, including the reform of the defence and security sectors, and to stabilise the country," Mr Ban states.

Mr Ban adds that the President, the Prime Minister and other key national stakeholders would need to take concrete actions to preserve the gains made so far and to consolidate the state-building process in the country.

It is crucial, he writes, that the country's civilian and military authorities agree on a rapid and acceptable solution to the sensitive issue of the military leadership in Guinea-Bissau. "I call on the armed forces to demonstrate their resolve to remain subordinate to the civilian leadership, who enjoy legitimacy as a result of fair and transparent elections."

Dialogue should be aimed at seeking broad national consensus on other major issues, including security sector reform, and should pave the way for the convening of the national conference planned for 2011, advised the UN Secretary-General.

Mr Ban's report pointed out that security sector reform was "of utmost importance," noting that without it, efforts to launch resource mobilisation initiatives, such as a planned donor round-table conference for development aid, would be severely undermined.

The report also briefly comments on the increased influence of international drug trafficking on the security situation in Guinea-Bissau. The power struggle in the Bissau army has been put in connection with a fight over the control of profits from the drug trade.

Somaliland: opposition wins poll

2010-07-04T00:56:00.000-07:00

Ahmed Mahamoud Silanyo will be the new President of the breakaway state of Somaliland following an election defeat of incumbent President Dahir Riyale Kahin.

Mr Silanyo leads the Kulmiye opposition party and was beaten by President Riyale by only a few hundred votes in Somaliland's last elections in 2003. This time, however Mr Silanyo gained 50 percent of the vote, compared to only 33 percent for President Riyale.

The results were announced today by Somaliland's National Election Commission, which declared the opposition leader winner of the 26 June elections. The results have been published on President Riyale's government website, thus recognising defeat.

"Somaliland's Supreme Court will ratify the results and the President-elect and his vice president will be sworn in by 26 July, 2010. All the political parties agreed to abide by the results," the Hargeisa government said in a statement.

Somaliland since declaring independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991 has been ruled by the UCID party, first by founding President Mohammed Egal, and after his death by President Riyale. While Mr Egal was marked as a charismatic leader, Mr Riyale was more seen as an administrator.

Despite the UCID dominance on politics since independence, Somaliland has progressively built up democratic institution seen as "model" to the African Horn region. International observers termed both the 2003 presidential and the 2005 legislative polls free and fair.

Many however feared that Somaliland was facing a democracy setback as the current presidential polls were delayed time after time.

The presidential elections were originally scheduled for August 2008, but were first postponed as two Somaliland provinces were occupied by the Somali province of Puntland. After several postponements and increased pressure from the opposition party Kulmiye, President Riyale this year finally decreed the 26 June as election date.

Now, however, it seems clear that Somaliland becomes one of the first African nations where an incumbent President loses the election to an opposition challenger. Somaliland is thus heading for a peaceful an orderly power transfer from UCID to Kulmiye later this month.

Somaliland broke away from a Somalia falling into chaos in 1991, re-establishing the Somaliland Republic that gained independence from Britain in 1960 and soon thereafter joined former Italian Somaliland to form Somalia.

Since 1991, Hargeisa authorities have managed to build a functional state and maintain peace and order in most of its territory. Somaliland still has not been recognised by any country but enjoys good informal ties with neighbouring Ethiopia and many African and Western nations.

Case of Gaetano Sparti: no secret services, only great companies and millionaire affairs

2010-07-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

Of the case that sees involved the Italian citizen Gaetano Sparti (Here is a summary table of contents, but just do a search to find any information on the site) it was said everything and more, but truth is not said never. When someone (journalists and even deputies) they are interested they are always felt to say to be to the wide one, that there had involved the secret services of different nations and that the case was very complicated. Nothing falser. The case is of a disarming simplicity and doesn't have anything to whether to do with intrigues international or other things from 007, but it has to do with millionaire affairs of firms and characters (also Italian) involved to various title in the colossal business of the United Arabic Emirates.

But let's calm and do a little background: Yesterday, after two years and three months of actual kidnapping and after continuous and repeated insistence, the court in Dubai sentenced to death by Gaetano Sparti three months. I do not know if you realize. An Italian citizen was held hostage for over two years without anyone moving a finger for an offense (committed to nothing, but that's another story) that has been sentenced to three months. Like we call this? Nonsense? Mala justice UAE? A spectacular miscarriage of justice? Or do we call it for what it is, that the clumsy but effective attempt to ruin a person and his unassailable reputation to make it harmless? Here's what it is, nothing more, nothing less. Of course, I realize that I can not sum up in two rows or in a long article, do not tell a story like this in a nutshell. For this we are drawing up a very detailed report that tells the whole story and we will publish as soon as possible. Meanwhile, what we want is to know to whom it may concern that no one is stupid and that it is far from completed. If they wanted to turn in case of Gaetano Sparti an international case, well, some people know that they did it.

Meanwhile, when I write a detailed dossier about to leave for the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and the FBI. The first is the body that controls the American Stock Exchange, while the second one we all know who that is. The SEC is concerned because the company that is upstream of this case, the Nalco Company Corporate is listed (there are some interesting news item), while the FBI is concerned that because the company has made quite the vixen in these years . We say that the American law is particularly harsh with those who violate the embargo considered rogue countries like Cuba, Sudan and Iran. But it does not end here. Now that we want also to reveal how the system used in the UAE to evade and circumvent the rules on the embargo imposed by the international community, that little-system called "Rak Free Zone" that allows many companies around the world trade products with prohibited embargoed countries without appearing. Emirs can announce what they want to have put the seized accounts of those companies who trade with Iran to comply with new UN sanctions, to end with this system will affect only 2% of these companies and they know very well. Now we will devote the next few days a nice confirmation report is very detailed, complete with opening of a ghost company and a UAE account at a bank. But it would not be complete if we did not speak also of Italian companies and Italian characters (top-thickness) in various capacities that are involved in this matter, not because it directly involved but because the holders of securities or investments in companies doing part of the circuit oil and energy which are instead involved in this whirlwind tour of interest. If someone asked favors for these people will find out and denounce. If you put self-interest (or national), the right of an Italian citizen, will find out and accuse him without any discounts.

And then there is the behavior of the Italian Institutions. May 11 th 2010 the President of the Republic, through the ambassador Rocco Antonio Cangelosi, following one letter of mine he answered me regarding the case of Gaetano Spartì. It was not the usual letter of circumstance but it underlined, through different passages, that the Presidency of the Republic was indeed interested near the Office of the Foreign Affairs of the story, which it goes everything for the President Napolitano. If not that it also underlined another thing, that is that also with the Presidency of the Republic the MAE had been very evasive, not to say of worse. It was first of all said that the MAE affirmed to have, through the embassy of Abu Dhabi and the General Consulate of Dubai, continuous contacts with the authorities emiratine to arrive to one, textually quotes, “rapids solution of the matter.” To speak of rapids solution after two years of sequestration seems me inopportune. And then, from our contacts with the Office of the Justice of the United Arabic Emirates, it doesn't result us there has been never some pressure for a rapids solution of the case. You will say, justly, that Italy cannot interfere with the justice of a third State. Correct, provided that the most elementary fundamental Rights of an Italian citizen are not stamped on. In the kind letter of the Presidency of the Republic, he also affirmed that the embassy he was also concerned of, I textually quote, “to verify the state of health (of Gaetano Spartì n.d.r.) through his own physician of trust.” Far from it. Gaetano Sparti, which is really dramatic health conditions, was provided the name of a physician who then had to pay the same score of his own pocket (although later reimbursed), who had prescribed some tests but not never been made as deemed by the Italian authorities "too expensive". Now, I do not know what exactly lie to the President, but I confess that it makes quite an impression.

Finished here? No, I still have a few things to say about Italian institutions. On May 31, 2010 I write in response to my letter, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. Minister proves to be well informed about the case from the beginning. However also demonstrates that, like the President, is not informed either the current health of Gaetano Sparti (he also says that investigations have been made), nor on the current charges. In short, while confirming the continued involvement also confirms that I was on two years ago. So much! But what does annoy me most is the fact that only a few days later (May 14), the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is working personally with Libya for the release of a Swiss citizen, that Max Goeldi, even He seized more than two years as Gaetano Sparti. But how - I wonder - we beg assistance from the Italian government in favor of an Italian citizen and the prime minister is working for a Swiss? Absurd and humiliating at the same time.

Now, what I wanted to get those who are behind this whole thing they got: a decent man made harmless by destroying it morally, physically and psychologically, and doing so (spending millions of dollars) that was to pay for something that never made but somehow made him "unreliable". But what did not calculate is the ultimate determination of this person, Gaetano Sparti, in obtaining justice. I firmly believe that the role of Gaetano Sparti has been greatly overestimated and that there was a danger to anyone. This before being sequestered for over two years and finally condemned unjustly. But now things have changed. They wanted an international incident? Well, now we have it.

Franco Londei

Africa’s displaced people: out of the shadows - African Union convention breaks new ground

2010-06-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

It was a departure they never had time to prepare for. Seeking to escape death — sometimes amidst fighting between the Senegalese army and rebels in the southern region of Casamance — thousands fled their homes and abandoned livestock and property. Over the past two decades many have resettled in successive waves in Ziguinchor, a major city in Casamance. Since then returning home has been an elusive dream. “We want to, but we fear we might get killed,” Gabriel Tandar, an elder who fled after his village was attacked in 1991, told a Radio France Internationale reporter in December. Up to now their lives have gotten no better, he complained. “We have no jobs, nothing to do and we rely on others for our basic needs. We cannot even go out there to look for firewood. We are afraid.”

Mr. Tandar and thousands of others forced out of their homes while remaining in their countries are known as internally displaced persons (IDPs). They are the forgotten victims of a protracted low-intensity conflict. Fear, loss, need and a dispiriting feeling of being in exile in their own land have been their lot for nearly two decades. But these people are hardly the only ones living through such an ordeal. Across Africa nearly 12 million persons (almost half the world’s IDP population) share the same plight, according to estimates by the United Nations and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), the leading independent body on the issue, which works closely with the UN.*

There are fundamental differences between IDPs, whose displacement takes place within the borders of their country, and refugees, who seek shelter in another country. Africa is home to around 3 million refugees protected under international laws by the 1951 UN Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1969 Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Under the Geneva Convention the international community is obliged to protect and assist refugees, including with shelter, food and medical help. The UN has a central institution dedicated to carrying out that comprehensive mandate, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Unlike refugees, IDPs do not enjoy the same support, be it legal or institutional. Instead a highly influential but not-legally-binding set of principles (known as the guiding principles) serves as the main international instrument for their protection. Although these principles specify the standards (largely similar to those for refugees) for the best response to the needs of displaced people, no institution is required to implement them. The primary responsibility for the protection of IDPs falls to their own government.

However, many states lack the capacity or resources, and sometimes the political will, to assist IDPs adequately. As IDPs struggle with difficult living conditions, they are often inefficiently supported by an array of agencies and actors. Some remain unassisted for extended periods and are marginalized and vulnerable to human rights violations. Their suffering is precisely what drove 17 African countries to sign the African Union (AU) Convention on IDPs — also known as the Kampala Convention, after the capital of Uganda where the treaty was signed on 23 October 2009. If ratified, the convention will fill this void in international humanitarian law for Africa’s IDPs. The Kampala Convention is an “historic agreement aimed at protecting and assisting our brothers and sisters, the internally displaced,” President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda told the press on signature day.

‘A beacon of hope’

By agreeing to the first legally binding continental treaty on IDPs, African leaders have taken a bold step in dealing with what former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan once described as “one of the great tragedies of our time.” Potentially, the document has far-reaching political implications. Governments that sign it agree to shoulder primary responsibility for preventing forced displacement, among other things by threatening prosecution of those responsible, including non-state actors such as insurgent and rebel groups, private military contractors and multinational corporations. It also obliges governments to assist IDPs and facilitate their resettlement after they have been forced to move.

Under the convention, both governments and armed groups are required to protect and assist IDPs without any discrimination in areas under their effective control, to assist local communities that host IDPs and to facilitate humanitarian organizations’ access to the displaced and delivery of relief supplies. Additionally, the treaty obliges governments to provide compensation for the harm suffered by persons as a result of their displacement. It calls for cooperation among governments, international organizations, humanitarian agencies and civil society organizations to protect IDPs. According to Julia Joiner, the AU commissioner for political affairs, “This instrument clearly demonstrates that African leaders are conscious of the difficulties that displaced persons experience and are poised to do as much as possible to put an end to their suffering.”

Walter Kälin, the UN Secretary-General’s representative on IDPs, likened the Kampala Convention to “a beacon of hope for 12 million Africans.” In an interview with Africa Renewal, Mr. Kälin underlines the fact that compared to the UN-supported guiding principles on IDPs, the AU treaty clarifies the responsibilities of governments and other actors. Mr. Kälin notes, however, that “we still have a long way to go until it has an impact on the ground.”

‘Tragic crisis’

As a result of protracted conflicts, massive human rights violations and natural disasters, internal displacement has reached daunting proportions in Africa. “Between 1969 and 1994 … the number of internally displaced persons soared, to between 10 million and 15 million,” writes Francis Deng, the first representative of the UN Secretary-General on IDPs, in a widely praised book co-authored with Roberta Cohen, a former scholar at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C.** Such an alarming increase, the authors add, prompted the Organization of African Unity, which was superseded by the African Union in 2002, to affirm in 1994 that internal displacement is “one of the most tragic humanitarian and human rights crises in Africa today.”

Since the mid-1990s the many wars in the Great Lakes region (Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda), West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire) and the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia) have forced millions of people to flee their homes, pushing some abroad but also displacing many within their own borders. In recent years, as the number of conflicts have declined, more IDPs have returned home. In Uganda, more than half of the 1.8 million IDPs recorded in 2005 had gone home by December 2009. In Burundi the number went from 800,000 in 1999 to 100,000 at the end of 2009. According to the IDMC, the number of IDPs currently recorded in Africa is the lowest in a decade.

Yet over the past two years, three out of five of the world’s largest internal displacement situations have still been in Africa. With 4.9 million displaced, Sudan has the largest reported IDP population, victims of the conflict in the Darfur region and the instability in Southern Sudan. An estimated 2 million people are IDPs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and some 1.3 million have been forced to flee their homes in Somalia. In total, 19 African countries confront problems of forced displacement resulting from conflict, generalized violence and human rights abuses.

“Internally displaced communities in African countries faced myriad risks, due to immediate threats to their safety in some cases, and long-term neglect in others,” notes the IDMC report. Rape and sexual violence against women and girls, and the forced recruitment of children into armed groups, are particularly insidious and widespread, adds the centre. Both the international community and African governments have generally been slow in devising solutions. Until the end of the Cold War, action in favour of IDPs was very limited. In 1992 the UN Secretary-General appointed Mr. Deng, a former Sudanese foreign minister, as his first representative on IDPs. As the only senior UN official solely devoted to IDPs, he was instrumental in developing and publicizing legal mechanisms for their protection, including the guiding principles.

African responses to the needs of IDPs have come a long way, from an initial reluctance to a progressively stronger stand in recent years. In 2006, 11 Great Lakes countries adopted a protocol on IDPs, the first binding multilateral pact in the world focused on internal displacement. Before the Kampala Convention, some countries had set up or were in the process of setting up legal frameworks for IDPs’ protection. The Kampala Convention resulted from a complex three-year drafting process that . To date, it represents the single most ambitious initiative for dealing with IDPs.

Challenges ahead

Even before the ink dried on the AU convention, many were already pointing to the numerous challenges it will face. First is the challenge of ratification. To come into force, the convention needs to be formally endorsed by 15 countries. Katinka Ridderbos of IDMC suggested to Africa Renewal that “it is unlikely that we will see all the 53 African countries ratifying the convention.” However, Ms. Ridderbos asserts, enough governments will likely ratify the document to make it binding. The 11 signatories to the Great Lakes protocol are expected to adopt the AU convention. The 15 members of the Southern African Development Community are also said to be committed to it. But as of early March 2010 only Uganda, the host country, had ratified the treaty.

Another issue will be effective implementation. The UN’s Mr. Kälin, whose work involves assisting national authorities around the world to protect IDPs, foresees that “the lack of capacity and financial as well as human resources” will be a practical hurdle. In most countries the needs of IDPs are not matched by the resources allocated for assisting them. “Africa cannot do it alone,” says Ms. Joiner of the AU. “That is why we are calling for partnerships.”

To make the convention matter for the millions of African IDPs, political commitment by African leaders will be the most important ingredient. “An absence of sufficient political will to adhere to the commitments” would be disastrous, says Mr. Kälin. In some situations, assisting IDPs has been difficult because national authorities have refused to recognize their existence. Invoking their right as sovereign states, they have been reluctant to let in any foreign actors. Too often, governments or rebel groups have not accepted responsibility for displaced people. They often deny having forced them out of their homes and reject calls to take care of them. In some cases, population displacement has even been part of a military strategy, and civilians have been used as human shields.

Under the former Organization of African Unity, African states were reluctant to interfere in each other’s internal affairs, even in the face of massive killings and displacements, elevating the principle of national sovereignty to “absurd proportions,” regrets Salim Ahmed Salim, a former OAU secretary-general. But there has been progress since then. Mr. Kälin believes that while the Kampala Convention recognizes the sovereignty of states, it “understands this concept not as the right of governments to do nothing in situations of internal displacement, but rather as responsibility to assist and protect their IDPs — a responsibility that flows from the fact that they, and nobody else, have the power to do so.”

Now that the treaty exists, African governments have a duty to ensure that “the convention becomes a binding instrument,” says Jean Ping, the AU Commission president. “At this point it is an achievement, but not an end in itself.”

Auto Draft

2010-06-28T01:19:00.000-07:00

Report: Africa is the most profitable place to invest

2010-06-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

Leading financial consulting firms McKinsey and BCG agree that Africa is the most profitable place to invest. Not only does Africa provide the best growth rates; analyses also show that investments in Africa 2000-2009 had yielded the highest profits world-wide.

Many global investors still shy away from Africa, falling victim to the continent's outdated image of war, corruption, political instability, financial chaos and universal poverty and suffering. Investors opening their eyes to the African reality however are making the business of their lives on the continent, real numbers demonstrate.

A new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shows that investors putting their trust in Africa already in 2003 made far larger profits than those investing in more conventional markets. Between 2003 and 2008, investments in Africa's leading companies yielded more than double profits compared to investments in US, East Asian or European companies.

Over the last decade, the BCG report says, the African economy "has begun to emerge. Hidden in plain view, scores of African companies have been competing and rapidly expanding in the global economy." BCG had identified 40 fast-growing African companies with global aspirations as an example of the continent's vibrant economy, terming them "the African challengers."

The BCG report explains the "keys to success" for the African challengers. "First they benefit from doing business in a place with many native advantages, including natural resources, cheap labour, and a fast-growing population that is unencumbered with legacy technology and systems."

Second, the report says, "they enjoy a beneficial business environment that includes market deregulation, national economic-development policies, and commodity prices that, for most of the past decade have been rising."

"Finally, they share the challenger mindset - a willingness to be bold and to recognise that a challenging economic environment is an opportunity to be creative and expand globally," the BCG analysis holds. A long-term business vision "not looking for quick profits" and an outstanding creativity in African firms are also emphasised.

But the African challengers have also been allowed to emerge due to the strong economic growth experienced on the continent during the first decade of this millennium. The "Africa renaissance" conjured up by African leaders is indeed materialising through tough economic reforms and a determination to make democracy, transparency and political stability the norm on the African continent.

And indeed Africa was the continent that managed to go through the global crisis in the best way. "While the Great Recession shrank most economies, Africa's was able to grow. In 2009, the continent's GDP expanded by 2 percent, while GDP dropped 4 percent in the United States, 2.8 percent in the European Union, and 1.5 percent in Latin America," the BCG report sums up.

"The top African economies - which we call the African Lions - are doing relatively well," the report says, differentiating developments on the continent. "The Lions comprise Algeria, Botswana, Egypt, Libya, Mauritius, South Africa and Tunisia, and their GDP per capita exceeds that of the so-called BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, and China. In 2008, the GDP per capita of these two groups was US$ 10,000 and US$ 8,800, respectively."

"In terms of life expectancy, literacy, education, and standard of living, the African Lions are comparable to the BRIC countries and the Asian Tigers (Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam). ... The political stability of the Lions is on a par with that of the BRIC nations and is much greater than that of the Asian Tigers, while the ease of doing business is roughly similar in all three groups of countries," according to the BCG report.

A June 2010 82-page analysis by McKinsey Company, a leading US consultancy firm, goes even deeper into the "progress and potentials" of the African Lions. Not only does it confirm the en ormous progress made during the last decade, but it also foresees Africa's boom to continue, making the continent an economic powerhouse during the next decades.

Indeed, for the first time in history Africa has by now already become an economy of importance. Africa's collective GDP, at US$ 1.6 trillion in 2008, is now roughly equal to Brazil's or Russia's. Even the African consumer market is now of global importance: While Africa still has fewer inhabitants than India, it by now has a higher number of middle class and middle income households than India.

African experienced poor growth in the 1980s and 90s, still forming the collective minds of the Western world when viewing Africa. "But sometime in the late 1990s, the continent began to stir," the introduction to the McKinsey report says.

"GDP growth picked up and then bounded ahead, rising faster and faster through 2008. Today, while Asia's tiger economies continue to expand rapidly, we foresee the potential rise of economic lions in Africa's future," the McKinsey analysts conclude. Already today, "the rate of return on foreign investment in Africa is higher than in any other developing region," the report says, agreeing with the BCG report.

The statistical annex to the McKinsey report provides impressive facts about the emerging rise of Africa, begun in the 2000-08 period. During that time, only five African countries lived up to the cliché of chaos and stagnation, with average GDP growth close to zero or even negative: the Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Zimbabwe.

The remaining 48 African countries showed annual average growth rates between 2 an 21 percent. 38 out of the continent's 53 countries had annual GDP growth rates of 4 percent or more during the entire period, mostly by far exceeding their population growth and as such also rapidly increasing their GDP per capita. A sizable middle class therefore is about to emerge in most of Africa.

While some of the highest growth rates during the last decades have been in oil exporting nations - Equatorial Guinea's GDP grew by an annual average of 21 percent, Angola's by 13 percent - in general Africa's sudden and mostly unexpected boom is driven by a diversification of national economies.

Strong economic growth is indeed registered in most categories of African nations. Post-war economies - Africa has managed to end many of its worst armed conflicts - are quickly picking up, with average annual growth in Sierra Leone reaching an impressive 11 percent from 2000 to 2008, second only to post-war Angola's oil economy. Post-genocide Rwanda's economy grew by 7 percent each year, Mozambique's and Uganda's even by 8 percent.

The McKinsey report notes that even "pre-transition" national economies - countries still largely dependent of agriculture - are growing fast and have started to diversify. Ethiopia's economy grew by an impressive 8 percent each year in the period; Mali's and Burkina Faso's economies by 6 percent.

A large number of countries are seen to be "in transition" towards a diversified economy. Most of these nations can show to durable and high growth rates in the 2000-08 period, including Tanzania (7 percent), Ghana (6 percent), Zambia (5 percent), Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar and Senegal (4 percent).

Several African economies are already seen as "diversified", with the GDP share of manufacturing and services exceeding 70 percent. These include Cape Verde, Egypt, Lesotho, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa and Tunisia. All these diversified economies grew by 4-6 percent annually in the period.

While the McKinsey report documents the successes already achieved in Africa, it is even more optimistic about the future and potentials. The analysts project that at least four groups of industries in Africa - consumer-facing industries, agriculture, resources, and infrastructure - "together could generate as much as US$ 2.6 trillion in revenue annually by 2020, or US$ 1 trillion more than today."

With urbanisation rates similar to China and the world's fastest growing cities, the middle class is steadily growing and Africa's construction sector is living its greatest ever boom, for the first time becoming a major industry on the continent.

A growing number of international investors have discovered this boom. Direct foreign investments into Africa only totalled US$ 9 billion in 2000, but increased sevenfold to US$ 62 billion in 2009. And while investors earlier only focused on Africa's natural resources, new investments focus on Africa's booming construction, tourism, banking and telecommunication sectors, the McKinsey analysts found.

New industries are in the coming, with African transition economies - such as Ghana, Kenya and Senegal - moving onto exports of manufactured goods including processed fuels, processed food, chemicals, textiles and cosmetics.

And this is only the beginning for Africa's expected industrial revolution. Indeed, McKinsey finds that productivity in African transition economies already is as high as in India and China, while labour costs are far lower. Only remaining red tape and poorer infrastructure makes production costs in Africa somewhat higher than in Asia's giant economies.

Parallel with a projected industrial revolution in Africa, the continent is set to copy Asia's green revolution. Over 60 percent of the world's unexploited agricultural lands are located in Africa, and with a growing global population and new needs in the production of for example biofuels, these unexploited lands are already becoming the target of massive investments.

The McKinsey and BCG reports agree that Africa still has some major challenges to overcome to secure its exit from poverty. This includes the need to remove inter-African trade barriers; invest massively in infrastructure and communication; strongly improving the education sector; and improving public health throughout the continent.

All this, however, are major policy concerns of African leaders and analysts, also being the focus of the strengthened regional organisations such as the Africa Union (AU), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the new common market now being established, the East African Community (EAC), comprising of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

Asking whether these high growth rates and booming businesses will continue in the coming decades, both McKinsey and BCG are optimistic. McKinsey has no doubt that Africa's role in the global economy will continue to increase rapidly. "By 2040, Africa will be home to one in five of the planet's young people and will have the world's largest working-age population," surpassing China, the report emphasises.

This not only will have to influence Africa's future key place in global production, it will also make Africa a major market of the future. The number of African households with discretionary income is projected to rise by 50 percent over the next 10 years, reaching 128 million. "By 2030, the continents' top 18 cities could have a combined spending power of US$ 1.3 trillion," the McKinsey report projects.

"Global executives and investors cannot afford to ignore the continent's immense potential. A strategy for Africa must be part of their long-term planning," McKinsey analysts conclude. And Africa cannot afford to move away from its path of democracy, stability and economic liberalisation to secure that investors remain interested.

Film disinformation reports: Sahrawi refugee to court, "I'm not a slave"

2010-06-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sahrawi refugee Fetim Salam Hamdi has been portrayed as a slave in a poorly translated documentary film. But Ms Hamdi insists she is a free woman and now goes to court to stop the film's screaning.

The Australian documentary film "Stolen", shot in the Algeria-based refugee camps housing over 100,000 Sahrawi refugees last year, portrays the Ms Hamdi as a slave. Ms Hamdi herself claims to have been shocked as she first saw the result of the filming, alleging massive manipulation in scenes and translations.

This week, "Stolen" will be screened at the Norwegian Short Film Festival unless Ms Hamdi and her lawyer, Andreas Galtung, are not successful in getting a court order to stop the screening. They claim the screening is "an offence of her dignity."

"It is an offence to Fetim to be presented as a slave. The proofs clearly document that there is clear manipulation in the film material, and it is sad that the Short Film Festival does not show consideration for her by stopping today's screening", stated Mr Galtung today.

Ms Hamdi is the mother of four children, and a kindergarten teacher in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. In "Stolen", however, she is said to have been kidnapped by her present "slave owner" and put to hard forced work. Several statements from Ms Hamdi, the "slave owner" and her family members are presented as "proof" she is held as slave.

But all these statements in Arabic turn out to be wrongly translated. When the film had its premiere in Australia last year, also translators from 'Al Jazeera', working for Australian TV, reacted to the totally wrong English subtitles of the Arabic dialect used in the refugee camps. A certified translator that the filmmakers claim to have used, has himself heavily criticised the subtitles, and has stated that his corrections had not been used in the film.

In one of the central scenes, Ms Hamdi's own sister and mother said "It is not true" and "she [Fetim] was not kidnapped", to the questions from the filmmaker whether the main character was stolen as a child. But in the subtitles from the same scene, the women are quoted that Ms Hamdi was kidnapped and is controlled by the woman portrayed as a slave owner. None of the interviews in the movie support the claims from the filmmakers that Ms Hamdi had been "stolen".

According to Ms Hamdi's supporters, almost all the scenes in which the main character is shown, "have been deliberately subtitled erroneously." On two occasions in the film, the audience is given the impression that Ms Hamdi is ordered to carry out work, "but in both cases the subtitles are pure fantasy," her supporters say.

"The worst thing is that the lies do not only affect Fetim and her family, but also stigmatising the entire people. The Sahrawi people have gone through extreme ordeals, and it is sad that when they finally get some attention, it is based on a scam. The short film festival has an ethical responsibility, and it is a scandal that they knowingly accept giving legitimacy to a propaganda movie", comments Jørn Sund-Henriksen of the Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara.

Not only Ms Hamdi is portrayed in a "disrespectful" way, the Committee holds. "The movie makers have also abused the rest of her family, such as her 15 year old daughter. The toughest treatment, was perhaps given to the claimed slave owner, who with use of consistently erroneous subtitles, and the moviemakers' narration, is accused of kidnapping. No proof is given," it adds.

The Sahrawi people of Western Sahara traditionally kept slaves, but during Spanish colonial rule, this tradition was mostly done away with. The Polisario government ruling in the refugee camps claims to have rooted out the last remnants of this slaveholding tradition among the Sahrawis.

To the Person Who Turned Neda into a Voice

2010-06-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

By Farahmand Alipour (Rooz 1197)- I am writing this in honor of someone I have never seen, Neda, who through the last moments of her life recorded Iran’s voice and cry. And as blood gushed out of her heart and eyes only the screams of her cries could be heard.

I have always said that Neda was born twice. Once as an offspring of a courageous mother whose hair turned gray in disbelief, and the other time when a small mobile phone brought her to the world. So long as Neda’s images and posters are the guests of the walls of the cities of the world and television screens, we shall continue to see how small this world is and that there is no real distance between the little street in the heart of the capital of the Islamic republic and the skyscrapers of New York or the magical town of Lecce in southern Italy.

Neda was not a hero, and she was not trained to battle a theocracy. She was one among thousands who had gone to a streets last June 20th to watch in bewilderment the hell that the Revolutionary Guards of the leader of the Islamic republic had created in Tehran. Religious mythology has it that when arrogance took over Nimrod, he called himself god to compete with the gods and created a heaven on earth, calling it Eden. The heaven did not last and was destroyed by a lightning. In contrast, it is strange that in their competition with the gods, ayatollah Khamenei and his surrogates have built a hell on earth and did in the streets of Tehran, in Kahrizak and tens of universities across Iran what even the harshest divine retribution does not describe.

Neda was a drop in a sea of anger of Iranians caused by the remarks of the head of their government and the actions of his administration. She became a victim of the suppression and terror, but the camera that recorded her death and informed the world of her being, also turned her into an eternal hero.

Many were killed in the aftermath of Iran’s 2009 presidential elections. Some of their names have been stamped into history, but the names of others never reached an ear and their faces were never seen. And while the sacrifice that all of them made is alike and they shall all live tulip-like in the consciousness garden of Iran’s history, another person had to narrate the story. And this falls on the most deserving person, just as Ferdowsi deserves praise for the story of a hero in Sistan which has remained eternal. And just as Zeinab’s thirsty lips narrated the story of Hossein and made it the example for martyrs of the Middle East while the cut off heads scattered around on Ashura.

Shariati was right when he said that those who left us had done a Hosseini deed, while those stayed must do a Zeinabi deed so that their spilled blood remains recorded in history so that people do remain isolated.

Perhaps if video clips were made of the last moments in the lives of Mohsen Ruholamini, Amir Javadifar and others who were martyred at Kahrizak, our world would have been touched and shaken more. This demonstrates the importance of the story teller, whose face and name are hidden from us today. If he was not there, our world and story of June 20th would have had a missing element.

Neda was reborn on June 20th, this time bigger and more legendary. She was born in a sudden gush, and left a drop of tear on the face of millions around the world.

Another sad birthday for Aung San Suu Kyi. Protests worldwide

2010-06-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 65th birthday Saturday locked in her dilapidated lakeside compound as calls for her freedom erupted around the world.

President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded Suu Kyi's release in statements echoed at rallies and prayer vigils across the globe. Supporters at home threw a birthday party at the suburban Yangon home of a fellow opposition member. It was attended by more than 300 people but not the guest of honor.

Holding candles and yellow roses, they lit a birthday cake with 65 candles and released 65 doves into the sky while chanting, "Long Live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi." Plainclothes security watched and videotaped the event.

Suu Kyi has now spent 15 birthdays in detention over the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest. She is the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"It is very sad that she cannot celebrate her birthday in freedom," said her lawyer Nyan Win.

Confined to her home, Suu Kyi planned to celebrate by providing a lunch of chicken curry and an Indian-style flat bread for the three dozen construction workers helping to renovate her crumbling two-story mansion, Nyan Win said.

The tight security surrounding Suu Kyi's home allowed the delivery of a birthday cake and a bouquet of roses, orchids and lilies sent by political supporters. Members of her National League for Democracy party are planting 20,000 trees around the country, mostly on the grounds of Buddhist monasteries, to mark the occasion.

A confidante, Win Tin, made an impassioned plea for Suu Kyi's release by repeating one of her phrases.

"To the international community I want to reiterate her words: 'Please use your liberty to promote ours,'" said Win Tin, who co-founded the party with Suu Kyi and himself spent nearly 20 years jailed as a political prisoner.

Global condemnation over her imprisonment has failed to change the junta's harsh attacks on all dissent or soften their stance on Suu Kyi, whose steely grace, charisma and popularity have remained in tact despite her long confinement.

Obama praised Suu Kyi's "determination, courage and personal sacrifice in working for human rights and democratic change in Burma inspire all of us who stand for freedom and justice."

"I once again call on the Burmese government to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners," Obama said in a statement.

The U.N. chief said he remains "deeply concerned" that Suu Kyi is still under house arrest.

"I have been persistently, consistently demanding that all the political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be released without condition as soon as possible so that they would be able to participate in the political process," Ban said. Daw is a term of respect in Myanmar.

Ahead of historic elections planned for later this year, Suu Kyi remains the biggest threat to the ruling junta. Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been dominated by military rule since 1962.

The upcoming elections will be the first in two decades. Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won the last election in 1990, but was never allowed to take power.

Under new election laws, Suu Kyi and other political prisoners—estimated at more than 2,000—are effectively barred from taking part in the polls. The NLD has called the laws unfair and undemocratic and is boycotting the polls, which critics have dismissed as a sham designed to cement military rule. The party was disbanded after refusing to register for the elections by a May 6 deadline.

Suu Kyi's detention was extended by 18 months in August 2009 when she was convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest by briefly harboring an American intruder. The sentence will keep her locked away during the elections.

Events to mark Suu Kyi's birthday were held in Sydney, Manila, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. Rallies, candlelight vigils, concerts and Buddhist prayer ceremonies were planned later Saturday in Dublin, various cities in Britain, Toronto, New York, Washington and elsewhere.

"She is an inspiration to people throughout the world," said Julie Bishop, deputy leader of Australia's main opposition party who gathered with prominent female politicians in Sydney to mark the birthday and launch a group that aims to raise awareness of Suu Kyi's plight.

"We must never rest in sending the message that the people of Burma deserve freedom and democracy."

Ghana: a huge toxic waste dump

2010-06-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Despite international conventions prohibiting the export of dangerous waste to developing countries, enormous quantities of outdated and destroyed electronic equipment from Europe end up in Ghana's Agbogbloshie dump each week.

Only in the major port of Ghana, Tema, each month some 600 40-foot containers of outdated electronic equipment arrive from all over the world, mostly comprising of old computers, TVs and refrigerators. The traffic in waste or almost-waste products to Ghana is on the increase.

According to the activist groups DanWatch and Greenpeace, only about one quarter of the electronic goods are capable of being reused and end up in the stores of second-hand shops around the region. The rest, amounting to at least 450 containers each month, is pure waste and ends up in Ghana's largest waste dump Agbogbloshie.

Here, the electronic articles sum up to a large environmental problem due to their often dangerous components. In Europe or North America, their disposal would be expensive because of the need to treat these dangerous components in a responsible way. It is cheaper shipping the waste to Africa, disguised as second-hand articles.

The UN's Basle Convention is regulating the trade in waste products. According to this international agreement, dangerous waste articles, including electronic equipment, cannot be exported to developing countries. The reason is that developing countries mostly do not have an infrastructure to treat such waste in an environmentally just manner - and if they have it, it would be as expensive as in the country of the waste's origin. The export thus only serves the purpose of avoiding an environmentally justifiable treatment.

The cynical export of waste products recently was demonstrated by the Dutch company Trafigura's export of toxic oil waste products to Côte d'Ivoire, neighbouring Ghana, costing many lives.

In Ghana, where regulations are somewhat stricter than in Côte d'Ivoire, the current "import hit" is electronic waste articles. At very low cost, the waste products are received in Tema, where second-hand traders pick out the best pieces. The rest is sent to Agbogbloshie for a small fee.

But at Agbogbloshie waste dump, the partly dangerous articles are not treated in a sound manner. Most products are stored in meter-high levels or burnt in open air. In both cases, environmental toxics are spilt into the ground or into the air. According to DanWatch, "a health damaging smoke from the burning of cables is colouring the skies above Agbogbloshie black."

DanWatch, a Danish group monitoring the ethics of Danish trade, today provided documentation that even electronic waste from Danish municipalities with a high environmental awareness is ending up in Agbogbloshie. The question asked by DanWatch is "why".

Most institutions, businesses and consumers in Europe and North America are aware of their responsibility to discharge of their waste in an environmental manner and wish to act in a correct way. Especially electronic equipment, which maybe could be fixed or only is somewhat outdated, is collected by recirculation firms or NGOs, some promising a second life in Africa.

But often, only the worst pieces find their way to Africa. And as the Ghanaian research shows, most ends up in the local waste dump, harming the environment at the expense of future generations in Ghana.

Ahmadinejad (probably drunk) accuses Obama of meddling in Iran

2010-06-17T03:50:00.000-07:00

Iran's hardline president on Wednesday accused Barack Obama of meddling in his country after the US leader called for global support for Iranians in their fight for greater democracy.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reinstated as president last year in what the opposition charged was a fraudulent election, branded the US government as "the most violent dictatorship.

"He (Obama) has issued a statement on the anniversary of the election. This is meddling in Iran's affairs," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech, referring to the US president's statement before the June 12 anniversary of the disputed poll.

"This nation does not acknowledge you at all and hates you," Ahmadinejad said, drawing chants of "Death to America!" from the crowd assembled for his visit in the central city of Shahrekord.

"Today the most violent dictatorship is being applied against American people," the hardliner charged. Americans "are not free to express their opinions... are not free to demonstrate and many live in poverty.

"Mr. President, if you are worried about nations, you should first think about your own people. From now on, one of the Iranian people's demands would be the freedom of the US nation from the oppressive and undemocratic US government," he said.

In his statement on Thursday, Obama praised the "courage of so many Iranian people in the face of severe repression" and said the election will be "remembered for how the Iranian government brutally suppressed dissent and murdered the innocent."

"It is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make it clear that we are on the side of those who seek freedom, justice and dignity, as surely as hope and history are," said the US President.

Ahmadinejad said: "This gentleman (Obama) is sitting there (in the US) and all inhumane plans and violations of human rights are taking place under the eyes of its government, but he makes claims about our people."

Last year's election gave an easy victory to Ahmadinejad, sparking mass protests that rocked the Islamic republic and were put down with force as dozens of protesters were killed in clashes with security forces.

Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who reject Ahmadinejad's rule as "illegitimate," called off planned protests to mark the anniversary of the poll over safety concerns.

But they have vowed to press on with their anti-government "Green Movement," demanding free elections, freedom of assembly, free expression and accountable government.

Iran: conspiracy against the leaders of the green movement

2010-06-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

By Fereshteh Ghazi (Rooz 1193) - Though, one year after the Khordad 22 election coup, complaints filed by families of post-election martyrs remain to be ignored, the regime is trying to implement a new scenario by forcing the families of martyrs, through threats and intimidation, to speak out and file complaints against the leaders of the green movement.

In this connection, the Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the military-security apparatus, has published interviews with the family members in which they blame Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi for the post-election violence. But in exclusive interviews with Rooz, the families of Sajad Sabzalipour and Meisam Ebadi, two of the green movement’s martyrs, denied Fars’s report and announced that they will file formal complaints against the news agency.

The families warned that, instead of identifying their sons’ murderers, the regime is seeking to abuse the blood of the martyrs, but that they would not allow the government to do that.

Meanwhile, families of the Khordad 25 martyrs have told Rooz that they plan to hold a vigil at the Behesht Zahra cemetery on the anniversary of their loved ones’ death.

The Fars news agency, which remained silent throughout the past year as more than one hundred protesters were killed, is now trying to facilitate the coup government’s plot against Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi by publishing fabricated interviews with families of the martyrs.

The news agency quoted Sajad Sabzalipour as having said, “I hold Mousavi and Karoubi responsible for the events.”

The family of the martyr, however, denied having made the remark in an exclusive interview with Rooz and announced that it would file a complaint against the Fars news agency.

Sajad Sabzalipour, also known as Kaveh Sabzalipour, was murdered on Khordad 30 by a bullet to the head during clashes at the Lolagar mosque and was buried in his hometown of Rasht.

Similarly, the Fars news agency quoted the father of Meisam Ebadi as having said, “I want Karoubi and Mousavi held responsible for my son’s blood and I want these two persons to be punished.”

Meisam Ebadi’s family also denied having made the remarks. Meisam Ebadi’s father told Rooz, “These words and sentences are their own creations. They wanted to force me into saying those things and put words in my mouth, but I just said that they must identify and punish my son’s murderer, which they haven’t still done after a year.”

Meisam Ebadi was only 17 years old when he was shot in the abdomen on Khordad 23 at the Sadeghiyeh square in Tehran.

Last year, in the months immediately after the election, the state-run broadcasting corporation had visited the families of the martyrs to interview them.

The families were asked during the interviews to identify Mir-Hossein Mousavi as their children’s murder, but none of the families had accepted doing so and none of the interviews were aired.

Iran: Thirty-One Arrests in Two Weeks

2010-06-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

By Kaveh Ghoreishi - As civil society and political activists continue to be arrested in Tehran and other cities across Iran, security agents have arrested 31 Azerbaijani political activists in the past two weeks. In this connection, the Association for the Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran (ADAP) released a report detailing the arrests of civil society activists in Tabriz, Urumiyeh, Ardebil, Rasht, Meshkinshahr, Moghan, Naghdeh, Soufian, Miandoab, Maku, Hamedan, Tehran and Karaj. In interviews with families and lawyers of the arrested activists, as well as human rights activist in Azerbaijan, Rooz has asked about the latest condition of the prisoners.

According to ADAP, the arrests were made across various cities in Azerbaijan after the government began imposing a heavy security presence in the area in response to calls for protests on the anniversary of the June 12 presidential election.

The spokesperson for ADAP, Yashar Hakakpour, said that security agents lacked arrest warrants in most cases, beat and insulted the activists and raided their homes. He emphasizes, “All of the activists are deprived of the right to meet with family and lawyers.”

Hakakpour adds, “Officials in the judiciary refuse to disclose the charges against the activists, but in meeting with one of the families the prosecutor implicitly stated that the activists are accused of membership in illegal organizations aiming to undermine national security and translating a book from Turkish into Farsi.”

According to Mr. Hakakpour, the arrested individuals have participated in peaceful programs to promote ethnic, linguistic, and other human rights in Azerbaijan, and to combat economic, social, environmental, cultural and historic discrimination.

ADAP reports that several experienced Azerbaijani activists, including members of non-governmental organizations, women’s rights groups and student associations, as well as writers and journalists are among those arrested.

Abbas Jamali, vice president of the Eastern Azerbaijan and Ardebil Bar Associations’ Human Rights Committee, who also represents two of the arrested activists, says, “The number of arrested activists is large. We now have to wait for interrogations to end. I and other Azerbaijan lawyers will defend our clients after carefully reviewing the cases and charges.”

UN envoy accuses rights forum of turning blind eye

2010-06-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

An independent United Nations expert accused the main U.N. rights forum on Friday of turning a blind eye to killings in much of the world while concentrating on alleged abuses by Israel.

Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, said the 47-member-state Human Rights Council was losing credibility for mainly taking action against alleged violations in the Palestinian territories.

"I certainly regret the fact that the council itself has developed such a single-minded focus on violations in just one particular area while doing so little in almost any other area," Alston told a final news conference after six years in the post.

"I don't think it is sustainable. I think the council needs to improve its ability to have an impact on situations of human rights violations around the world."

The council agreed on Wednesday to set up an independent probe into what it called violations of international law in Israel's assault on a flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza. Nine pro-Palestinian activists died in Monday's raid.

The Geneva forum, set up in June 2006, is effectively controlled by developing countries, among which the Organisation for the Islamic Conference (OIC) has strong influence and regularly condemns the Jewish state.

Alston, while welcoming the council's move on Gaza, said he regretted its failure to act on Sri Lanka, both a year ago as the 25-year conflict drew to a close and at its current session.

PRINCIPLE

"I felt that the same principle would apply in relation to Sri Lanka where the allegations, at least the most recent by the International Crisis Group, suggest a figure of as high as 30,000 people who may have died in the last few months of the conflict," he said.

In a speech on Thursday, Alston called for an independent international inquiry, noting that the council had rejected the proposal a year ago, but said that there was now "a great deal of new evidence which would warrant effective action".

Sri Lanka's Attorney-General Mohan Pieris angrily took the floor on Friday to reject the allegations as "based on unsubstantiated, uncorroborated hearsay".

The government declared total victory a year ago over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which fought for over three decades to establish a separate nation for the Tamil minority.

Sri Lanka's government has repeatedly rejected charges of killings of civilians as grossly exaggerated and denied its security forces committed war crimes.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa last month named a panel to examine the lessons of the last seven years of the war, in terms of reconciliation and preventing future violence.

"I believe there is no realistic prospect this internal initiative will give serious meaningful consideration to very significant violations that exist," Alston said, adding that Sri Lankan domestic inquiries since 1977 had "all failed".

Alston said he regretted the council's failure to take action on his report on executions of juvenile criminals in Iran, and on police-run death squads in Kenya which had killed hundreds.

The Australian expert, who teaches at New York University School of Law, has visited 14 countries since taking up the mandate in 2004. A successor is to be appointed in coming weeks.

"If the council has the political will it can do even more to prevent unlawful killings around the world and to tackle widespread impunity," he said on Thursday.

UN committee moves to keep out gay-lesbian NGO

2010-06-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

A United Nations committee that decides which nongovernmental organizations can be accredited to the world body moved on Thursday to keep out the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

The group, which had applied for "consultative status" at the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) three years ago, is an international NGO and advocacy group focusing on protecting the rights of homosexuals and lesbians worldwide.

Diplomats from Western nations that support gay rights complained that Egypt and other developing states that have been criticized by rights groups for discriminating against gays and lesbians prevented the committee from voting on whether to accredit the group, thereby leaving it in limbo.

"IGLHRC is disappointed by the vote of the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations to block action on our application," Cary Alan Johnson, head of the New York-based group, said in a statement to Reuters.

The U.N. NGO committee has 19 members, among them the United States and Britain, who supported the NGO. Among those who voted against it were Egypt, Sudan, Qatar, Pakistan, China, Russia, Angola, Burundi and Sudan. Turkey abstained.

Johnson said it was "a clear case of discrimination against an organization because it defends the human rights of LGBT people around the world and promotes non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity."

LGBT refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

The U.S. delegation defended the work of IGLHRC (www.iglhrc.org).

"This NGO is committed to combating discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity," the U.S. statement said. "It has contributed to valuable research on HIV/AIDs and its work is well known to this committee."

A Western diplomat told Reuters that "unfortunately we didn't have the votes" on the committee to overcome opposition from countries like Egypt, Qatar, Sudan and others. The diplomat added that IGLHRC clearly fulfills all the criteria for U.N. accreditation.

The British delegation issued a statement expressing its "deep regret" for the decision to reject a U.S. proposal to take action on IGLHRC's application for a U.N. accreditation. The British statement said the move not to accredit the group was proposed by Egypt on behalf of African countries.

"This act of simple discrimination runs contrary to the principles of the U.N., of ECOSOC and of the NGO Committee," it said.

One envoy told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the United States and Europeans would push for the U.N. Economic and Social Council itself to move to accredit the group, a strategy that he said would have a better chance of success.

Iran: arrest, Interrogation and Lashes for Journalists

2010-06-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

By Leyla Tayeri (Rooz 1183) - The third round of mass arrest of journalists and political activists began in Iran as the first anniversary of last year’s June 12 disputed presidential election approaches. After arresting two journalists, Azam Veisameh and Mahboubeh Khansari, security agents failed in their attempt to arrest several other young reformist activities and one political prisoner’s wife. Until the time of publication of this report, no information was available of the fate of Saba Vasefi, a human rights activist who was targeted by security agents for arrest. The conviction of filmmaker and journalist Mohammad Nourizad, and his sentencing to 3.5 years imprisonment and 50 lashes was also widely covered in news circles and sparked protests from his family.

Despite the fact that Azam Veisameh and Mahboubeh Khansari were arrested midnight Monday and their families have till now failed to gather any information about their fates or whereabouts, Rajanews website close to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the two journalists “communicated with foreign media” and discussed “information about certain issues.”

The website accused the two journalists of having cooperated with illegal and filtered media outlets.

Azam Veisameh was a reporter for the website Parleman News – run by the reformist faction in the Majlis assembly. She was recently barred from entering the Majlis premises. Mahboubeh Khansari, who has been inactive as a journalist for the past year, was previously a reporter covering urban affairs, writing for Sarmaye newspaper, Kargozaran newspaper, and other specialized monthlies and weeklies covering urban issues.

Meanwhile, security agents raided Saba Vasefi’s house but were unable to arrest her as she was not there. Saba is a human rights activist and no information is available about her whereabouts.

According to a report by the Human Rights Reporters Committee, this was the second time that security agents were raiding Saba Vasefi’s house. They confiscated material from her house which included her writings, notebooks, research files, personal pictures, telephone contacts book and a camera.

Saba Vasefi had traveled to the town of Shahriar yesterday to work on a case of a defendant sentenced to death, but had not returned as of the time of this report. Last winter, she was barred from teaching at the Shahid Beheshti University. She is a researcher and activist in human rights and women’s rights issues, and began teaching at the Shahid Beheshti University in 2006.

Mohammad Nourizad’s prison and lashing sentences were upheld by branch 54 of Tehran’s appellate court. Previously, a lower court had sentenced him to 3.5 years imprisonment and 50 lashes for propaganda against the regime and insulting the supreme leader.

The filmmaker’s wife reacted to the court sentence in an interview with reformist Kalameh website, and mocked authorities: “Why shouldn’t they lash him? They must scream we are hitting 10 lashes for him being a Basiji; 10 lashes for him sacrificing his life to serve underprivileged communities; 10 lashes for his coverage of the [Iran-Iraq] war; 10 lashes for his dedication; and 10 lashes for his insuppressible mind.”

Iran: Soft Genocide

2010-05-26T04:38:00.000-07:00

By Saeed Razavi Faghih - In recent years, particularly since the growth of the reform movement, the totalitarian and suppressive ruling faction in Iran has increasingly and rapidly resorted to violence. Illegal, arbitrary and unusual arrests, torture, solitary confinement, unethical interrogations, attacks on the dignity of citizens, unacceptable detentions, heavy and shameful prison sentences for uncommitted acts, massive and unfounded closure of critical and independent newspapers, serial murders and revengeful killings, attacks on peaceful gatherings, brutal and pre-meditated assaults on student dormitories and election campaign offices, opening fire on innocent and unarmed civilians, in the streets and many other acts are only examples of the disgraceful record of the suppressive machine in recent years which unfortunately continue as the elite remain lethally and deeply silent. Greater pressure on political prisoners and ultimately the revengeful executions of recent days are the most recent circles in this shameful chain of atrocities.

But despite this, the propaganda machinery of the regime’s hardliners and suppressors continues to distort the fact in an effort to erase the real issues and by changing the scene of events is striving to present a completely different image. In recent years, public opinion has been brought under assault through the use of Stalinist methods where phrases and words that have already lost their real meaning have been repeatedly thrown at the public and accentuated in order to justify the open and illegitimate violence they have been committing through their deeply sinful hands. Using such terms as coup d’état or soft overthrow, color or velvet revolution, soft war, and others are part of the propaganda techniques of the suppressive faction of the regime. But despite all these, this clique has not bothered to explain even to its supporters with what power did the so-called coup perpetrators intend to overthrow those in power or what power other than public opinion did they have at their disposal. If a demonstration by millions of peaceful individuals is viewed as a coup, then what do you call a military take over of a city, controlling the free movement of people, organized censorship of the media, en masse arrest of people, containment of political leaders?

Like other precedents in contemporary and distant history, the reality is that it is despotic regimes that resort to any means and illegitimate tools to unlawfully keep themselves in power and it is they who are not constrained by religious principles, tradition, ethics etc and who through Stalinist methods strive to temporarily protect their spider-net and unpopular power. Using mass media against the public for propaganda and deceit purposes on one hand and preventing the publication of opposing voices by any possible means – and I stress any possible means – on the other, are the means these regimes use. The leaders and rulers of the “Any republic” have established such an unethical method for publicity and reporting that future generations will have a hard time passing judgment on them. This method is nothing other than the jamming of satellite signals to prevent the receipt of satellite programs. These methods are neither practical nor legitimate. They are not practical because in the age of technological innovation, news of event are rapidly spread through other channels and they reach all towns and countries across the globe. And they are illegitimate and shameful because these thuggish methods are a health hazard for the residents of Tehran who must pay the price of the official propaganda machinery of the state.

According to official and non official reports, the physical and psychological health of many residents of the greater Tehran is in danger and some lives are even under threat. This issue becomes even more troublesome when one considers the fact that the location from where these jamming signals are transmitted in northern Tehran is adjacent to a children’s hospital that treats seriously ill children. Based on their research, some prominent researchers in medicine are talking about the Darabad Syndrome (Darabad is a section in northern Tehran) which is a covered up tragedy caused by the inhuman policies of absolutist power mongers. According to these reports, those in power are gradually and quietly implementing a policy of gradual genocide through the transmission of jamming signals. This silent and gradual genocide is advanced by the totalitarian power mongers and its price must be paid by innocent Tehrani residents, and particularly children with incurable illnesses.

Malawi gay couple gets maximum sentence

2010-05-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

The Blantyre court today gave a young gay couple the maximum sentence of 14 years of imprisonment over "gross indecency" and "unnatural acts". The sentence may lead to cut in donor aid to Malawi.

Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga on Tuesday were convicted for "gross indecency" and "unnatural acts" after holding a traditional engagement ceremony in Malawi in December. The young couple in their twenties have been imprisoned ever since.

Today, the judge in Blantyre, Malawi's second city, handed out the maximum sentence for the offence. Sentencing the couple to 14 years in prison, Judge Nyakwawa Usiwa-Usiwa explained he wanted to protect the general public in Malawi "from people like you."

"We are sitting here to represent the Malawi society, which I do not believe is ready at this point in time to see its sons getting married to other sons or conducting engagement ceremonies," said the judge.

According to press reports from Blantyre, the defence lawyer of the gay couple has already announced that the harsh ruling would be appealed.

In Malawi, a country where the issue of homosexuality had never been discussed in public before the December arrest of the couple, the case has caused large public interest and discussions. The Blantyre courtroom was packed with spectators and crowds gathered outside the court.

Most Malawians express shock and outrage about the mere existence of homosexuality in their country, supporting the harsh sentence. But the sudden appearance of a public debate about homosexuality has also opened the eyes and minds of many liberal Malawians, holding the country should do away with its criminalisation of sexual minorities.

Civil society groups and many intellectuals in Malawi have pointed out the human rights aspect of sentencing a couple to a prison term over their mutual and consensual love. Centre for Development of People (CEDAP) and the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) are two of the main Malawian groups suddenly advocating for the human rights of sexual minorities in the country.

CEDEP this week strongly condemned the conviction, saying the ruling "undermines Malawi's commitment to the rule of law and jeopardises the human rights of all Malawians." Together with CHRR, CEDEP now is urging Malawian lawmakers to change the British colonial laws criminalising homosexuality.

Also some Malawian politicians are seeing that the harsh sentence is a step in the wrong direction for the impoverished Southern African nation. Malawi has seen massive international media coverage over the court case, in most cases very negative. Even reactions in South Africa are strongly negative, and there is a growing sense that Malawi is out of tune with its main international partners.

Malawi is one of the world's most aid dependent nations and donors have reacted strongly to the conviction. Main donor Britain expressed its "dismay" at the sentence. The US government called the case "a step backwards" for Malawi. Key Scandinavian donors, including Sweden and Norway, have put the rights of sexual minorities high on their agenda and have threatened to reduce aid levels to Malawi.

But while parts of Malawian society are starting to consider a softening of the country's laws criminalising homosexuality, President Bingu wa Mutharika is hardening his stance. The President last month denounced homosexuality as "un-Malawian," "evil" and "disgusting" and linked it to corruption, violence, theft and prostitution.

Shirin Did Not Want to Go

2010-05-16T03:43:00.000-07:00

By Fereshteh Ghazi (Rooz 1170) - The tradition for prisoners facing the death sentence is that they are informed of their execution the night before so they can pronounce their will and say farewell to their family. Even though they did not do this with Shirin Alam-Hooli, she was suspicious when prisoner guards asked her to step out of her cell, which they immediately locked behind her after she was out. She was then dragged out of the ward.

Shirin did not want to go. She expected to be at least told where she was being taken to. Why were they not allowing her to even put on her prison scarf? Why were they taking her without the usual required trench coat and scarf?

The next day, her ward mates spoke about the last words they heard her say: “I am in your hands so why are you not letting me at least say goodbye to my family? Let me say my final farewell to my friends. Why all this when there is no way for me to escape. For God’s sake let me hear my mother’s voice for the last time . . .”

Shirin Elm-Hooli’s death sentence was neither announced to her nor to her attorney. She was taken out of her cell deceitfully as she was solving math problems as she prepared herself for the 11th grade math exam coming up in two days. She had signed up to study in the adult literacy program and had promised herself that she would go to college and study law so that one day she could defend the rights of her compatriots.

Shirin’s cell mates stayed up that night, expecting her to be returned. They were shocked the next day when prison authorities came and took away her personal belongings, which confirmed to them that Shirin was gone for good.

Shirin was hung in Evin prison while her cell mates remembered her as a symbol of love and thirst for freedom. They remember her for her resistance and her nightly distresses caused by the cruel Middle Age tortures she had suffered at the hands of individuals who viewed her as a terrorist while truly believing they themselves were the representative of God.

In talking about Shirin, her cell mates talk of a woman who shared the little money or clothes that she had with the new comers. She would forego her telephone conversations with her family so she could attend to more pressing issues of helping other new prisoners and share whatever she had with them.

Shirin was hanged with four others, Mehdi, Ali and Farhad and left us, while the Islamic republic continues to stay. But even in its stay it is fearful of the corpses of these five citizens. The regime denied these five citizens and children of this land the basic right of saying goodbye to their loved ones, but now it is resisting returning the corpses of these victims to their family members. One wonders, why does a regime that claims to represent God on earth is afraid of returning the corpses of five people to their next of kin even after the lives of each one of these victims was shamelessly taken from them. The executed were stars who were mercilessly pulled down and wiped out. Shirin had not been arrested in connection with Iran’s post 2009 election turmoil. She was a Kurdish activist who spent her energies on helping others.

Indeed, a regime such as this must live in fear. Even the dead haunt it. Have those running this regime forgotten that despite all their hangings and executions, the ancient regime eventually fell and disappeared? All the killings, executions etc of Shirin and her other fellow Iranians are carried out for the purpose of staying in power. Even if that means only for just a few more days.

Biodiversity in Africa's protected areas declining fast

2010-05-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

The status of biodiversity "is progressively declining" in African protected areas according to environmentalists. Over half of the protected areas investigated in a study showed degrading biodiversity.

These negative figures were unveiled today by the environmentalist group BirdLife during an international environment conference in Nairobi, Kenya. The group, which is working in 22 countries in Africa in over 1,200 "Important Bird Areas", had compiled a study over biodiversity in many of those protected areas.

"While all countries have increased efforts to conserve biodiversity, much more is still to be done," BirdLife concluded. The group presented results from a monitoring project of protected areas at 117 sites across seven African countries.

"The monitoring results clearly show that the state of biodiversity in protected areas is declining," the study concluded. "Sites identified as being in a poor state increased from 43 percent in 2001, to 57 percent in 2008," it found.

At the same time there had been a general increase of threats facing protected areas. "The results of our monitoring indicate that the pressures on biodiversity have been increasing, falling far short of the target to reduce biodiversity loss", said BirdLife advisor Dr Muhtari Aminu Kano.

The data from the monitoring had been used to develop indicators to show trends over time within "Important Bird Areas". These results were said to "form important components of the suite of indicators suitable to track biodiversity progress" towards the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) target, and wider sustainable development around the globe.

"The results also show that if proper management responses are put in place it is possible to improve the state of biodiversity and reduce pressures", said Achilles Byaruhanga - Executive Director of Nature Uganda.

"This was well demonstrated through the sites monitored in Botswana - Central Kalahari Game reserve, Okavango Delta and Mannyelanong - where comprehensive and effective uses of existing management plans have been instituted," Mr Byaruhanga added.

"BirdLife's monitoring tool is a useful tool and can be used by governments to identify threats, assess their impacts and that of conservation action while at the same time helping to develop solutions", said Dr Julius Arinaitwe - BirdLife Africa Partnership Director.

Iran: concerns Over Reopening of Kahrizak Torture Facility

2010-05-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

As the government is gearing up to begin enforcement of two new programs both of which are reminiscent of the Kahrizak detention facility that was shut last year, one dealing with women’s Islamic attire and the other with cleaning city streets off thugs and criminals, Mehdi Khazali, the son of one of Iran’s most influential clerics published an open letter to the head of the country’s judiciary about the plans to reopen Kahrizak. The letter reports that the facility is being reopened under a new name, “Soroush 111,” and has many political and human rights activists as well as members of the public outraged.

In his letter, which has also been published by Kalame belonging to Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s supporters, Khazali writes to the judiciary chief that, “I have recently heard from a credible source (a high-ranking judiciary official) that the Kahrizak detention facility – which had been shut on the orders of the supreme leader – has been reopened under the name of ‘Soroush 111.’ Why should a detention facility that lacks the most basic facilities, and in which our young children have died, be reopened under a new name? Was the problem with the facility mere its name?”

Khazali probes deeper into the issue and says, “The issue of Kahrizak’s abusers is still open and ongoing. It is very strange that the death sentence of a young man who was charged with throwing rocks is settled promptly, but the case involving murderers at Kahrizak take such a long time! Kahrizak still weighs heavily on people’s conscience; and the questions people have asked their representatives remain unanswered. We hope that your attention to this matter would calm people’s grievances.”

Mehdi Khazali is the son of ayatollah Aboulghasem Khazali, a hardline cleric close to ayatollah Khamenei and a supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khazali worked for the ministry of intelligence under Ali Fallahian, and was involved in the production of the infamous “Hoviyat” television series which broadcast forced confessions extracted under pressure from political dissidents, including Saeed Sirjani and Ezatollah Sahabi.

After the mass arrest of protesters last year, Mehdi Khazali changed course, accused the Islamic Republic of “oppression and injustice” and targeted widespread criticism against ayatollah Khamenei. His father subsequently cut off the younger Khazali from his family ties.

The exact number of individuals killed at the Kahrizak facility has not yet been announced but the Islamic Republic has confirmed that at least four individuals, Mohsen Rouholamini, Amir Javadifar, Mohammad Kamrani and Ramin Aghazadeh-Ghahremani, were killed there. Mohsen Rouholamini was the son of Abdolhossein Rouholamini, Mohsen Rezaei’s senior advisor.

Last summer Panjereh magazine, close to Majlis representative Alireza Zakani, wrote a report on the Kahrizak facility, describing the day on which Kahrizak detainees were transferred to Evin Prison after the facility was shut down: “When the caravan carrying Kahrizak detainees arrives at Evin, prison officials there refused to take in some of the Kahrizak detainees due to their weak physical condition and the rotten smell of bodily wounds. Eventually however they were forced to accept the detainees. But even as Evin officials were taking in Kahrizak’s detainees in, one of the detainees collapsed and was taken to the hospital an hour later.”

The case of accused Kahrizak officers has been on hold for at least three months. The names of the main defendants and their charges have also not been released till today.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/9548174[/vimeo]

Iran: imminent executions as we go towards june elections anniversary - 16 political prisoners on death row

2010-04-29T04:01:00.000-07:00

Jaras: Growing concerns for conditions of Farzad Kamangar and Masoomeh Yavari, the two political prisoners condemned to death.

According to news and human rights activists reports, there are growing concerns regarding the case of Farzad Kamangar, the Kurdish teacher who was condemned to death, since judges and interrogators are exerting their influence on the case. At the same time Masoomeh Yavari who was arrested during recent protests and whose case was not revealed is among those who were condemned to death and her conditions in prison are very worrying.

According to Hrana reports, the case file of Farzad Kamangar a human rights and trade activist who was condemned to death , for unknown reasons was lost and this fact is contributing towards the execution of his death sentence and that of two of the persons involved in the same case, Farhad Vakili and Ali Heydarian.

According to this report, last September, Khalil Bahramian, Kamangar’s defence lawyer filed for the application of article 18 (case review) to Saeed Mortazavi#s office who was Tehran’s Prosecutor at the time and no one knows what happened to this file after being submitted to Mortazavi’s office.

Hrana reminded taht after Jafari Dolatabadi was assigned as Tehran Prosecutor, Kamangar’s lawyer was informed that his client’s file was found, but no changes or decisions regarding the case was made and according to Khalil Bahramian, his client can be executed at any time.

Civil rights activits and teacher, Farzad Kamangir was accused of collaboration with Pejak group. He strongly denied such accusations.

Right now there are sixteen political prisoners awaiting the execution of their death sentences.

This report also confirmed that Masoomeh Yavari who was among the post electoral protestors also was sentenced to death and she was only able to benefit from right to defence on the first day of her court hearing.

Mohamad Seif Zadeh, her lawyer said: Mrs Yavari’s court hearing will be held on May 5 and the prosecutor is demanding the death sentence for her.

He also reminded that “I had not seen my client until the first court hearing and she was deprived of the right of access to councel during this time.”

Yavari has spent six months in detention so far and branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Moghyese, is proceeding with her case.

It is to be outlined that not having access to legal councel prior to the first court hearing is among the problems that most political prisoners are facing. The defence lawyer should have the right to study and prepare his defence case prior to the court hearing, but such right is not being respected in most cases.

Iran: conspiracy to Eliminate Reformist Leader

2010-04-27T04:04:00.000-07:00

From Arash Bahmani - While in recent days some pro-administration media outlets have released reports about the illness of former Majlis speaker and reformist Mehdi Karoubi, now the secretary general of the Etemad Melli (National Trust) party and one of the two presidential candidates opposing the 2009 election results, university students warned against government’s efforts to eliminate the reformist leader. The Liberal Students and Alumni of Iranian Universities released a statement noting that the Islamic republic was responsible for Karoubi’s safety, adding, “We warn against any assassination attempts on the life of sheikh Mehdi Karoubi and, given that he is fully healthy according to his family, regard any hard, fatal and incurable ailment that he may be afflicted with in the coming months to be a conspiracy by coup-perpetrators to eliminate one of the brave and progressive leaders of the Iranian people’s green democracy movement. The coup-perpetrators and their foreign supporters will undoubtedly be held responsible for such an event.”

Judge in Asadi’s Case on Travel

While five months have passed since the arrest of Milad Asadi, a member of student organization Daftar Tahkim Vahdat’s central committee, the fate of the student activist remains unknown.

Asadi, who has been under arrest since November 30, 2009, spent a long spell in solitary confinement under pressure to dissolve the student body.

Asadi’s trial, which was scheduled for next week, was again delayed after an alleged “holy pilgrimage” by the judge.

Student Activist’s Verdict Implemented

At least 8 Chamran University students in Ahwaz who have been barred from continuing their education were barred by the university president from entering the campus area.

Arrested Student in Critical Condition

In recent days reports surfaced of the critical condition of Shabnam Madadzadeh, former vice president of Daftar Tahkim Vahdat due to inadequate medical treatment in prison.

Student activist Behrouz Alavi described Madadzadeh’s condition as critical: “Unfortunately Shabnam is not in a good physical condition. Two weeks ago she was very weak and fainting when they wrapped her in a blanket and transferred her to the prison clinic.”

Shabnam Madadzadeh was arrested by security agents in early Esfand of 1387 and has been behind bars since. Her transfer to a ward housing drug abusers, known as the methadone ward, raised an uproar among human rights activists.

Unable to Post Bond

The family of imprisoned student Mahdieh Golru is unable to post her 700 million Toman bond.

Golru was arrested along with her husband in November 2009. Her husband, who has no history of political activism, was released after three months on a 50 million Toman bond (about $50,000), but Mahdieh Golru remains behind bars.

Golru had previously been sentenced to one year in prison in addition to her new conviction and sentencing to 2 years and 4 months in prison. She must serve a total of 3 years and 4 months in prison.

World Bank Steps Up to Plate in War on Malaria with U.S.$200 Million for Bed Nets

2010-04-23T02:51:00.000-07:00

Backing a call for greater action from the United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria, the World Bank today committed $200 million to provide people in sub-Saharan Africa with treated bed nets to protect them from a disease that kills nearly 1 million people every year.

In a separate move the UN stepped up its use of new media portals such as Twitter and Facebook in the fight against malaria by expanding its group of Social Media Envoys to include such leading humanitarian figures and business philanthropists as Queen Rania of Jordan and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

"As one of the three largest sources of money in the struggle to overcome malaria, the World Bank is determined to help close this gap," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said, noting that the money will fund production and distribution of a further 25 million nets, half the quantity still needed to supply all those at risk by the end of the year.

Yesterday, in a message ahead of World Malaria Day on Sunday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Envoy for Malaria Ray Chambers called for enhanced efforts to tackle the disease, which mainly affects poor countries and is severest in Africa, where one in every five children dies of malaria.

In 2008, Mr. Ban set the dual goals of providing all those at risk of malaria with control interventions by 31 December, with the ultimate goal of ending malaria deaths by 2015.

To date 200 million mosquito nets have been delivered across sub-Saharan Africa, affording protection to half of the world's population at risk of malaria, and 100 million more are being produced and delivered. The new funding will provide half the remaining 50 million nets needed to ensure the 2010 goal is met.

The money will support malaria prevention efforts in countries hardest hit by the deadly parasite, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Zambia.

"Bed nets are vital to protect people from this terrible disease. We know they work. All that is needed is more money," Mr. Zoellick said, "We are making this commitment today to make sure those in danger are protected, and because the lives of every man, every woman and every child count."

Mr. Chambers said the new Social Media Envoys will take one social action, such as a tweet on Twitter or wall post on Facebook, each month for 12 consecutive months, starting with World Malaria Day. Individuals interacting within these social media spaces will be asked to donate funds to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) to end malaria deaths.

"With the participation of additional new media luminaries, the user-driven syndication of our online message platform has doubled in reach," he added. "Moving into World Malaria Day on 25 April, we are thrilled to have social media's most prominent voices leading this consciousness-raising and movement building effort to end malaria."

Speaking last night at UN Headquarters at the opening of a multimedia exhibition on the disease, Mr. Ban stressed the heavy toll that malaria took on the world's poorest nations.

"Let us be clear: malaria is a disease of the poor," he said. "Wealthier countries eradicated malaria a long time ago. Here in the United States, that public health triumph was achieved 150 years ago. Time and again, countries have shown that defeating malaria is simply a question of resources. It is relatively easy to prevent. It is easy to detect and cure. There is no need for a quarter of a billion people to become sick each year. There is no reason for 900,000 to die."

Urgent - Great Britain stops the deportation in Iran of Bita Ghaedi

2010-04-21T04:09:00.000-07:00

While the whole world keeps on condemning the hard repression from the Iranian regime of the dissent, while the sentences are wasted for the continuous executions in Iran, Great Britain keeps on extraditing the Iranian dissidents well knowing what it waits for them.

The last episode regards Bita Ghaedi, a 34 year-old Iranian girl applicant kindergarten in Great Britain that, been known yesterday only, it is to be deported in Iran. Rather, if it were for the cancellation of the flights because of the volcanic cloud, she would have been deported yesterday.

Bita Ghaedi in Iran risks the death penalty to actively have participated in the campaign against the Iranian dictatorial regime. Its famigliaris in Iran have suffered arbitrary incarcerations and tortures. Great Britain now wants to extradite this girl well knowing to thing andr àmeeting.

Secondo Protocollo asks to the Government of the United Kingdom to immediately stop the deportation of Bita Ghaedi. We asks to the Italian Government, in the case that of the United Kingdom doesn't welcome our application, to grant political asylum to Bita Ghaedi for serious political motives and for humanitarian reasons. We asks to the European union to intervene on Great Britain that keeps on deporting the Iranian dissidents without considering the risks that they races forcedly returning in Iran.
End statement

Gust of death sentences in Iran

2010-04-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Abdolreza Ghanbari, 47 year-old teacher, and is death row inmate for the crime of Moharebeh (fighting of god). Judge Salavati has justified that the crime of Moharebeh and is effected through “contacts with hostile fighting groups, documented through messages suspicious email and you contact with a television media to the foreign countries.”

But does thing exactly mean “contacts with hostile fighting groups, documented through messages suspicious email and do you contact with a television media to the foreign countries?” Roozonline has verified that in the month of November Abdolreza Ghanbari receives a mail that seemed to be from the organization of the Mujahedin of the People. Abdolreza doesn't respond to this email but he is telephonely contacted subsequently and a person that introduces him on behalf of the Mujahedins, asks him to participate in the demonstrations and to send him a report.

According to the information furnished by the near people to A. Ghanbari this person, he again contacts him the day of Ashoora (27 dics) and he furnishes him a report of 1 minute to the telephone and a tape of duration of 30 also sends him second through email.

A week later Abdolreza Ghanbari is arrested to school where it taught in Pakdasht and he is forced to collaborate and to confess during the public hearing, done exaggerated and against himself. In the month of February they bring him to the court for a test and they tell him to answer to of the questions already prepared and if he had collaborated, the punishment would be reduced. They tell besides him to abdicate the right of defense and so he would have gotten even more reduction of the punishment. During the test tape comes also. The day later, to the official hearing, he repeats the answers already arranged in front of Judge Salavati, and subsequently he is condemned to the death penalty.

The investigations of Roozonline however they confirm that the email received not by Abdolreza Ghanbari and referable to the Mujahedins and that the everything seemed to be a trap and a mass in scene from the Iranian Intelligence.

Already this morning the website Green Prisoners has given news of the sentence of issued death for Motahareh Bahrami that together with her husband, his child and two friends of family they had been arrested during the demonstrations of Ashoora 27 December. Roozonline now confirms that all arrest ones him: Mohsen and Ahmad Daneshpour Moghadam (her husband and the child of Motahareh) over that Reyhane Haj Ebrahim and arrested Hadi Ghaemi, have been accused some crime of Moharebe (fighting against the god) and they have been all death row inmates. The other child of Motahare, Meysam, has told online to Rooz that a child of family belonged to the party of Mujahedin and lived in the Field Ashraf in Iraq. Meysam underlines that the family doesn't have any bond with the Mujahedins and the only contact he had been established from his mother in a trip to Iraq where he had gone to see his child that however was always a mother that wanted to visit his child. After his mother's return from the iraq nobody had ever made any problem but in the day of Ashoora they have been all to the sudden one arrested. Meysam deeply worried it adds that his father is 68 years old and that he is very bad. His mother was a simple and distant person from the politics and doesn't explain him the motive for these accusations.

Secondo Protocollo asks the immediate end of the executions of the demonstrators and asks that is immediately opened a procedure to the Court of the Human Rights of the United Nations against Iran

Turkey: military operations against the Kurdish ones and tortures in the jail. Here is Turkey that wants Europe

2010-04-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

In a recent relationship sent by Secondo Protocollo to the European union, to the United Nations and the Committee for the Human Rights of the U.N. some serious violations of the Human Rights are described of which Turkey is stain lately.

Particularly the accent is set on some military operations conducted from Turkey in Kurdish territory where, according to different testimonies, different civilians would have been used by the Turkish strengths as human shields.
According to different witnesses the Kurdish city of Hakkari in the last weeks would be found to the center of a vast offensive of the Turkish army against the Kurdish resistance. The Turkish army would use the civilians as human shields making them walk in front of his/her own strengths in that places where the possibility of traps as the throats and the narrow passages you/he/she is taller among the mountains. The authorities of Hakkari have asked to Ankara to immediately stop the military operations in the zone, without nevertheless to have some answer.

Difficult also the situation in the jails where some activists for the Human Rights have been confined. Particularly difficult it is the situation in the jail type F (the hardest) of Hole Kiriklar to Izmir, where different tortured prisoners and conditions are signalled to the limit of the sopportabilità. In this jail they are confined, besides different Kurdish activists for the Human Rights, also different Iranian boys run away by the repression of the Iranian regime that they had asked political asylum and that, inexplicably refused once, they are waiting for to be extradited toward Teheran where, presumably, a hard and long prison sentence attends him and, in extreme cases, the death penalty. From the jail of Hole Kiriklar arrives to us the news of a Kurdish prisoner, such Mehmet Kilinc, that according to different testimonies you/he/she would have been crushed to blood by the warders and it would now be found under serious conditions to the hospital of Izmir.

Secondo Protocollo has asked to the European union, to the United Nations and the Committee for the Human Rights of the U.N. to make pressures on Ankara so that immediately puts to every violent, discriminatory and racist action elegant against the Kurdish people. We have also asked that the Turkish army immediately interrupts any action that involves the Kurdish civilians. Regarding the conditions of detention of the activists for the Kurdish Human Rights and of the refugees Iranian prisoners in the jail of Hole Kiriklar to Izmir, has asked an urgent inspection to the Committee for the Human Rights of the United Nations so that you verify both of the conditions of the prisoners and of the presence of applicants kindergarten Iranian in the Turkish jails.

A fact is certain, Turkey that says to want to enter the European union and that criticism the politics of containment of the terrorism brought ahead from Israel, fiercely continually him of horrendous crimes against a people, that Kurdish, that only asks the respect of his own Rights beginning from the possibility to openly speak his own language.

Iran: alarming report about Influence of interrogators in Evin

2010-04-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

By Leyla Tayeri - Abdollah Momeni - the spokesperson of Iran’s largest university student alumni group - who was released in mid-March after posting $800,000 in bail, was returned to prison at the end of his temporary release. Momeni returned to prison yesterday after being subjected to extreme pressures by Iran’s security apparatus. His wife, Fatemeh Adinevand, told Rooz yesterday, “Every week they presented him with some request, and there was no way Abdollah could satisfy them.” Meanwhile, Kalame website close to reformists released a report about the condition of political prisoners and behind-the-scenes interrogation practices in Iran’s prisons.
Momeni, who was also the head of Mehdi Karoubi’s “Free Citizen Campaign” was arrested last June in the first round of massive arrests of journalists, civil and political activists. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment and two years of probation in court and was given a temporary release in early March.

Kalame reported that during his release Momeni was repeatedly summoned to the intelligence ministry and was asked to cooperate with the ministry by delivering speeches against Tahkim Vahdat, Iran’s student movement, the two leading opponents of the regime, i.e. Mehdi Karoubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Security agents even asked Momeni to participate in student gatherings that they would set up and recite their dictated positions as his own. The gatherings were scheduled to take place in various cities across Iran. They conditioned the release of the Advar Tahkim Vahdat’s spokesperson on the satisfaction of these demands.

Abdollah Momeni’s wife meanwhile said that the student activist’s temporary release was extended several times one day at a time, and once for 16 days, but each time they presented Momeni with a request that he simply not meet.

Noting that she didn’t expect her husband to be taken back to prison, she said, “The gentlemen called and said don’t allow Mr. Mousavi into your house. I personally don’t allow myself to tell anyone not to come to my house, and secondly, Mr. Mousavi in my opinion is the pride of every Iranian.”

Abdollah Momeni’s wife added, “It’s not much of a difference whether he is in the smaller prison of Evin or the larger prison [of Iran]. Evin is smaller. This is larger but it’s still a prison.”

Torture and Added Pressure

In a report detailing the security apparatus’s interrogation and torture of journalists and political prisoners, Kalame wrote, “The interrogator for Abdollah Momeni and several other prisoners is an individual who introduces himself as ‘seyyed,’ which means a successor to the original Shiite imams. He proudly boasts having a background in the Shah regime’s SAVAK [intelligence organization]. He uses physical abuse and insult at all stages of his interrogations. Even prison ward 209 officials have on a number of occasions objected to his methods of torture. The prison guards have even asked prisoners not to let him treat them in that fashion. So fearsome is this seyed that some interrogators who become desperate with their prisoners threaten them by saying that they would bring in and let seyed do the interrogations.”

The report added, “An examination of the experience of prisoners that are currently held in the intelligence ministry’s ward in Evin prison shows that interrogators, who identify themselves as experts on prisoners, determine the ultimate fate of these detainees. In many cases their authority exceeds that of the judiciary’s prosecutors, the court and even judges.”

Sudan ruling party offers opposition govt posts

2010-04-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

Source: Reuters - Sudan's ruling party, in an apparent bid to heal a rift over accusations of vote fraud, said on Wednesday it would invite opposition groups to join the government if it won elections currently in progress.

Sudan is four days into presidential and legislative polls aimed at helping to bring the oil-producing state back to democracy more than two decades after a military-led coup.

The poll's credibility was cast in doubt after some main opposition parties decided to boycott large parts of the poll, accusing incumbent president Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his northern National Congress Party (NCP) of widespread rigging.

"If we are declared winners in the elections ... we would extend the invitation to all parties, even those who have not participated in the elections, to join the government because we believe this is a critical moment in our history," senior NCP official Ghazi Salaheddin told reporters.

"We are facing important decisions like self-determination in the south and would like to garner as much support and as much consensus as we can."

The elections were set up under a 2005 peace accord that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war and also promised a referendum on whether the south should secede in January 2011.

The decision by south Sudan's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to boycott the vote and most polls in northern Sudan had raised fears of unrest in the build up to next year's referendum.

No one from the SPLM or other boycotting groups, including the opposition Umma party, was immediately available to comment on Salaheddin's offer.

Africa: food crisis spreading to entire Sahel

2010-04-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

Humanitarian organisations are warning that the developing food crisis goes far beyond the known drought areas in Niger and Chad. Millions are facing malnutrition and hunger all over the Sahel, from Mauritania and Guinea to Nigeria and Sudan. Food aid is already under-financed.

Today, the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) announced it had already freed some US$ 20.5 million to address the food crisis in the Sahel this year. CERF funds so far have focused on five West and Central African states - Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Chad.

The large amount was only to meet the most urgent humanitarian needs in the Sahel. In a region under the threat of food crisis, CERF funds are to enable UN agencies and their partners to mainly respond to nutritional, food and health needs of vulnerable populations.

The crisis is reaching enormous proportions. According to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only in Niger some 7.8 million persons are facing a food crisis, while more than 2 million in neighbouring Chad are in the same desperate situation. Several millions, still poorly mapped, will be affected in other Sahelian countries.

The UN's children agency UNICEF has started mapping child malnutrition in the entire region and is alarmed by its findings. "Already an estimated 859,000 children under the age of five in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, northern Nigeria and Chad are classified as needing treatment for severe malnutrition," UNICEF spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told media in Geneva today.

UNICEF was said to be very concerned that the ongoing drought in much of the Sahel region of Africa "has created a food crisis that is jeopardising the health of the region's most vulnerable children."

Tens of thousands of children are at risk of severe malnutrition in Niger and neighbouring countries unless donors urgently provide more funds for humanitarian programmes, Ms Berthiaume said. UNICEF was ready to help the children, but it did not have the funds it needs to carry out its programmes, she added.

Only half of the US$ 50 million sought by the UN agency to deal with the crisis has been received so far, Ms Berthiaume said, adding that the funds were needed as soon as possible because the crisis was "expected to peak within the next two months."

Catholic sex abuse "in Africa too"

2010-04-10T04:04:00.000-07:00

The Catholic Archbishop of Johannesburg, Buti Tlhagale, has warned that also clergy in Africa have committed sexual abuse of children. Abuse was not a Western problem, it affected Africa too, he said.

The South African Archbishop in his Chrism Mass deplored that the "image of the Catholic church is virtually in ruins because of the bad behaviour of its priests, wolves wearing sheep's skin, preying on unsuspecting victims, inflicting irreparable harm, and continuing to do so with impunity. We are slowly but surely bent on destroying the church of God by undermining and tearing apart the faith of lay believers."

So far, there have been no sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church in Africa. Revelations of sexual abuse of thousands of children by Catholic clergy in North America and Europe have rocked confidence in the church and the Pope's capability of leading the faith community.

But the lack of revelations in Africa so far should not be misinterpreted as a sign that everything was right on the continent, Archbishop Tlhagale warned. The fact that "the misbehaviour of priests in Africa has not been exposed to the same glare of the media as in other parts of the world," did not mean this misbehaviour did not exist.

Archbishop Tlhagale added that Catholic priests now found it difficult to address moral issues as their own poor morals were exposed. "As Church leaders, we become incapable of criticising the corrupt and immoral behaviour of the members of our respective communities."

"We become hesitant to criticise the greed and malpractices of our civic authorities. We are paralysed and automatically become reluctant to guide young people in the many moral dilemmas they face," he deplored.

Mr Tlhagale is the president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference and is described as one of Africa's most influential Catholic leaders.

Africa is among the main mission fields of the Catholic Church, where membership in the church is fastest growing. But there have already been reports about congregants leaving the church in disgust over the sex abuse scandals, protesting the moral standards among Catholic clergy.

Geneva: green economy strategies discussed

2010-04-09T07:14:00.000-07:00

More than 600 delegates at the 30th Annual Conference of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA), hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), will look at the five sectors that have been identified as key green investment opportunities – agriculture, industry, tourism, cities and transportation – many of which are open in the developing countries.
Experts from 75 countries gathered in Geneva today for a United Nations-backed meeting to discuss the social and environmental impact of transitioning to a more environmentally-friendly economy.

“When they met in Bali [Indonesia] two months ago, the world’s environment ministers emphasized that the full impacts of green economy policies should be assessed, including environmental, social and economic aspects,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director.

“Professionals involved in impact assessments thus have an important role to play in delivering more intelligent and sustainable choices to their customers and clients including governments, business, local authorities and civil society: choices that can direct investments to fit local, national and regional needs while addressing the broad agenda of low carbon, resource efficient development, poverty eradication and higher levels of decent employment,” he added.

One of the key goals of the conference – hosted for the first time by a UN agency – is to present the tools and methods that will help countries to assess and identify which green investments to make.

Nick Taylor, President of the IAIA, said delegates at the six-day meeting would share their ideas and insights on how impact assessment can address a complex range of global issues.

“A growing field of expertise, impact assessment can evaluate the linkages between investments and the environment, health, job creation, economic diversification and poverty reduction. This forum comes at a time when there’s heightened interest in the potential of impact assessments, so it’s vital experts exchange information and contribute to a growing body of knowledge,” Mr Taylor said.

UNEP’s flagship Green Economy Report, to be released later in the year, will present in-depth assessments of 10 sectors based on economic analysis and modelling. Three of the report's chapter authors will be present to share some of the report's preliminary analysis.

IAIA is a global network for best practice in the use of impact assessment for informed decision-making regarding policies, programmes, plans and projects. It brings together researchers, practitioners, and users of various types of impact assessment from around the world.

Recently, a report by released UNEP, warned that Africa was lagging behind the rest of the world in developing renewable energy projects with initiatives aimed at producing clean and ‘green’ energy remaining largely under-exploited.

The report noted that the entire continent has just over 120 carbon market projects up and running or in the pipeline in areas ranging from wind power to forestry schemes, and harvesting methane gas from landfills to fuel electricity generation makes up 20 percent of all such initiatives.

Larger economies in Africa such as Egypt and South Africa are home to the lion’s share of the schemes, with 32 and 13 projects respectively, while Zambia, Madagascar, Cameroon and Mali only have one or two projects each and several countries have none, pointed out the report.

The study also reported patchy growth in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing developed countries to reduce emissions and meet global warming commitments by investing in carbon reduction projects in developing countries.

However, the report – prepared for the opening of the Second African Carbon Forum – highlighted Kenya and Uganda as exceptions with the number of carbon market projects underway in these countries jumping from two in 2007 to 15 and 12 respectively.

“The growth of the carbon markets in Africa are both cause for optimism, and cause for concern,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner told around 1,000 participants attending the three-day gathering, held at the agency’s offices in Nairobi, Kenya.

“To realize only a few percentage points more of the massive potential for wind, solar, biomass and waste into energy schemes, action across a range of challenges needs to be stepped up,” said Mr Steiner then.

Mr Steiner noted that the introduction a policy designed to encourage the adoption of renewable energy sources in Kenya triggered interest from a consortium to establish Africa’s largest wind farm in the country.

“The groundwork has been laid for Africa to boost its participation in the carbon market, which is growing as an important commodity market worldwide,” said John Kilani of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “You are bound to do business [under the Kyoto Protocol’s CDM] when you bring all of the key market players together: the investors, buyers and sellers,” said Mr Kilani.

The Africa-wide UNEP assessment estimated that close to 4,900 CDM projects are up and running or in the pipeline worldwide, a large number of which are in the big developing economies such as Brazil, China and India.

Iranian Banks Under Military Control

2010-04-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

By Ardalan Sayami - “Ansar Bank Serving Citizens” is a slogan that is repeatedly broadcast on the national Islamic Republic television these days. Ansar was a financial institution that became a private bank after it obtained a permit from Iran’s Central Bank; the same permit obtained by the “Mehr Iranian Organization” and “Ghavamin Charity Fund.” These institutions all belong to the Islamic Republic’s military establishment. Ansar and Mehr Iranian were founded by the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and Ghavamin belongs to the Iranian police.

Many economic observers connect the establishment of private banks by the military to related to issues such as money laundering and international sanctions. Last week especially, news stories in the Arab media reported that Bahrain’s interior minister was removed from his post and served a weeklong prison sentence for his involvement in an IRGC money laundering scheme. Official sources have denied the report but investigations are ongoing.

Since the coming to power of Ahmadinejad, the IRGC has become a visible player in the Iranian economy. The Khatam brigade is the symbol of this development, running projects in various sectors (oil, gas, roads, dams) of the economy and industry.

In addition to the two financial institutions, which have grown under the Ahmadinejad administration, the IRGC engages its vast economic activities through affiliated institutions such as the Khatam brigade and the IRGC’s cooperative union. The website Deutsche Welle quoted an economist (Ahmad Alavi) as having said that there is a very direct political relationship between the coming to power of the ninth and tenth administration and the IRGC’s dominance over the economy. Article 44 of the Iranian economy mandates privatization, but its implementation would diminish the government’s control over the economy. Therefore, officials want the constitutional provision to be implemented only in name so that they can preserve their power.

Meanwhile, on Farvardin 3, regional media outlets reported the arrest and removal of Bahrain’s interior minister, Mansour bin Rajab, for his involvement in an IRGC money laundering scheme. The case also involves Ali Jannati, Iran’s ambassador to Kuwait and the son of ayatollah Jannati, head of the powerful Guardian Council. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s ambassador to Bahrain, has said that the IRGC played no role in the Bahran money laundering case.

The IRGC has not reacted to the new, although Bahrain’s interior minister, who remains under arrest, has denied cooperation with the IRGC. News sources report that Mansour bin Rajab was caught while trying to cash a check, originating from the IRGC, worth 6 million Euros at a bank in Beirut. Arab media have claimed that the money came from drug smuggling, suggesting a money laundering scheme.

Is computer learning becoming redundant in Africa?

2010-04-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

Teachers and technologists gathering at the eLearning Africa 2010 conference in Zambia will be debating a billion dollar question, attempting to work out whether future African students will learn from the telephones in their pockets or from the laptops in their classrooms.

The African continent stunned the world by leapfrogging several stages of traditional telecommunications development and a third of all African citizens are now mobile phone subscribers. Some debaters at eLearning Africa 2010 will argue that the existence of these millions of mobile phones means it may no longer be cost-effective to use scarce resources to install laptop and desktop computers in schools.

Despite some huge investments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in most African states, the millions of mobile telephones now in private hands may provide the best gateway to learning for the school children, students, apprentices and technicians of the new Africa.

For the last five years eLearning Africa has spread technology-enhanced learning and training throughout the continent and demonstrated best practice examples of eLearning and technology-enhanced learning.

International organisations including the African Virtual University, the World Bank Institute and the United Nations Environment Programme are to join grassroots non-governmental organisations to enrich the conference programme with presentations about the work of battling illiteracy in Southern Africa, promoting gender equality in Mali and encouraging participatory communication in East African refugee camps.

After a successful political discussion on eLearning in post-conflict situations at last year's Senegal conference, the role of ICT in building a peaceful and stable society is to be discussed in Lusaka this year.

The eLearning Africa Debate will be held at the 2010 conference in Lusaka, Zambia, between 26 and 28 May. The concepts of "eWaste management", "eInclusion", "eHealth" and "Green IT" are high on the agenda.

eLearning Africa is "the largest pan-African conference on ICTs for education and training, a key networking event for investors, experts in education and providers of education and training in Africa," according to organisers.

The conference is accompanied by an exhibition and demonstration area where leading international eLearning manufacturers, suppliers and service providers present their latest products and services. More than 1,500 education professionals from around the world are expected at this year's eLearning Africa.

Iran: worrisome Report about Panahi’s Condition in Prison

2010-04-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

By Fereshteh Ghazi - Zahra Rahnavard called for the release of political prisoners and individuals detained during protests against the election results, referring to the prisoners as noble people who do not want anything but respect and greatness for themselves and their nation. Manwhile, Jafar Panahi’s wife send a report detailing the condition of the prominent filmmaker and revealed that he has been transferred to a smaller prison cell.

In an article published on the website Kalame, Mrs. Rahnavard identified freedom, democracy and the rule of law as the most significant demands of the Iranian society in the past century and called for the release of political prisoners in spring.

Commenting about the unknown and ordinary political prisoners arrested in the aftermath of the June 12 election coup, Mrs. Rahnavard announced, “They form the body of the nation. They are neither the first rifle-pit, nor a rifle-pit the occupation of which should make some happy, nor a rifle-pit behind which politicians are hiding.”

Last week, a group of ordinary political prisoners held at Evin Prison released an open letter protesting their continued detention, stating, “We were simple protesters against the election results, but no media wrote a word about us. Who knows us? We were simple people from the streets who, according to our interrogators, who call themselves experts, are now ‘bubbles on the water and a rifle-pit for the regime’s opponents aiming for the government.’ We were rifle-pits which, in the words of the interrogators, are being conquered one by one.”

The majority of these prisoners, who have received heavy sentences, were not temporarily released for the new year holidays, although a number of prominent political prisoners were temporarily released for the holidays after posting heavy bail.

Report from Jafar Panahi’s Wife

Jafar Panahi’s wife, Tahere Saeedi, who was allowed to visit her husband, released a report detailing the latest condition of the prominent filmmaker. The report, obtained by Rooz, states, “Eventually, after a month, we were able to visit Jafar. I found him very pale, skinny, and weak. Despite his unease about discussing his mental or physical condition and our refraining, during our conversation we found out that they have transferred him to a smaller cell, or more accurately, smaller tomb. His old cell was large enough to allow him to at least spend some time working out, but that is impossible in his new cell, which has enough space only for two people to sleep and essentially no chance for movement. Also he has had no right to recess since his arrest one month ago (sometimes for 7-8 days he has been left alone) and they are doing everything to break his spirit. He has been deprived from his elementary legal rights. Can this be called anything but torture? Does a regime have the right to behave so shamelessly and inhumanely toward one of its art icons, for the crime of an unmade film?”

International Criminal Court: a bombshell hangs over Kenya

2010-04-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

By Lawrence Keketso - Could a decision by judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Kenya's post-election violence mean the end to the already shaky unity government?

This has been a reaction from most political analysts following the granting of authorisation to ICC's Chief prosecutor to investigate and probably prosecute perpetrators of the post-election violence that engulfed Kenya two years ago, leaving over 1000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

The decision comes following several failed attempts by the state authority to institute local tribunal into the alleged crimes against humanity. The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo has already handed over a list of 20 prominent personalities in Kenya's politics and socialites said to be the most responsible in the violence.

Last November, Mr Moreno-Ocampo sought authorisation to open an investigation into the violence after the disputed December 2007 polls in which President Mwai Kibaki was declared winner over opposition leader Raila Odinga, who is now Prime Minister. Earlier this month in a sealed list to the ICC he named the 20 people.

"The information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed on Kenyan territory," the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II found in a majority decision of two to one issued in The Hague, where the court is based. "The majority moreover found that all criteria for the exercise of the Court's jurisdiction were satisfied, to the standard of proof applicable at this stage."

Judge Hans-Peter Kaul, dissenting, held that the crimes in Kenya do not qualify as crimes against humanity under the jurisdictional ambit of the Rome Statute, which established the court, and which Kenya ratified in 2005.

He concluded that there was no reasonable basis to believe that the crimes in Kenya were committed in an attack against a civilian population pursuant to or in furtherance of a policy stemming from a State or an organisation, which he said was required by Article 7 of the Statute.

But, the majority decision by Judges Ekaterina Trendafilova and Cuno Tarfusser cited the low threshold applicable at this stage of the proceedings.

When he sought the authorisation, Mr Moreno-Ocampo said Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga, who agreed to serve in a power-sharing administration following the violence, had promised to cooperate with any investigation. "There is a reasonable basis to believe that the attacks against Kenyan civilians during the post-election violence constitute crimes against humanity under the ICC's jurisdiction," he said then.

The question now is, what happens if either of the political leaders is named, or their top allies? And, without much scrambling, many political views are that this could mean the dead end for the unity government's journey to democracy.

For some, the collapse of the 2008 political setup could actually elongate transitionally in Kenya's democratisation by having to setup yet another interim structure while seeking ways manoeuvre to fresh elections. This view, also holds that by so doing, the situation would perpetuate the rule by false democracy in Kenya and thereby denying Kenyan the true taste and experience of democratic governance.

The Kenyan truce model was actually a litmus test for Africa and attempts to replicate it in other African states did not reap much of the results. For instance Zimbabwe's power-sharing deal in last February, was just a non-starter and continues to cause more headaches for the regional Southern African Development Community bloc in as much as it does for the African Union and the rest of the world.

Trials in Madagascar were even rougher, with the rest of the African hot-spots opting for quicker and short-cut interim structures towards a resolute election date.

While flags will be upped and downed on either of the Kenyan sides of the 2007 post-election violence, what remains is the need for the attainment of justice, to the victims, the systems and for the perpetrators to be brought to book, as an international lesson to all those across Africa and the rest of the world to follow their actions and take responsibility. But, in the name of democracy, is this the way...?

Obama’s Nowruz Message to the Movement or the Republic?

2010-03-31T11:57:00.000-07:00

By Masih Alinejad - Mr. Obama! What New Year festivities and what congratulations are we talking about?

We have not received a Nowruz congratulatory message from you this year. But let’s assume that you will send a message like you did last year. Will this one be addressed to the Iranian nation or the Islamic republic?

Do you know what condition the people that you congratulated last year are in now? The same nation that did not chide you for recognizing the legitimacy of the Islamic regime despite public criticism of it and which is now mourning the end of the republic. Although your last year’s message was ignored by the conservative media in Iran, we in the reformist media, did as much as we could to disseminate it as a starting point to break the fake walls between the two great nations of Iran and America. Now, no sign is left, either of those newspapers, or of those journalists.

Mr. President!

The Islamic Republic of Iran, the regime that you congratulated last year, is beginning the new Persian year under conditions when nearly seventy Iranian citizens’ eyes were shut forever by the regime in the streets of Tehran. These citizens had peacefully come to the streets to ask for their missing votes, but the response to their call was blood and violence. This year, officials of the Islamic republic are celebrating Nowruz as hundreds of political activists, students, women and ordinary citizens are either behind bars, or are imprisoned in a larger prison called Iran after having posted huge bail for their release, or have had their passports or titles to their property confiscated. The officials that you so kindly congratulated last year in observance of their ancient celebration, this year called another ancient tradition, held on the last Wednesday of the year, as superstition and issued a religious decree authorizing violent attacks on the youth celebrating the tradition. The crime of some was dancing, of others chanting freedom slogans, and of still others chanting death to the dictator. If you do not know what the Iranian people mean by dictator let me give you a simple answer: dictator is the person to whom you sent a message before the presidential election (June 12, 2009) and towards the end of Ahmadinejad’s administration. The Iranian nation saw your green light for negotiations when, for the first time, the recipient of the letter did not use the term “enemy” to refer to America. “Enemy” is not a term that dictators drop off by chance. Dictators need the term to sustain the unity of their people by producing a fictitious enemy. But your letter dropped the term from the dictator’s mouth, until after the elections, when people peacefully came to the streets, and you were again referred to as the enemy by the dictator.

Mr. President!

The world has heard the voice of Iranian protesters. The world has seen the green color of the Iranian peace movement more than black, while it has also seen the color of the lying Iranian regime. It is true that the authorities of the Islamic republic do not allow individual critics and protesters to travel abroad; or that the Iranian people, who seek change, are imprisoned by the regime of coercion, like the people of North Korea; but the ones who are allowed to travel abroad and to America, and those officials and authorities that are denying the killing and imprisoning of protesting Iranians, do not represent all of Iran. No longer does anyone equate Iran with Ahmadinejad or the supreme leader supporting Ahmadinejad. No longer is the Islamic Republic Iran’s only name; the green movement is this country’s other name.

I understand that I cannot expect a person to congratulate another nation or question someone for not congratulating one. I also understand that the rules of politics dictate that governments talk with each other directly. But now that the calls of human rights activists is lost in the twists and turns of Iran’s nuclear issue, it may be good to know that between last year’s Nowruz and this year’s, from the day of your unusual congratulatory message to the Islamic republic, the republic has died, people in this country have been violently murdered, and the their death has been denied by the regime. And as the Iranian year turns, I do not know whether you plan to send a congratulatory message to the Iranian nation or to the Islamic republic, but what difference does it make because what is there to celebrate, what is there to send congratulations for?

EU forgives Gaddafi, Africa still angered

2010-03-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

Both the European Union (EU) and the US have issued humiliating apologies to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, thus normalising ties and securing further investments in Libya's vast oil sector. Meanwhile, African leaders are still shocked by Mr Gaddafi's proposals to split Nigeria.

The diplomatic row between Libya and Western states - ignited by the imprisonment of Mr Gadaffi's son in Switzerland and a later Swiss blacklisting of Libyan officials in the EU's common travel visa system - was threatening to undermine years of painfully achieved normal ties with Libya. Even the US was getting dragged into the crisis after an official had criticised Mr Gaddafi's call for "jihad against Switzerland".

Two weeks ago, the US State Department was the first to take the humiliating step to apologise to the Libyan leader. US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said he regretted his comments on Libya's jihad against Switzerland, adding they were not the official view of the US.

The Libyan mission to the UN in a statement said it had "accepted" the apology by the US State Department. Libya would rescind the ban on visits by US officials that had been implemented after Mr Crowley's comments. US-Libyan ties thus were normalised.

For some weeks, therefore, European countries had a severe disadvantage in securing investments in neighbouring Libya. As a result of Switzerland's travel ban on Libyan officials - a ban that through the Schengen agreement automatically included travel to most of Europe - Libya had recalled all visas given to Europeans within the Schengen area. Investors, businessmen and tourists from Europe in practical terms were banned from entering Libya.

Europeans could not live with a situation where Americans got access to all the billion-worth investments in its backyard. So it was time to finish the EU-Libyan crisis.

The current leader of the rotating EU presidency, Spain's Prime Minister José Luís Zapatero, was the right man to make it happen. The Chamberlain-inspired leader, always looking to create "an alliance of civilisations, had no second thoughts when it comes to accept a humiliation if it can repair strained diplomatic ties.

On Saturday, the "Spanish presidency of the European Union" thus issued a statement, saying "all the names of Libyan citizens in the list of the Schengen information system have been deleted," adding the EU had never been involved in blacklisting the Libyans.

"We apologise and deplore what has happened and the hardships this has caused to Libyan citizens," the Spanish statement says, adding "we expect this will not be repeated in future." Between the lines, the statement thus tells Switzerland not to jeopardise EU relations with Libya again.

With this total retreat and humiliation, Libyan leader Gaddafi was quick to normalise ties with the EU during meetings with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos in Sirte, Mr Gaddafi's home town. Minister Moratinos thus today could issue another statement, "congratulating" that European citizens again "can enter Libya without any restrictions."

Meanwhile, in Africa, Mr Gaddafi is being slammed for his proposal to split Nigeria into two states according to religious lines. Nigerian leaders have called Mr Gaddafi a "mad man" and outright "evil", asking him to keep off African affairs. Nigeria recalled its ambassador in Tripoli as a demonstration of outrage.

Also outside Nigeria, the proposal has achieved major media headlines and caused very negative reactions. Mr Gaddafi until recently led the rotating presidency of the African Union (AU), and he should have known that the AU sees colonial frontiers in Africa as sacrosanct and as the only vaccine against an endless series of secessionist wars all over Africa.

The discussion about Mr Gaddafi's split-Nigeria proposal is still ongoing all over Africa. And the reactions mainly agree that Africa should stop listening to the "mad man" from Libya. The loss of reputation experienced by the Libyan leader in Africa will be a major setback for years.

But the Libyan leader has the mouth where the money is. He loves giant projects and rewards cordial ties with the possibilities of almost unlimited investment and profit possibilities. Currently, the Chinese and Russians are involved in billion dollar railway projects, while US and EU companies have been given billion dollar investment opportunities in the oil and gas industry.

This is also the case for Africa. Mr Gaddafi is fond of giant African infrastructure projects - especially if they link Libya with other countries - and can be talked into investing large sums if given honourable positions such as the AU presidency or being received like a major leader.

Since the mid-1990s, Africa has been a major foreign policy pillar in Tripoli. Colonel Gaddafi has invested large sums in gaining African allies. With the establishment in 1998 of the Tripoli-based Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), an estimated US$ 300-400 million have been channelled from Libya to friendly African countries.

Also, the Libyan leader has a strong political position in Africa, being engaged in several wars and peace processes. While previously occupying northern Chad, funding rebels in Sierra Leone and Liberia and being engaged in West Africa's illicit blood diamond trade, Libya is now marketing itself as a necessary peace mediator.

Tripoli was able to play a key role in preventing a full-scale war between Chad and Sudan a few years ago. Libya, having ties to both governments and armed rebels, has plaid an important role in negotiating more or less stable peace agreements within Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic.

But analysts hold that Libya's high star on the African continent is becoming bleaker. "Gaddafi's efforts in Chad have only partially helped him to improve his image internationally and have, in fact, reinforced the view that Libyan foreign policy remains contradictory," according to a new analysis by the Brussels think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG).

"Libya's diplomatic successes in Chad have been short-lived, due to a lack of focus on longer-term reforms and its difficulty in tolerating the contributions of other regional or wider international players in its quest to dominate its neighbourhood," according to the ICG analysis.

Together with the Libyan leader's split-Nigeria affair, the lessening influence in the Sahel region may ease other African leaders' desire to distance themselves from the "mad man" initiatives of Mr Gaddafi. Unless the Libyan leader again opens his check-book, of course.

Report: The Dark Side of China Aid

2010-03-29T02:21:00.000-07:00

Source New York Times - By CHRISTOPHER WALKER and SARAH COOK - A growing number of developing countries receive billions of dollars a year in assistance, loans, and investments from China. Already in 2010, Beijing has committed $25 billion to Asean nations. In March, Zambia’s president returned from a trip to China with a $1 billion loan in hand.

As Beijing’s levels of foreign assistance swell and its relationship deepens with countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, a key question emerges: What impact will investments by an opaque and repressive superpower have on governance standards in the developing world?

Findings from a Freedom House analysis, “Countries at the Crossroads,” point to the challenges that many of these recipient countries confront as they struggle to build more transparent and accountable systems. Fighting corruption and safeguarding freedom of expression and assembly are proving especially difficult. The dark side of Beijing’s engagement, with its nontransparent aid and implicit conditions, risks tipping the balance in the wrong direction.

To appreciate the “China effect” on developing countries, it is essential to understand the methods Beijing is using to exert influence and warp incentives for accountable governance.

First, as international financial institutions and donor organizations seek to encourage stronger governance norms, aid from China has become an alternate source of funds. Recipient governments use these as a bargaining chip to defer measures that strengthen transparency and rule of law, especially those that could challenge elite power.

Cambodia is a telling example. The government in Phnom Penh, which has received substantial aid from the United States and other democracies, now receives comparable amounts from China. The Cambodian authorities have used this “assistance competition” to their advantage. Rather than combating corruption and implementing sorely needed reforms to the judiciary and media sector, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government has shrunk space for alterative voices and independent institutions. Western donors, fearful of losing influence, have been increasingly hesitant to penalize the regime for its failures.

In October, the Guinean government announced a $7 billion deal with the China International Fund just as the international community was considering sanctions following a massacre of opposition supporters. The case underscores how even investments by a private entity, this one with ties to Beijing, can be manipulated to undermine efforts to support human rights standards.

Second, while “no strings attached” is commonly used to describe China’s approach in the developing world, the reality is not quite so benign. A combination of subtle and not-so-subtle conditions typically accompanies this largesse. Included among these is pressure to muzzle voices critical of the Chinese government, often undermining basic freedoms of expression and assembly in these countries. The authorities in Nepal, which have recently received a 50 percent boost in aid from Beijing, have violently suppressed Tibetan demonstrations, including the arrest of thousands of exiles in 2008. In December of last year, Cambodia’s government forcibly repatriated 20 Uighurs to China, where they face almost certain imprisonment and torture. Three days later, Beijing announced a package of deals with Cambodia estimated at $1 billion.

Even more democratically developed countries are not immune to such pressures. In March 2009, the South African government barred the Dalai Lama’s attendance at a pre-World Cup peace conference.

Third, Chinese aid funds are frequently conditioned on being used to purchase goods from firms selected by Chinese officials without an open bidding process. In Namibia, anti-corruption agencies are investigating suspected kickbacks in a deal involving security scanners purchased by the government from a company until recently headed by President Hu Jintao’s son. Beijing’s response has been to stonewall investigations and activate its robust Internet censorship apparatus, sanitizing online references to the case Chinese citizens might stumble across.

Observers such as the scholar Larry Diamond have identified countries that are semi-democratic, rather than autocracies, as the most promising ground for expanding the ranks of consolidated democracies globally. The patently negative aspects of the Chinese Communist Party’s developing world influence could deal a real blow to this aspiration.

Findings from Freedom House’s global analysis of political rights and civil liberties put this phenomenon in perspective. Over the past five years countries with only some features of institutionalized democratic systems have slipped significantly — 57 countries within the “partly free” category have experienced declines, while only 38 improved.

Beijing’s deepening involvement in these cases may generate a number of effects, some perhaps positive for short-term economic development. But the dark underbelly of the Chinese regime’s involvement — the opacity of its aid and the illiberal conditions that underpin it — means that over the long haul, incentives for strengthening accountable governance and basic human rights are being warped, or even reversed.

Christopher Walker is director of studies and Sarah Cook is an Asia researcher at Freedom House.

Gay rights in Africa: Eritrea said "Homosexuality against Eritrean values"

2010-03-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

Eritrean government officials for the first time have answered to rights activists' questions about the country's tough anti-homosexuality laws. Legalisation was out of question, the official said.

At a recent UN review of the human rights situation in Eritrea, Rowland Jide Macaulay of the Canadian HIV AIDS Legal Network challenged the Eritrean government to "repeal all legislative provisions which criminalise sexual activity between consenting adults of the same sex."

According to the Canadian rights activist, the criminalisation of consensual homosexual acts was a threat to public health as it "frustrated creating access to HIV prevention and awareness programmes for men who had sex with men." Moreover, it was contrary to international law, human rights and "likely to exacerbate incidents of harassment, abuse, arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions."

Girmai Abraham of the Eritrean Ministry of National Development was confronted with many demands at the human rights hearing, including bids to abolish death penalty, stopping the practice of torture and adhering to press freedom. Consulting with government in Asmara, he came up with a list of which demands Eritrea would listen to and which it would reject.

According to Mr Abraham, the Eritrean government rejected the demand to legalise same-sex activity between consenting adults, which was "in direct contradiction with the values and traditions of the Eritrean people."

Homosexuality is illegal in Eritrea, according to the 1957 penal code, which is an inheritance from colonial times. The penal code strictly prohibits "sexual deviations," among which is performing sexual acts with someone of the same sex. So-called "unnatural carnal offences" can be punished with imprisonment of between 10 days and 3 years.

Little is known about the practical use of this law as the state-controlled Eritrean press does not report about homosexuality at all. But according to a report from the British Embassy in Asmara, people who participate in "such an act are prosecuted and punished whenever found guilty." In 2004, authorities reportedly expelled a number of foreigners from Eritrea on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Mr Macaulay, content for having been given an official answer on the legality of homosexuality in Eritrea, has decided to go further with his campaigning. In a letter to Eritrean President Issaias Afewerki, the Canadian asks him to reconsider his position, "appreciating the sensitivity of the issue."

In general terms, homosexuality is not a publicly discussed issue in Eritrea. The existance of sexual minorities, in the modern sense, is not known to Eritreans at large, but law enforcers have become increasingly aware of homosexuality in their efforts to fight it.

Iran: Mir-Hossein Mousavi said "We Cannot Retreat"

2010-03-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

Mir-Hossein Mousavi declared that retreating from popular demands would be an act of treason to the nation, for Islam and the blood of martyrs, adding, “We must truly be concerned about turning our backs on the demands of the people.”

The Iranian calendar year turned 1389 on March 21, 2010, which is marked by speeches of public figures, official and popular, to the nation. This year was business as usual, except that the opposition figures too published their messages and use the occasion to air their differeing views and dissident views.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, Iran’s wartime prime minister released a video message to the Iranian people, naming the year 1389 as the year of “fortitude and perseverance with the Iranian nation’s legal and just demands,” emphasizing, “The new year is the year of perseverance with these legal and just demands.”

This is the first time that a political figure other than ayatollah Khamenei sets a name for the new year. Every year, the Islamic republic supreme leader and the president appear on national television after the arrival of the new year and release new year messages to the public. The leader also names the new year, but this year Mir-Hossein Mousavi, as one of the green movement’s leaders, disrupted the usual order by releasing a video message for the new year and also naming the new year.

People’s Determination for Change

Mousavi congratulated the arrival of the new year to all groups, tribes, ethnicities, cultures, political parties and all Iranians inside and outside Iran, noting, “Our people are a united people, and it is one of the blessings of the green movement that it has become so extensive that people on the other side of the globe identity themselves with the rich Iranian and Islamic cultures and try to concern themselves with the fate of their homeland and country.”

This opposition candidate discussed the events of last year describing the people’s massive participation in the June 2009 presidential elections in Iran as a sign of people’s resolve to institute “change, reform, national independence and the rule of freedom and justice,” which could have turned into a “great festival for the nation.”

According to him, the government’s response to people’s presence caused the people to come into the streets shortly after with the slogan, “where is my vote,” or “give back my vote.”

Mousavi said that the government’s response to popular protests was not “befitting of the grandeur, liberty and pride of the nation,” adding, “If the issue was just political, then it should have been resolved through political means with convincing explanations to our people. This was however not the case and the responses were unfortunately also not satisfying.”

Zahra Rahnavard: Green Movement and Women’s Rights

Mousavi’s wife who is also a university professor released a video message of her own on Kalame website and announced that the green movement seeked reform, not regime change.

Noting that “The green movement has paid a heavy price and stands by its ideals,” Rahnavard described the green movement is a collection of social movements such as the labor movement, the teachers’ movement, and the women’s right movement, adding, “In reality, the green movement is people and their ideals. We are all together and countless.”

Central African gorillas towards extinction

2010-03-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

New research reveals that gorilla populations in the Congo Basin are diminishing much faster than previously supposed. Poaching and illegal logging may cause gorilla extinction by the mid-2020s, new data show.

The pessimistic outlook is presented today in a report by the UN's environment agency UNEP and the international police organisation INTERPOL. Together, they have mapped the habitats of the great apes and the illegal trade in timber and minerals in Central Africa. This illegal trade is key to understand the great habitat loss of gorillas.

"Gorillas may have largely disappeared from large parts of the Greater Congo Basin by the mid 2020s unless urgent action is taken to safeguard habitats and counter poaching," the new data had shown. Previous UNEP projections, made in 2002, suggested that only 10 percent of the original ranges would remain by 2030.

"These estimates now appear too optimistic given the intensification of pressures including illegal logging, mining, charcoal production and increased demand for bushmeat, of which an increasing proportion is ape meat," according to UNEP. Further, outbreaks of Ebola fever were adding to concerns. These had killed thousands of great apes including gorillas and by some estimates up to 90 percent of animals infected will die.

The situation was said to be "especially critical in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)," where a great deal of the escalating damage is linked with militias operating in the region. The report says militias in the eastern part of the DRC are behind much of the illegal trade, which may be worth several hundred million US dollars a year.

It says that smuggled or illegally-harvested minerals such as diamonds, gold and coltan along with timber from the DRC ends up crossing borders, passing through middle men and companies before being shipped onto countries in Asia, the European Union and the Gulf. The export of timber and minerals is estimated to be two to ten times the officially recorded level, and is claimed to be handled by front companies in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

The illegal trade is in part due to the militias being in control of border crossings which, along with demanding road tax payments, may be generating between US$ 14 million and US$ 50 million annually. This in turn helps fund their military activities. Meanwhile, the insecurity in the region has driven hundreds of thousands of people into refugee camps. Logging and mining camps are hiring poachers to supply refugees and markets in towns across the region with bushmeat.

According to INTERPOL's David Higgins, "the gorillas are yet another victim of the contempt shown by organised criminal gangs for national and international laws aimed at defending wildlife. The law enforcement response must be internationally coordinated, strong and united, and INTERPOL is uniquely placed to facilitate this."

Christian Nellemann, a senior UNEP officer who was lead author of the 2002 report, was surprised to learn about the new speed of destruction of gorilla habitats in Central Africa. "With the current and accelerated rate of poaching for bushmeat and habitat loss, the gorillas of the Greater Congo Basin may now disappear from most of their present range within ten to fifteen years," said Mr Nellemann.

"We are observing a decline in wildlife across many parts of the region, and also side-effects on poaching outside the region and on poaching for ivory and rhino horn, often involving poachers and smugglers operating from the Congo Basin, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, to buyers in Asia and beyond," he added.

The report does, however, contain some positive news. A new and as yet unpublished survey in one area of the eastern DRC, in the centre of the conflict zone, has discovered 750 critically endangered Eastern lowland gorillas.

The other good news is that the mountain gorillas in the Virungas, an area which is shared by Rwanda, Uganda and DR Congo, have survived during several periods of instability. This was said to be the result of trans-boundary collaboration among the three countries, including better law enforcement and benefit sharing with the local communities. But it was also due to the efforts of courageous Virunga park rangers, of which 190 were killed in recent years in the line of duty.

Homophobia divides Africa

2010-03-24T03:52:00.000-07:00

Homophobic laws in Uganda and an anti-gay court case in Malawi are only two current examples demonstrating a conservative wave regarding sexual minorities in Africa. But in other countries, in particular South Africa, gays and lesbians are enjoying increased freedom.

There is a belt of current conservative reactions to homosexuality spanning from Zimbabwe to Ethiopia, including most of Southern and East Africa. One after another, countries in the region hit international headlines over homophobic actions.

International human rights groups are busy condemning what seems to be a wave of gay bashing in the region. Some northern donor nations, including the UK, Sweden and Norway, have included discrimination against homosexuals in their lists of unacceptable human rights violations, threatening to cut aid if the bashing goes on. Church communities are split in a north-south division over accepting homosexuals. It all looks like a war of values between Africa and Western nations.

But that is only at a superficial level. Indeed, the issue of gay rights in Africa is greatly advancing. Even repressive headlines, such as the Malawi court case against a gay couple accused of "unnatural offences", can be read the other way, as an advance for gay rights.

Malawi is an example of deeply conservative societies, where traditional religion is mixed with Anglican church values formed during the colonial era. In Malawi, a vast majority had not even heard about homosexuality before the young gay couple was arrested in late December. Homosexuality was a non-matter, it did not exist in Malawi, even the more educated people thought.

But now, homosexuality is the big issue of talks in Malawi. While the great majority of Malawians have found they do not approve of this "foreign" thing as it goes against their conservative values, some few indeed defend that homosexuals should not be discriminated. It is the first time this point of view has been heard in Malawi. With time, it may grow stronger.

In Namibia and Botswana, also conservative countries but with a longer tradition of being open to outside impulses and with greater middle classes, many organisations now openly defend gay rights against discrimination and the occasional homophobic statements by political and church leaders. Here, the taboo is about to be broken.

The great taboo breaking in Africa has already happened in South Africa, the first country world-wide to protect sexual minorities explicitly in its constitution. Here, same-sex marriages by now are allowed and increasingly accepted. Here, forceful organisations are based, fighting for gay rights across the African continent.

But interestingly, even South Africans remain conservative regarding homosexuality. A 2006 survey found that more than three-quarters - 78 percent - of South Africans felt that sexual relations between two adults of the same gender were "always wrong". Less than one in fifteen at a national level thought that homosexual relationships were "not wrong at all".

In practical terms, this means that homosexuals in South Africa are protected by some of the world's most liberal legislation. Meanwhile, gays and lesbians are among the many minority groups experiencing much hate crime. Although gay marriages are now legal, same-sex couples know they will have to choose where not to settle to avoid discrimination and violence.

But among educated South Africans and among South African organisations, there is a clear sense of wanting to defend equal rights forhomosexuals. Even the country's main church society, the Anglicans, are in favour of equal rights for homosexuals. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has frequently condemned persecution of gays and lesbians and even equalled homophobia with apartheid.

No wonder then, that South African organisations are leading the battle against homophobia in Africa. Only today, South Africa's main trade union COSATU joined the country's main AIDS activist group TAC in strongly condemning "homophobia in Africa." The two major organisations are "concerned about the inhuman and homophobic legislation being proposed in Uganda and a wider crackdown against gays and lesbians in other African countries."

The recent debate in Uganda about a draft bill to criminalise homosexuality through the implementation of the death sentence had "raised awareness around homophobia and homophobic legislation in the region," TAC and COSATU say, demonstrating the homophobia debate is reaching a pan-African level. They especially react against the Ugandan discourse that homosexuality is "against god's will" and "un-African", claiming this discourse is the root of the current African wave of conservative reactions against homosexuals.

"As a continent, Africa is failing to uphold the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex individuals," the South African groups hold. They demand the continent-wide "decriminalisation of all consensual sex between adults irrespective of sexual orientation," while also addressing hate crime and "corrective rape" against gays and lesbians in South Africa.

Especially COSATU is powerful outside South Africa, being the continent's most prominent trade union. And COSATU is contributing with its share to influence sister trade unions in other African countries to accept homosexual rights along with other human rights. Especially in Southern Africa, this campaign is beginning to show results, as most trade unions are against homophobic legislation.

But the most vocal campaigners against homophobia are national human rights groups. In Namibia and Botswana, these have totally embraced the principle of equal rights for homosexuals, making great efforts to change society attitudes. In Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia, national human rights groups first presented the issue to the public, trying to promote a positive discourse.

In East Africa and Malawi, this has been more difficult due to stronger conservatism and strong political and religious campaigns against homosexuality. All countries in the region - this year even Malawi - however have seen their first pro-gay organisations emerge within the small possibilities of legality that exist. Pro-gay voices therefore now exist in these countries, for the first time in history.

Homosexuality and homophobia thus is dividing Africa. The division is between conservative and liberal groups within each and every country where the discussion about homosexuality has begun. And it always starts with a conservative majority, but it may end with a liberal turn in time.

Malawi: fierce discrimination against gays

2010-03-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

The two Malawi men detained for three months over homosexual acts will face a full trial in April, a Blantyre court ruled today. The two risk prison sentences of up to 14 years.

The two men were detained almost three months ago and have been in custody since then. They are accused of "unnatural offences" and "indecent practices between males" - in reality homosexuality - which is a criminal offence according to colonial parts of Malawi's penal code.

The lawyers of the alleged gay couple hoped to avoid further prosecution as the two were presented to a Blantyre court today. They claimed the arrest were contrary to human rights and the Malawi constitution, which guaranteed the privacy and non-discrimination of the 26 and 20-year-old men.

But the court found the two had been caught in a criminal act and therefore agreed a full court trial must be held. Also a request for bail was rejected. The trial was to be held in April, the judge finally decided.

The two men arrested by police on 28 December 2009, two days after holding an engagement ceremony in the Chirimba township of Blantyre. They do not deny their sexual orientation, but hold they have a constitutional right not to be discriminated against.

Since their arrest, the two have been subjected to inhumane treatments, according to their lawyers. They reportedly have been beaten several times and subjected to forced anal examinations to "confirm" sodomy charges.

Malawi is a deeply conservative country, where modern impulses and values were held back for decades during the Banda dictatorship. The trial will be a test case regarding homosexuality in a country, where the majority of the population had not even heard about sexual minorities before the two young boys have dominated media front pages since their arrest.

As the issue of homosexuality suddenly emerged in Malawi, also liberal forces have woken up. A pro-gay group has been formed - the Centre for the Development of People - as the first in Malawi. In the capital, several politicians say Malawi should reconsider anti-gay legislation, and the Anglican Church - the dominant in the country - even had its first discussion on how to react to homosexuality. Not surprisingly, a majority of church leaders were negative.

The strongest reactions to the arrest and continued legal proceedings against the two young men has come from abroad. Several of Malawi's major foreign donors have had talks with the country's government, protesting the discrimination of homosexuals as human rights violations and even indicating this could influence development aid levels for Malawi.

The human rights group Amnesty International today called on Malawian authorities to "immediately and unconditionally release" the two men. "The trial of these men, purely on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation, is a gross violation of their rights to freedom of conscience, expression and privacy," said Véronique Aubert of the group. Criminalisation of homosexuality and gender identity was banned under several treaties ratified by Malawi, she added.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) today said it was "dismayed" by today's ruling. "This ruling is the most recent in a line of deeply troubling decisions and actions by the Malawian authorities in this case, including the decision to deny bail to [the two], claiming that their continued incarceration is for their own safety," said Chivuli Ukwimi from IGLHRC's Cape Town offices.

But the international condemnation will not convince the conservative majority in Malawi. Bishop Joseph Bvumbwe has already denounced Western donors for blackmail and Malawians at large look at homosexuality as un-African and foreign. But politicians may nevertheless give into pressures as Malawi is totally dependent on foreign aid.

Iran: latest News from Political and Journalist Prisoners

2010-03-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

By Fereshteh Ghazi - While a number of journalists and political prisoners were released yesterday, speaking to a group of families of political prisoners Tehran’s prosecutor general warned that he would not release individuals whose families had spoken about the matter to media networks.

At the same time, the Tehran revolutionary and general courts’ public relations office announced yesterday that the sentences of 86 detainees of recent events had been confirmed.

According to the public relations office’s announcement, the detainees were prosecuted on charges of gathering and conspiracy to disrupt national security, propaganda against the regime, membership in anti-revolutionary groups, participation in illegal gatherings and disrupting public order, among others.

Abdolreza Ghanbari Sentenced to Death

Judge Salavati confirmed the death sentence for Abdolreza Ghanbari, who was sentenced to death by one of the post-Ashoura Day courts.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran announced that Abdolreza Ghanbari’s trial was unjust, as he lacked access to a lawyer and did not have an opportunity to defend himself. Ghanbari is 42-years old and a resident of the poor neighborhood of Ghiam Dasht in Varamin. He is a teacher and it is said that his only crime is his participation in the Ashoura Day gatherings and chanting slogans against he Islamic Republic supreme leader.

He was held at Ward 2 of the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps’ detention facility following his arrest. On 10 Bahman, without having notified his family or spoken to his lawyer, his appeared at a trial presided over by Judge Salavati and admitted to partipcating in the Ashoura Day protests and other acts. A person close to his case said that his admissions were extracted under torture. He has recently been transferred to the general ward of the prison.

Meanwhile, Mohsen Mirdamadi, Akbar Montajebi, Keyvan Samimi, Rasoulov, Tara Sepehrifar, Sheikh-Attar, Farzaneh Ghasemi and Saeed Jalalifar were released. Rasoulov was arrested along with prominent Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and Akbar Montajebi on 19 Bahman. Jafar Panahi continues to remain behind bars and no information is available about his fate.

Mohsen Mirdamadi, secretary general of the Mosharekat (Participation) Party was also released after posting a 450-million Toman bail. Mohsen Mirdamadi was arrested one day after the June 12 election coup.

Hossein Sheikh-Attar was released after 75 days behind bars. Sheikh-Attar was an executive at the state radio and television broadcasting corporation during Mohammad Hashemi’s tenure at the organization.

Kayvan Samimi is a journalist and member of the Association for Defense of Press Rights. Saeed Jalalifar is a member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters.

Despite the Revolutionary Court’s approval and the posting of bail eighty days ago, Tehran’s prosecutor general Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi refuses to order the release of writer and human rights activist Emadeddin Baghi. Baghi was arrested for conducting an interview with ayatollah Montazeri and has spent about 50 days in solitary conferment before being transferred to the 3-person cells in Evin Prison’s Ward 240.

Libyan follies: Gaddafi says "Split Nigeria into two nations"

2010-03-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a speech to African student in Tripoli said Nigeria should be split into two nations; one Muslim and one Christian. "Nothing" else could "stop the bloodshed," Mr Gaddafi warned.

Excerpts from the Libyan leaders speech were published by the state-controlled news agency 'JANA' today. Mr Gaddafi was speaking to a "gathering of students, some of them from Nigeria," yesterday.

In the speech, he compared the current situation in Nigeria to that on the Indian sub-continent "before 1945, when massacres by Muslims and Hindus ended only after" the former British colony was split into Pakistan and India. The Libyan leader said, "though the solution was painful, it prevented the Hindus and Muslims in the sub-continent killing from one another."

He went on calling the current "apalling situation in Nigeria," which recently experienced yet another massacre, a product of the British colonisation. A federal republic had been "imposed on the country" by the British, "despite the resistance of the population," Mr Gaddafi was quoted as saying.

The conflict in Nigeria was too deeply rooted "to be treated with laws, police and courts," he went on. Accordingly, the Libyan leader warned that "nothing can stop the bloodshed and burning of houses of God, whether they be mosques or churches," except than the creation of seperrate Muslim and a Christian states.

The borders inherited by the colonisers have been declared sacro-saint by the African Union (AU), which fears the opening of a pandora's box if seperatists are allowed to draw new borders according to ethnic or religious lines. Several West African nations share the Muslim north and Christian south divide with Nigeria, including Cameroon, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.

Colonel Gaddafi was the political leader of the African Union until 31 January, when Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika.

EU ready to take unilateral sanctions against Iran but not against the Iranian people

2010-03-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

The European Union is ready to unilaterally impose new sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner confirmed Sunday.

Asked by journalists whether there was a consensus within the EU for unilateral sanctions against Iran, Kouchner replied "broadly yes, but we have to talk about what kind of sanctions.

"And first we should devote our strength and time to getting a resolution in the UN Security Council and we're working on that," he said.

"The general consensus is also to not target the people but to target the economy, banking, insurance and travel permits for some particular people," he added.

Kouchner was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Finland. On Saturday his Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb indicated that there was a sufficient consensus within the EU to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran if need be.

The statements were the first clear declarations by European officials that the bloc is ready to order sanctions outside of a UN framework, a measure which only recently several member countries had opposed.

Western governments, particularly the United States and France, are seeking further sanctions in the hope of stopping Tehran's nuclear drive, which they suspect may be aimed at acquiring atomic weapons.

The Islamic republic says its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said any EU move was unlikely for the coming months as the UN Security Council is expected to take up a new sanctions resolution.

"The United States are expected to present a draft resolution at the end of March," said Frattini, with consideration of the measure to take several months, which he called "a reasonable delay."

Of the five permanent Security Council members, currently only China opposes new measures against Iran.

The 15-strong UN Security Council has five permanent veto-wielding members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

Adoption of a resolution requires at least nine votes from the council and no veto from the permanent members.

A European diplomat who asked not to be named said that EU members were not completely unanimous, with Sweden in particular still reluctant to support sanctions outside of the UN framework.

With the improved chances of obtaining an UN Security Council resolution the EU may avoid facing the question of independently imposing sanctions, she added.

Tanzania, Zambia "too corrupt to trade ivory"

2010-03-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

British and US environmentalists have angered Tanzanians and Zambians with a new report strongly advising against legalising the sale of local ivory stocks, saying "official corruption" would lead to further illegal ivory trade.

The attack comes shortly before the annual meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), where the ivory trade has been a yearly discussion since the trade was banned in 1989 to protect elephants. CITES since then twice has allowed a limited sale of ivory stockpiles for African countries managing their elephant populations well.

At the upcoming CITES meeting in Doha in Qatar, Tanzania and Zambia have announced a similar request. The two African countries will ask for a one-time permission for a legal sale of their growing ivory stocks. The tusks, governments hold, stem from animals that had died naturally or were culled to thin herds as part of recognised management schemes.

Also a yearly tradition, environmentalists issue strong protests against any attempt to weaken the 1989 ivory trade ban, presenting "scientific" evidence that a one-time sale would lead to increased poaching.

First to react was scientist and environmentalist Sam Wasser, Director at the Washington Centre for Conservation Biology. Mr Wasser has used DNA to trace the origin of the - still large quantities of - ivory reaching illegal markets, mostly in Asia. He concludes tusks come mostly from Zambia and Tanzania, criticising those governments for "denying the extent of their illegal activity in their country."

Much tougher was a report issued yesterday by the so-called "Environmental Investigation Agency" (EIA) based in London and Washington, presented in the world press as a scientific investigation. In reality an environmentalist group, EIA strongly attacks the governments of Zambia and Tanzania.

"EIA undercover investigators recently visited Tanzania and Zambia and returned with harrowing first-hand evidence documenting a flourishing trade in illegal ivory in both countries, often exacerbated by official corruption," the group presented its study.

Especially Tanzania - a country generating much revenues from wildlife tourism - is accused of corrupt standards and questionable motives for seeking a one-time ivory sale.

"Tanzania's elephant population declined by more than 30,000 elephants between 2006 and 2009, primarily from poaching to supply black-market ivory to Asia," EIA claims. "Rampant poaching is concentrated around the Selous Game Reserve," the group holds. "In 2009 several major seizures totalling some 12 tonnes of ivory occurred in Asia. DNA studies from earlier seizures of Tanzanian ivory in Asia has shown that much of the ivory originated from the Selous," EIA claims to know.

"In February 2010, EIA investigators posing as buyers easily found ivory for sale in the markets of Dar es Salaam, identified hotspots for illegal ivory trading in southern Selous, and gathered data on recent poaching incidents," the group claims.

Also in Zambia, EIA members claim to have found that "ivory is easily obtainable in large quantities." The group "reveals" that the country has "a thriving illegal domestic market and is at the centre of the international ivory trade, hosting some of the world's most sophisticated traders and networks - which in some instances use government military vehicles to transport illegal ivory."

Unnecessary to say, EIA in its "report" concludes "it would be a tragedy for elephants" to allow Zambia and Tanzania to sell a quantity of ivory legally.

But not all environmentalists are equally fundamentalist in their approach. WWF biologists have, on general terms, favoured limited legal one-time sales of ivory, which in theory also could include Zambian and Tanzanian sales, if it is "entirely controlled." So far, however, WWF is not convinced Tanzanian and Zambian tusks are "entirely controlled," and have indicated they will vote against such a sale at the CITES meeting, for now.

In Tanzania and Zambia, the harsh accusations by some environmentalists have caused anger. Both countries claim to have documented well that their elephant populations are growing, not declining as EIA claims. Further, governments had earmarked revenues from the ivory sales - expected to reach US$ 46 million in Tanzania alone - "for protection of natural resources, an undertaking which needs a lot of money," according to Tanzanian Natural Resources Minister Shamsa Mwangunga.

Iranian Feminism after June 2009: A Conversation with Zillah Eisenstein

2010-03-13T04:22:00.000-08:00

Source Tehran Bureau - The world has now witnessed the extraordinary presence of Iranian women in the democratic struggles of their nation -- both before and after the June 12, 2009 presidential election.

In May and June 2009, millions of women poured into the streets in both pro-Mousavi and pro-Ahmadinejad rallies. The human chain in support of the more liberal candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, which stretched through most of Tehran's major avenues was made up of hundreds of thousands of women.

Eyewitness reports tell us of amazing acts of courage by women, young and old, pious and non-religious, who danced, cried, shouted and spent days and nights in the streets.

Why?

As a student of social movements and women's issues in Iran, I believe it's because they have paid the highest price for living in a patriarchal theocracy (and before that in a autocratic monarchy). The state has conveniently sidestepped most of the gender-equal constitutional and religious provisions and rights for women, while at the same time enacting many misogynist measures in family and penal law. In post-election rallies, we have seen women engaged in inspirational acts of non-violence and courage. We also hear that a deep sense of melancholy has now set in; the saddest expressions are to be seen on the smooth and wrinkly faces of women in Iran. That may be because they have the most to lose under another four years of an Ahmadinejad presidency.

I believe the events surrounding the presidential election of June 2009 opens a new chapter in the women's rights movement in Iran. I believe that this overwhelming presence of women in the democratic will of Iranians is ahead of the women's rights organizations and discourses as we have known and understood them so far. I also believe that we need to rethink our presumptions and assumptions about the Iranian women's rights movement. To do so, we need to wed the cause of women's rights movement to a more global and comparative perspective, where our struggles are freed from our received notions and bifurcations -- secular or religious, inside or outside, first or second wave.

For this reason I have turned to Zillah Eisenstein, a leading feminist theorist. A professor of politics at Ithaca College in New York, and the author of a definitive text on anti-war, anti-racist, anti-imperialist feminist theory and practice, Against Empire: Feminisims, Racism and 'the' West, among other books, I wanted to find out how her activism and comparative perspectives can assist Iranian women in building a transnational feminist response critical and pro-active to the current situation in Iran. I believe that the women's rights movement in Iran has much to teach the rest of the world and also much to learn from it.

Golbarg Bashi: I know you have been following the events in Iran during and after the presidential election of June 2009. What were your initial thoughts and feelings when you saw the presence of so many women in the course of these rallies and demonstrations?

Zillah Eisenstein: I felt immediate connection and support and excitement. I wanted to be there. I wondered what all these women -- young and old -- were thinking and feeling. I hoped that they were more energized by their massive presence than they were afraid. I hoped that they, along with all the other demonstrators, would be safe. I wished that their demands for a recount would be successful. I also wanted to know more about the women in the streets: their many different beliefs about the present Ahmadinejad regime, and about what type of support they were mustering for Mousavi; and what his wife Zahra Rahnavard symbolized for them. I was hesitant to think that the mainstream global media would get these stories right. Almost everyone I knew was blown away by the huge presence of women amidst the demonstrators. There was less surprise than there was elation, no matter what the particular understanding of this women's presence was.

I should maybe mention that I have been particularly interested in Iranian feminisms for over a decade now. I attempted to visit Iran this past May. Several Iranian feminists here in the U.S. assisted me with contacts in Tehran, and I applied to the international conference on human rights titled "Peace, Human Rights, and Religion," sponsored by the Center for Human Rights Studies, Mofid University, in Qom. I was hoping that my paper "The 'War on Terror' on Women's/Human Rights" would be accepted for the conference. My paper was rejected and the trip canceled. (Of course I can send you a copy of this paper if you wish.)

I think many people would be interested in reading the paper you intended to present in Iran. May I ask from what you have seen and read so far, what you think is new or different about the presence of so many women in the course of the Iranian presidential election of June 2009 and its aftermath? In what ways is what we are seeing similar to other contexts and in what ways different?

Let me first just say that I have learned to always ask about what is similar and what is different simultaneously when it comes to women's activism and their feminisms, if they choose this identity, across the globe. (Not all women activists identify as feminist, whatever this particular meaning might be.) And I always try to be cautious about thinking anything I view is ever simply the same as something else. There is always something new to see and understand. I actively try to be as self-conscious as I can be about the Western visors in which I see and view, and this has led me to understand and accept that a plethora of actions that I think might be described as feminist also need more insight on my part and further explanation.

In other words when I saw Iranian women in the streets I thought some of these women probably would not self-describe themselves as feminists but rather as women fighting for democracy, or they would identify as anti-imperialist Muslims, or anti-patriarchal Islamic women, or as participants in the "Million Signatures," or the "Anti-stoning" campaigns. So, I was both curious, and wondering, and profoundly moved by what I was seeing.

In some ways these demonstrations reminded me of civil rights work I participated in the U.S. early on in my childhood, and the anti-Vietnam war movement that I was involved in as a young woman. Neither of these political involvements/movements identified femaleness or patriarchal gender as a problem to be resolved. My political identity as a woman, and/or as a feminist was subsumed into these other struggles. In the recent weeks in Iran, women have been central to the pro-democracy demonstrations, and yet misogyny and patriarchy remain un-named or simply silently understood, as problems. Feminisms are not named, while women's activism is celebrated. This is interesting and important to think more about: how to connect and enrich women's activism with explicitly radically plural feminisms. What this might look like in Iran is yet to unfold.

Women across the globe, both historically and contemporarily -- in Algeria, Egypt, India, Ghana, Vietnam, Iraq, Cuba, as well as in the U.S. and in Europe -- have long been in the streets demonstrating for human rights, against wars across the globe, and for the protection of the environment. What is somewhat different in this moment in Iran is the global viral viewing and seeing of this struggle. Although women were instrumental in the 1979 revolution in Iran, it was not as readily visualized for public viewing. The public viewing shifts the discourses in new ways. The presence of women cannot be denied. The silencing of women's activism is not as easy as it has been. Yet, this activism has yet to be theorized and recognized as deeply political and necessary to any form of meaningful democracy.

Theorizing for me simply means that one must think about gender in collective ways; that one must de-naturalize and de-normalize the way that women are seen or not seen.

Were you surprised to see the presence of so many women entering and claiming the public space, considering the fact that they live in a country that publicly limits the civil rights of women.

No, given what I have said above. In part I think, thought that it made total sense. Women were key in the struggle against the Shah (Pahlavi) and the '79 revolution, only to be disappointed with many of the betrayals on human rights, particularly for women, in Iran. Revolutions, throughout history, are well known for this betrayal to women.

I think that the more powerful Iranian women have been and become -- both in the public domestic sphere and the more public realm of the marketplace and education, constraints have been set up against these gains. And moves to constrain women under Ahmadinejad were precisely because of women's potential threat to his misogynist interpretations of Islam. If women were powerless, they would not need legalized constraints to domesticate them. Women all over the globe move and shake the world. They do triple days of labor--domestic, consumer, and more often than not, paid labor as well. It is both the potential and established power of Iranian women that burst out on the streets in these past weeks.

As you know, many women's rights activists in North America and Western Europe do not know that Iranian women have been long time activists. How do you think we need to cross that cultural and theoretical barrier? In what effective and enduring ways do you think we can learn from this massive and massively visible women's participation for our future struggle -- in a cross-cultural, comparative, and more validly universal terms?

This divide and ignorance you ask about is part of a larger arrogance of the West that assumes that western forms of democracy are the most advanced and most credible. I might call this stance the imperial mind that disallows seeing and viewing other democratic struggles as sites where "we" of the "West" can learn. I guess I need to make clear that even though I use the phrase "the West" I have also interrogated it as an unhelpful phrasing of the world. The "West" owes too much to the "non-West"; the dichotomization is not helpful to understanding cultural flows.

This ignorance, arrogance easily bleeds into the way many living in the West assume that feminism is western, rather than that there are many kinds of feminisms. I am not speaking of a cultural relativism that disallows judgment and criticism, but rather cultural variety that is radically plural and rich. I write about many of these concerns in Against Empire, and Sexual Decoys where I also present the idea that we are looking for polyversal, rather than universal guides. Poly means multiple and differing; versal cuts through to bind the whole. But I mean a wholeness that recognizes differences, rather than unity, meaning oneness.

Coming out of this struggle, and considering the deferred promises to women on a number of prior and similar occasions, how do you think we can develop and define a newer mode of activism?

I would not presume to know as much as the women activists and feminists of all varieties in Iran know of their own context. But looking from the outside, even though there is no simple outside to anything in this global moment, I think it is important to find ways for the differing stances of women protesters to bind together and speak and politicize their needs as women, in all their variety. There are many concerns: the actual validity of the election; the legal status and rights of voters and their more general civil rights; women's rights in the Islamic republic; radical anti-patriarchal rights of women, etc. I would hope that the demands for specific rights of women could be used to mobilize a civil rights agenda for all. Maximize the political stance and presence of women in this moment given the fact that it is a disproportionate number of women who are in the streets -- defending themselves and others.

I see women's bodies as the most inclusive site for mobilizing an inclusive radical democratic politics. Given women's more particular exclusion, they become the inclusive new starting point. This notion of inclusivity -- from the specificity of women's rights to the inclusion of everyone's civil rights -- could guide the next feminist discussions from Iran to the globe.

Do you think we need to revisit our received definitions of feminism or women's rights activism in view of what have seen in the streets of Iran? And if so, in what particular ways? How can we make sure that the Iranian case is not yet again turned into an ethnographic curiosity by academic anthropologists, but in fact the other way around, make sure to put these anthropologists on the pedestal and question their credibility? My concern here is obvious, that very soon we will have yet another plethora of university press publications by anthropologists turning our grassroots struggles into the exoticized objects of their ethnographic curiosities.

Feminism always needs redefinition, as does the newest understandings of power and its formations. This all goes hand in hand. As power shifts, across the globe, so do the feminisms that address these changing forms of power and privilege.

Feminism, like most political language always needs re-invention. The term says too much and too little and means different things to different people. New histories may create new formulations. I continue to identify as an anti-racist feminist, because "feminism" remains a decisive recognition of women's political struggle. I have found no replacement for it as of yet.

In some ways I have addressed the query about "ethnographic curiosities" already. The academy most often merely houses the dominant dialogues and narratives that are already hegemonic and power-filled. As such, these problematic ethnographies are a part of the larger political picture and will only shift when power itself shifts. But power, especially patriarchal power is shifting. The global spectacle of the demonstrations in Iran bespeaks the messiness and complexity of politics everywhere. After all, Iran looks more democratic than the U. S. in at least one sense in these past weeks. When the people of Iran thought their election was fraudulent, they took to the streets. When the U.S. Supreme Court fraudulently ruled that Bush was our next president despite losing the popular vote, the public quietly obeyed. And, then the rest of the world, along with the U.S. paid a terrible price for the Bush-Cheney decade of fascistic democracy.

Do you think the enduring bifurcation between secular and religious feminism still holds, after what we have seen in Iran today?

Yes, and no. The secular-religious divide holds in the mind of huge numbers of women across the globe; and it also does not. Large numbers of Islamic and/or Muslim women are deeply religious and they also believe in women's rights and sexual freedoms, and legal equality. There are secular women who are not feminists of any sort. The real culprit here is misogyny and patriarchal privilege. The issue is where you stand on the issue of women's dignity and their human possibility and disallowing a singular viewing of this, whether religious or not. And, although much good has happened in the struggle for secular rule, the history of secularism is not untroubled. Bush's secular state murdered thousands of innocent Iraqis while he believed "God" blessed America. Let me also make it clear, that I was brought up as an atheist, and remain an atheist, and yet many of the women I learn the most about feminisms from are "believing" women.

As you know, [Iran and Middle East scholar] Hamid Dabashi insists on calling this a civil rights movement and not a precursor to another revolution. He is in fact quite particular in comparing it to the American Civil rights Movement, and has called Neda Agha-Soltan the granddaughter of Rosa Parks. If he is correct in this assessment, and given your own deep-rooted involvement with the American Civil Rights Movement, how do you think the particular concern of women's rights ought to be formulated in the context of the Iranian civil rights movement?

I think it is a fabulous strategic and political move to clarify the Iranian protests as a civil rights struggle, rather than a revolution. There is much to be gained from making these connections, especially for audiences in the West. However, it is also important to focus on how this connected struggle also has distinct and particular parts to it. And the fact that so many demonstrators are female is important to recognize politically and to theorize politically.

As I already mentioned, I was a child during the civil rights movement in the U.S. and active as such given my parent's complete commitment and participation in it. But it was a struggle that was specifically anti-racist and was successful to the degree it was because it explicitly named and focused on the importance of race in declaring civil rights for Blacks in this country. The specificity of women's rights must also be explicitly named as key to civil rights in Iran. In short: women's rights must be politicized as core civil rights and made explicit as such or civil rights can remain simply for men. Rosa Parks identified herself as Black; Iranian women will hopefully be able to multiply their identities in their polyversal meanings: female, Islamic, Muslim, Iranian, working class, middle class... and on and on. At this historical moment, hopefully Iranian women are positioned to show the rest of the world how to build a radically democratic society that is uniquely and plurally anti-patriarchal.

You are a deeply admired feminist by women across many cultural divides -- what is your message for your Iranian sisters?

Know that girls and women across the globe are by your side. I am waiting for your messages to me and the women and girls outside Iran who are inspired by your very particular and yet human struggle. I hope that you can utilize the feminist struggles that have come before -- and move through and beyond them to new meanings and possibilities of what it can mean to be a fully creative and peace-filled female on this globe.

I am hoping to be able to travel to Iran and meet you. Meanwhile, I think about your struggle daily, and wear a green arm-band in support of you, and hope you find a way to create a democratic Islam for us all.

Thank you so much for your warm embrace, and this opportunity, Golbarg.

Golbarg Bashi teaches Iranian Studies at Rutgers University. She has recently completed her doctoral thesis on a feminist critique of the human rights discourse in Iran. She has contributed articles on women and human rights issues in Iran to online magazines such as OpenDemocracy, Tidningen Kultur, and Qantara, Deutsche Welle.

Egypt: systematic use of torture (report)

2010-03-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

A new report documents the "systematic use" of torture and other human rights violations in Egypt's counter-terrorism efforts. Those suspected of terrorism, which has a wide definition, can expect torture, illegal detention and unfair trials, the report released today found.

Egyptian and international human rights groups stand behind the report, entitled "Counter-terrorism against the background of an endless state of emergency". It is based on a fact-finding mission conducted in May 2009 and includes several interviews with torture victims.

The mission concluded that "the current legal regime and practices still involve arbitrary arrests, systematic use of torture against people suspected of terrorism and other detainees, detention in unofficial facilities, particularly State Security Intelligence offices, violations of fair trial guarantees, admission of confessions obtained under duress, and violations of the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association."

Furthermore, many former "terrorism suspects" had testified to the effect of being arrested and held incommunicado in State Security Intelligence secret and underground interrogation centres, the report notes.

Torture was shown to be "systematically practiced by the security forces in Egypt, in particular by State Security Intelligence (SSI)." SSI forces continue to enjoy special privileges and exclusive powers.

"The use of torture has been a major element in the Egyptian government's counter-terrorism strategy for over two decades, as witnessed by the various interlocutors met by the mission," the report concluded.

The Egyptian El Nadim Centre for Rehabilitation for Victims of violence and torture, interviewed in the report, said government was trying to downplay the systematic use of torture in the country. "While the government does not deny the occurrence of torture cases and occasionally permits the trial of some of its officers, it disagrees with civil society organisations on the scope and extent of the practice of that crime, and denies the fact that it is amounting to a systematic state policy, to the extent that Egypt can be described as a police state."

The report also criticises the fact that Egypt has been ruled under emergency laws since the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat. "The emergency law is used to justify many crimes and acts of violence by the government which gravely contradict the constitution and violate human rights," report says, also leaning on similar observations by the UN.

The report was compiled by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its local member and partner organisations, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and the Nadim Centre. It was presented today in connection with the UN Human Rights Council's review of the rights situation in Egypt.

Based on its findings, FIDH urged Egyptian authorities "to repeal the Emergency Law and make sure that the new anti-terrorism law in preparation meets the requirements of international human rights law, and in particular takes into account the requirements relating to the definition of the crime of terrorism and the necessary respect for fair trial guarantees and the absolute prohibition of torture."

Egyptian authorities were further asked to "end all forms of secret or incommunicado detention and to enforced disappearances. Furthermore, all people arbitrarily detained should be freed or immediately charged with a cognisable offense."

Sanctions against Iran will only bolster its regime

2010-03-09T07:53:00.000-08:00

By Abolhassan Bani-Sadr - On her recent visit to the Persian Gulf, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated an obvious fact that is finally becoming clear to outsiders: Iran is moving toward military dictatorship.

However, her proposed solution of imposing hard sanctions aimed at weakening Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and their Revolutionary Guard allies will have the opposite effect: It will strengthen them. In the name of promoting democracy, the US government will in fact be throwing a life jacket to the sinking Iranian regime.

Sanctions will be counterproductive because the threat of international crisis is the Iranian regime’s only remaining resource for legitimizing its despotic power.

The previous bulwarks of support for power in Tehran – large land ownership and the urban bazaar, the monarchy, and the clergy – have already been dismantled through a succession of revolutionary movements over the years. The shah was forced to abolish large land ownership in the 1960s. The 1979 revolution removed the monarchy. The dictatorship that followed the 1981 coup that ousted my government was supported only by the clergy.

Because the legitimacy of the clergy-inspired coup was very fragile, the radical clerics behind it were only able to bolster their claim to power by plunging the country into a constant state of crisis through confrontation. This strategy began with the student occupation of the American Embassy in Tehran just before I was elected president and persisted in that course by continuing the war with Iraq after President Saddam Hussein accepted Iran’s terms for ending it nine months after he invaded in 1980.

Since President Ahmadinejad took power, however, most of the clergy have either deserted the regime or are being forced out. The situation is thus more fragile still. It is in this context that the creation of international enemies is the last bastion of the regimeâ€™s ability to hold onto power.

While George W. Bush’s confrontational Iran policy was a gift to the regime, helping Ahmadinejad to consolidate his power by standing up to the US, President Obama’s nonconfrontational policy withdrew this “gift” and created the political space for Iranians to oppose the regime.

If Mr. Obama now reverses the US nonconfrontational policy and returns to the Bush-era approach, it will only make it more difficult for Iranians to continue their protracted and herculean task of replacing the ruling military-financial mafia with a home-grown democracy.

Obama would thus be well advised to avoid confrontational policies like economic sanctions or threatening military attack. I

nstead, the US should allow the Iranians to see their own struggle through. They are entirely capable.

If governments sincerely support the democratic movement in Iran, they should adopt a position of active neutrality. Such a policy not only implies avoiding confrontation; it also means taking an “active” stance on human rights issues, publishing information listing the names and financial holdings key members of the regime have in Western and non-Western banks, stopping the sale of technology that can be used for censorship and oppression and, finally, supporting efforts to try the leaders of Iran for crimes against humanity because of their increasingly harsh repression as they become more isolated.

Adopting these policies will offer the greatest assistance to Iranians in their struggle to establish a democratic state. Confrontation with the US-led West is the fondest hope of the Revolutionary Guard, Mr. Khamenei, and Ahmadinejad. Without it, the military dictatorship can’t survive the opposition of the Iranian people themselves.

Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He now lives in exile

Women's rights improving in Middle East (maybe)

2010-03-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

Women's rights have improved in 15 of 18 countries in the Middle East and North Africa over the past five years, although violence against women remains widespread throughout the region, a US study has found.

Democracy watchdog group Freedom House pointed to "modest" economic, educational and political progress for women, despite a continued pushback from religious and cultural elites, in a region where women suffer more inequality than anywhere else.

Women in Tunisia, which along with Jordan provides legal protections against domestic violence, topped the list with the most rights, followed by their counterparts in Morocco, Algeria and Lebanon, the group said in a study released Wednesday.

Yemen and Saudi Arabia lagged significantly behind.

The plight of women worsened only in Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, amid internal conflict and a rise in extremism.

In Kuwait, women earned the same political rights as men, and four women were elected to parliament in May for the first time in the country's history.

A 2005 reform in Algeria improved women's autonomy in the family and lifted a family code that had recognized women as guardians of kin and tradition rather than rather than autonomous individuals.

A new specialized tribunal for cases involving honor crimes was established in 2009 in Jordan, only the second country to do so in the region after Tunisia.

Yet on average, only 28 percent of women work or are "economically active," the lowest rate in the world.

"There are more women entrepreneurs, more women doctors, more women Ph.Ds, and more women in universities, than ever before," said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House, which supports and monitors democracy and human rights.

"However, substantial roadblocks remain for women pursuing careers."

She noted that in Saudi Arabia, women can earn law degrees but are barred from appearing in court on behalf of their clients.

And in Iraq, the slaying, rape and kidnapping of women "significantly escalated" last year, although a quarter of parliamentary seats are held by female politicians.

So-called "honor crimes" involving the killing of women are usually committed by a male relative for acts perceived to have tainted a family's honor.

Iran: Enough of Fratricide (by Shirin Ebadi)

2010-03-06T04:46:00.000-08:00

By Shirin Ebadi - No doubt Iran is going through hard and decisive times because of which any comment, statement, decision or measure by anyone inside or outside the government, is important and must be made with a responsibility.

The events that we witnessed on Ashoura day (when Shiites commemorate the death of their leading Imam) in Iran are more shocking and appalling than merely writing about them. The blood of the youth of this nation once again poured on the streets and roads of this land turning them red. One of them continued to call for freedom as the wheels of a truck rolled over him, while another one dreamed of the same as he was pushed over a bridge, while a third was shot in cold blood.

My Sister and Brother Countrymen

We all know that the protest of the Iranian nation until today has been a peaceful one, civil and legal. What has enlarged the scope of the popular protests and turned people even more resolute in their calls, are the unilateral, unjust and unfair measures of those in power. The question is whether one has to resort to arms and bullets to respond to a peaceful, patient and completely civil protest, and then threaten the protesters using official forums. And whether such measures have borne any fruit in the past to deserve the drum beats of some of the authorities.

The continuation of this policy has come to the point where things should not have reached. This is nothing other than Iranian fratricide. And if this is not the result of the violence and anti-people views of some of the people in power, then it is certainly the result of a small group of ignorant, unqualified, incompetent and irrational authorities.

My Dear Fellow Countrymen

Each one of us has a heavy responsibility on our shoulders. I invite each one of us, regardless of the station in his life - to pledge to act against violence and for peace. We are a peaceful nation and have till now pursued our complaints, criticism, opposition and grudges through civil means totally negating any form of violence, thus avoiding a fall into the trap of those who advocate violence.

We must believe that our demands are rightful and that the Iranian nation does not need violence to achieve its rightful goals and that the only people who resort to violence are those who know that they are wrong and their demands un-rightful.

My Young but Wise Compatriots

To accomplish this we must resist temptations. Resist reacting to tanks, bullets and shells. We must not pick up rocks. The path to justice, freedom, democracy and human rights requires flowers not blood.

It is because of this that the Center for the Defenders of Human Rights (Kanoon Modafean Hoghoogh Bashar) declares the following in response to the civil and rightful demands of the Iranian nation:

We the defenders of human rights are against any form of violence in Iranian society and demand a national and all-out opposition against violence and demand its complete elimination.

To the Representative and Authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran
The role that official authorities play in
There is no doubt about the role and position that official authorities play in the shaping of the Iran of tomorrow. What is expected of you as the rulers is the implementation of the basic rights of the Iranian nation and respect for justice. Today, not only the Iranian nation but many around the world are focused on what you do and say to make a judgment.

The correction of wrong policies of the past and present and the acceptance of the calls of the Iranian nation are among the legal responsibilities that you have, the first of which is the end to violence against the nation. Should the policies of violence against the Iranian nation continue you will be facing your own countrymen and the world public opinion.

Finally, to the Guards and Basijis

Under these circumstances it is difficult to talk with you. What we have been witnessing over the past weeks is the reason for this difficulty. The Iranian nation well remembers what many of the Guard and Basij brethren did for the defense of this nation against the aggression and invasion of this land by its enemies. But now we are incredibly witnessing that a small group of these people’s forces has turned is fire and bullets at the nation and its own countrymen and that by firing each bullet, it turns a group of its own countrymen into mourning.

As defenders of human rights, we call on our popular Guard and Basiji brethren not to destroy your own innocent and defenseless brothers and sisters, whom you have sworn to defend, and thus avoid your mothers from putting on the mourning gowns or making them sit at yet another grave.

Iran: no accountability, only threats

2010-03-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

By Fereshteh Ghazi - More than 72 individuals lost their lives in post-election protests in Iran but, nine months after the electoral coup, none of the murderers have been identified and the Islamic Republic officials do not regard themselves to be accountable for the deaths. Rooz has spoken with the families of the killed protesters about their complaints, the responsiveness of officials, and threats and pressures facing them. The families, whose numbers are increasing as the popular protests continue, are under enormous pressure not to investigate the deaths of their loved ones.

Since the beginning, the families of killed protesters have been under enormous pressure not to disseminate information about their loved ones, and were prevented even from holding memorial gatherings. Under the pressure of the country’s security and intelligence apparatus, many of the families were afraid even to release the identity of the dead protesters. As a result, after nine months, the identity of some martyrs remains unknown.

On the other hand, none of the families were provided with an explanation about the loss of their loved one. Many of the death certificates show the cause of death to be inconclusive. In some cases, the death certificate cites brain stroke or heart attack as the cause of death. The corpses of all of the martyrs were examined and the bullets removed from their bodies before being handed over to the families.

The families of many of the martyrs were forced to sign documents outlining the procedures for the burial of their loves ones, as well to forego “complaints against officials.” In some cases, the families were forced to write a letter identifying Mir-Hossein Mousavi as responsible for their children’s death.

Despite the pressure, the families of the green martyrs filed complaints against the judiciary after the burial of their loves ones, seeking answers and demanding punishment of the murderers. The pressure, however, continues in various forms. Threatening telephone calls, summons and threats of killing other family members are among the intimidation tactics used in recent months. The complains, however, are ignored, with some families having been officially told that their complaints will never be processed.

Hajar Rostami-Motlagh, Neda Agha-Soltan’s mother, tells Rooz about the judiciary’s failure to identify her daughter’s murdered.

She tells Rooz, “We don’t expect to reach a result because 8-9 months have passed. If our complaints were going to be processed they would have been processed by now.”

Neda Agha-Soltan’s mother points to contradictory statements made by officials about her daughter’s murder: “The officials have said many things about Neda so far, and say something new every day. Their contradictory statements shows reveals what in reality took place.”

Mrs. Rostami-Motlagh declares, “I want my daughter’s murderer to be identified. They must identify and put that person on trial.”

Islamic Republic officials have so far blamed Neda’s murder on anti-revolutionary and foreign agents, and called it a staged murder at a different time. These claims have not been accepted by the domestic and international public opinion.

Discovered arms smuggling between Italy and Iran: Tehran thinks of revenge against Italy

2010-03-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we gave the news of the arrest of seven people, including five Italians and two Iranians suspected of belonging to the Iranian secret services, involved in trafficking arms to Iran. Yesterday evening have been released the names of those arrested and there have been surprises.

Those arrested are Alessandro Bon, 43 years, owner of Antares in Varese, his partner, Danila Maffei, 40, Arnaldo La Scala, 45, a associate with Bon, Raffaele Rossi Patriarca, lawyer of Turin, which according to the survey had traveled to Iran to contact army officers, for the purchase of armaments. Finally Guglielmo Savi, 56, owner of a telecommunications company, the Sirio srl. But the biggest surprise was discovering that the two Iranians arrested in Italy is the equivalent of IRIB, the Iranian state radio and television that has a site in Italian and that always stands out for its ultra-extremist and anti-Semitic positions . The journalist in question is called Masoumi Hamid Nejad, Iran's familiar face in television and even credited in the press room of foreign in italian . The other Iranian arrested is Damirchiloo Ali, 55 years resident in Turin. Currently fugitives and sought other two Iranians suspected of being undercover agents of Tehran, Hamir Reza and Homayoun bakhtiyari.

The surveys, conducted by the deputy prosecutor in Milan, Armando Spataro, have revealed a dense network of business between the Italians and the Iranian regime, interweaving that still has not been fully revealed, especially as regards the system of triangulation which allowed the group to circumvent the control device of the embargo on weapons and military technology undergone by the regime in Tehran.

What we know for certain is that the "final jump" that is the terminus of the triangles are in Dubai in United Arab Emirates and concluded that the affairs concerning both military equipment to use the "very special" (pointers to sniper rifles, self jackets, parachutes etc.. etc..) and a material of high chemical explosive hazard. Besides this in the last hours were identified helicopters (nine) sold by the gang to the Iranians is currently locked in Mali. But the most disturbing, if confirmed, is attempting to come into possession of material for the construction of thermo-chemical dirty bombs. According to the wiretaps when the Iranians have requested that type of material to the Italians, have heard that "it was too dangerous," but not something that made him desist from their research. Note how, helicopters aside, the rest is all material suitable for terrorist use or targeted actions.

According to our sources in Iran since yesterday evening, the Iranian regime, literally mad for Italian opera, would have ordered the secret services and the Revolutionary Guard to study a form of retaliation against Italy. It is feared that the regime tried to blame some Italian citizen, resident or transfer to Iran of spying and thereby make an arrest with maximum fanfare. We therefore feel it would be very helpful for the foreign ministry to issue a "Notice of attention" for Italian citizens who work or for other reasons, are resident or passing through Iran.

The tension between Italy and Iran has been increasing in recent weeks after the Italian government had taken a firm position on both the right and the Iranian nuclear program that Tehran's threat to Israel, a position it had taken so far as to attack the Italian embassy in Tehran . Now this legitimate operation of the Italian judiciary is likely to precipitate things and feared other acts anti-Italian. Of course, we hope to be wrong and that nothing happens, but knowing the Iranian regime believe that the level of attention should be kept very high.

2011-2020 declared decade of road safety

2010-03-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the period from 2011 to 2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety to spur national and global efforts to halt or reverse the increasing trend in road traffic deaths and injuries around the world.

In the resolution adopted today, the 192-member body also requested the World Health Organization (WHO), in cooperation with other partners, to prepare a plan of action to guide efforts during the Decade, which was called for during the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, held in Moscow last year.

“This Decade is long overdue,” Dr Etienne Krug, Director of WHO’s Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability, told reporters in New York ahead of the Assembly’s action.

Some 1.3 million people die every year around the world from road traffic crashes, but half of those people are pedestrians, bicyclists, people on motorcycles, or what Dr Krug called “vulnerable road users – people who very often are not even able to afford a car but are the victims of car crashes.”

In addition to the death toll, between 20 and 50 million people sustain non-fatal injuries every year from road traffic accidents, and road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among young people aged between 15 and 44.

According to the Global Status Report on Road Safety, released last June, road traffic injuries remain an important public health problem, particularly for low-income and middle-income countries.

The first broad assessment of the road safety situation in 178 countries also showed that significantly more action is needed to make the world’s roads safer.

Dr Krug noted that the report also found that only 15 percent of countries have the right legislation in place to address some of the key risk factors, which include drunk driving, excessive speed and the non-use of seatbelts and motorcycle helmets.

He was confident that the Decade “is not just going to be words on paper,” but will be a catalyst to bring together the energy of national and international actors to increase action in road safety management, as well as improving road infrastructure, vehicle safety, the behaviour of road users, and trauma care.

Iran: Mousavi declares spreading awareness main strategy

2010-02-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

MirHosein Mousavi announced that the main strategy of the Green Movement is an expansion of social networks and dissemination of information, and he invited supporters to inform the disadvantaged strata of the society in the framework of “every citizen, a media.”

In an interview with Kalameh website, the opposition leader called on the government to issue a permit to the supporters of the Green Movement and also reinstate the dailies of “Kalameh Sabz” and “Etemed-e Melli” which were banned in the post-election events.

MirHosein Mousavi maintained that the persistence of “deviation” in the national broadcasting, Seda va Sima as well as the ban of newspapers and arrest of journalists can only be overcome by the strategy of “each citizen, a media.”

He condemned policies such as blocking media channels and hacking or filtering internet sites and maintained that the presence of Green Movement TV and radio channels would only strengthen the system and national unity.

The opposition leader called on protesters not to forget their goals and fall into “ordinariness and passivity.”

The opposition leader emphasized that Green supporters should know that the stances of a few extremist and self-serving clerics” do not represent the opinions of the whole clergy and they should beware “not to fall in the trap that is trying to distance the clergy from the movement.”

He added that true clerics do not use “obscenities” in reference to people, they do not support killing and arresting people and they also “distinguish between the interests of Islam and the nation as opposed to the interests of one faction.”

The former head of the Academy of Fine Arts emphasized that “the presence of the clergy in the Green Movement is vital.”

MirHosein Mousavi also made a reference to the February 11 events saying the demonstrations of this day were “engineered” and as such no cause for "reassurance" for the government.

On February 11, protesters against the alleged fraud in the June presidential elections were planning to take to the streets again as they have done on several occasions in the past ten months, to reaffirm their protests against election fraud and demands for justice. Government forces confronted protesters with severity and impeded them from gathering. Meanwhile they reportedly bussed in government supporters from all over the country to make a show of force.

The disputing candidate of the elections maintained that “such engineered gatherings are no cause for pride and are similar to the despotic mindset and policies prior to the Revolution,” referring to the system of monarchy which the Islamic Republic supplanted.

He claimed: “The government took on heavy costs using numerous buses and trains from all across the country in various official forms to defuse the presence of the Green Movement on this day.” In addition he added that the widespread presence of security and military forces on this day and their “brutal and violent” behaviour was unprecedented.

He especially condemned the attacks on Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami, the two opposition leaders who were attacked by machete and club-yielding mobs and expressed surprise that the government intends to resolve the situation through scaring people.

He surmised that the government fears the number and social extent of Green supporters which explains why they fiercely oppose their gathering.

The opposition leader once more emphasized that free elections, freedom of prisoners and the media as well as an end to the current security-laden atmosphere are the only moves that can save the regime from losing its legitimacy. He claimed any move that is made toward realizing people’s rights, far from showing “weakness”, will in fact signify the power of the Islamic Republic.

He claimed: “Our people can differentiate very well between merciful piety and power-mongering in the guise of religion.”

The disputing candidate of the elections declared: “Our people do not want surveillance of their letters, messages and telephone conversations…They do not want most of their national and economic projects to end up in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards and semi-government organizations under the guise of privatization…They do not want our teachers and workers to be beaten and attacked for demanding their rights. They do not want our women to be insulted when they call for an end to discrimination.”

In conclusion, in reference to rumours that protesters are planning to stage further demonstrations on Chaharshanbeh Souri festival, the last Tuesday night of the Iranian year which ends on March 21, MirHosein Mousavi announced that this festival of “light against darkness” is part of the people’s heritage and although Green supporters are fond of national and religious symbols and events, they do not wish to turn these events into occasions for harassment of people.

Rwandan genocide: Ephrem Setako sentenced to twenty years

2010-02-27T03:41:00.000-08:00

The United Nations war crimes tribunal set up in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide has sentenced a former top officer in the country’s armed forces to 25 years of imprisonment after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Lieutenant Colonel Ephrem Setako, who was also head of the Division of Legal Affairs in the Ministry of Defence in 1994, is believed to be one of the key architects of the mass killings during which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed – often by machete or club – during a 100-day period.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Arusha, Tanzania, found that Lt-Col Setako ordered the killings on 25 April 1994 of 30 to 40 Tutsis at Mukamira military camp in Ruhengeri prefecture and around 10 other Tutsis there on 11 May.

He was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity (extermination) and serious violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II (murder), but acquitted of complicity to commit genocide, murder as a crime against humanity and pillage as a war crime.

Some 55 witnesses took part in the trial of Lt-Col Setako, who was arrested in the Netherlands in 2004.

Iran: Student Movement Under Greater Attack. Pressure Mounts to Dissolve Daftar Tahkim Vahdat

2010-02-23T07:38:00.000-08:00

Pressures continue on Iran’s largest student organization, Daftar Tahkim Vahdat (Office to Strengthen Unity). Earlier in the week, news came that Amin Nazari, a member of the central council of the student group and the head of its human rights division was arrested, despite his poor health. Till today, no details about his situation have been put forth by authorities.

In a related development, published reports indicate that Morteza Simiari, another member of the group’s governing body continues to be held in solitary confinement in ward 240 of Evin prison in Tehran. Simiari is the social secretary of the student group who continues to be isolated in prison even though the court has already held his trial session and his last defense was submitted as well.

Simiari was arrested after an EU parliamentary team that was visiting Iran invited this student activist to meet it. He was arrested before such a meeting but is facing charges for a meeting that never materialized. The arrest resulted in a protest by EU parliamentary team, which decided to cancel the trip to Iran scheduled to begin on Thursday. In a formal letter to Iranian officials the leader of the EU delegation Barbara Lochbihler, which had officially requested to meet with some opposition figures, asked for the release of Simiari because he was being detained for a meeting that never took place as he had not even responded to an email request for a meeting with the delegation. In her letter to the Iranian ambassador in Brussels, Lochbihler asked for Simiari’s immediate and unconditional release from prison. In his trial, Simiari told the judge that in his response to the EU invitation he had told the delegation leader that he would meet with them if arrangements were made with the Iranian foreign ministry for its representative to be present at the meeting.

Simiari is being held in ward 240 of Evin which is under the control of the IRGC revolutionary guards and informed sources have said that members of Daftar Tahkim Vahdat in the prison are under growing pressure to dissolve the student group.

In a related news story, Mehdi Arabshahi, student activist and secretary of the student group was transferred to the general ward in Evin. Arabshahi was arrested about 2 months ago and according to Kalameh website belonging to reformers his interrogations seem to have been completed after which he was moved to the general prison ward, which means he should soon be allowed to have contacts with the outside world.

It should be noted that till today, there is no news about two other members of the group, Milad Asadi and Bahareh Hedayat who were also arrested earlier.

Student Arrest from Elm va Sanaat University

Yaser Khosravizadeh, a fourth-year student in electrical engineering and a student activist from the Elm va Sanaat Science and Technology University was arrested on February 9th after going to the “Follow Up” committee of the ministry of intelligence. No news has been put forth about him till today.

During the week ending on February 11, 2010, many cultural, trade and publishing activists from this university had been summoned to this committee, some repeatedly, where they were interrogated regarding emails and text messaging. Among them, Ruhollah Sahrai, Alireza Abufazeli and Yaser Khosravizadeh were arrested and imprisoned in Evin prison while the charges against them have not been made public.

More Pressure on Student Activists in Gilan University

News reports indicate that during the last two weeks, there is growing pressure on students from Gilan University in northern Iran. One student from the university told Rooz in a short interview, “Many students have been summoned to the disciplinary committee during this period. At the time registration for the new academic term, students were forced to make pledges that they would not participate in gatherings and demonstrations of Iran’s Green Movement, which if broken would result in their expulsion from the university.”

This student went on to explain the situation by saying, “In addition to these problems, we have observed that during this period even students who are involved in social activities are put under pressure and many are regularly called to appear before the school’s disciplinary committee. At the same time, the trial of many arrested students who took part at various rallies has begun. According to those who were present at the trials, the judge in the trials has been mistreating the detainees who have been threatened with heavy prison sentences.”

Beating of a Student at Alamaeh University

An MS student at Alameh Tabatabai University was arrested on February 11, 2010 in Tehran’s Sadeghie district. According to Human Rights Reporters Committee, seyed Mansur Mousavi, was arrested on that day. Witnesses said they saw him being beaten up on the street and his personal belongings taken away from him as he was pushed into a bus at Sadeghie square in Tehran, as he was arrested. Mousavi’s family members said they did not where Mansur was being detained. Mousavi is a former student activist who according to friends and family members was not associated with any group at the time of his arrest.

Freedom and Absence Knowledge

Latest news reports indicate the prison release of Maziyar Samii, a student arrested on February 3, 2010 while no news has been provided about the situation of Tara Sepehrifar, the secretary of the Islamic Association of Sharif Industrial University, causing stress and concern to her family members.

This chemical engineering student had been arrested earlier this summer as well around Ghoba mosque in Tehran. Till today, no news about the whereabouts or charges of the arrest has been made public. An informed source close to the family had earlier told Rooz , “We have absolutely no news about the reason for the arrest, the charges or the place where Sepehri was being held. We are pursuing the matter to see what information we can get about his situation.” Till the time of this posting, no news about this student has come forth.

In a related news report, the trial of Peyman Aref, an MS political science student at Tehran University who had been marked by authorities to be a student activist was postponed to February 22, 2010. Peyman Aref was servicing his military conscription term when he was arrested on June 17, 2009, soon after the presidential elections on charges of web blogging and giving interviews to Persian media outside Iran by Gilan’s military prosecutor on behalf of Tehran’s military prosecutor and was transferred to Evin’s general ward to complete his previous prison term of 18 months after spending some 70 days in solitary confinement. It is reported that he was brutally tortured during his interrogation and beaten up to the point where he lost a tooth and his chin has been seriously injured.

In another arrest event, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai, defense attorney for student Sajad Sadeh reported that the trial of his client which was to be held last Tuesday at the 28th branch of the revolutionary court had been postponed on the request of the prisoner. Tabatabai said the charges brought against his client were engaging in acts against national security and participation in demonstrations inside the university.

Proposal: Nobel Prize for Peace to the iranian green movement

2010-02-22T04:41:00.000-08:00

In recent years, the Nobel Prize for Peace has become something very abstract when not political. If we think that in 1994 was awarded to Yasser Arafat in 2001 at the United Nations in 2007 to Al Gore in 2009 and even to Barack Obama with a few notable and deserved interlude (we think that sacrosanct given to Shirin Ebadi in 2003 or that of Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991) then we wonder what really serves the award of the Nobel Peace Prize and has the same values that he had time of its formation.

This year even want to attribute it to the Internet. Of course the Net is certainly a vehicle of peace, but also a vehicle of war (the internet was born for war), repressive (think of the boys detained Iranians thanks to the network) and a vehicle to commit more sinister crimes such as pedophilia etc.. ETC. One can certainly endorse the proposal but would be discussed well.

Instead, what, in our opinion, lend the side discussions and / or interpretations and the proposal to confer the Nobel Prize for Peace in the green movement in Iran. This is for several reasons which are all true motivations of peace:

-For many months, Iranian dissidents protesting peacefully for rights and democracy despite the harsh repression which are subject

-They never implemented even violent actions as "legitimate defense" despite the violent reaction of the Iranian regime
-They fight for Rights and Iran for a free, democratic and fully integrated into the international community
-Not carry out a political struggle but a line based on rights and democracy
-Many of peaceful dissidents are currently imprisoned in Iran and many risk their lives. Some of them were hanged in recent weeks. Despite this the green movement continues its peaceful struggle for the rights.

The conferment of the Nobel Prize for Peace in the green movement is really an Iranian supreme message of peace to the whole world and all those people who right now are oppressed by vicious dictators and who are fighting peacefully for democracy and freedom. Who wants to support this proposal may join the group on Facebook or send any account or idea that can help us bring this initiative at the Alfred Bernhard Nobel Academy in Stockholm. We may not succeed, but try not harmful.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/9548174[/vimeo]

South Sudan: World Bank vows to speed spending

2010-02-19T06:42:00.000-08:00

The World Bank acknowledged on Thursday it needs to speed up funding for rebuilding war-torn South Sudan but said it also had to ensure the aid was not wasted through corruption or mismanagement.

Western donors criticized the institution on Thursday for being too slow to disburse the funds from the World Bank Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF), one of the main ways for donors to funnel cash into the region.

Obiageli Ezekwesili, vice-president for the World Bank’s Africa Department, said the institution was working with donors and the government to speed up implementation of rebuilding programs. It had a high-level mission on the ground looking at the issue, she said.

“We need to move much faster, while still ensuring the proper use of funds, and we continue to look for ways to speed up the program’s effectiveness, including channeling money through faster mechanisms,” she said.

She admitted shortcomings in the trust fund, saying it had “not met our standards achieved by other trust funds we administer in similar countries.”

“It is important to remember that this is donor money that has been entrusted to the World Bank, and we are expected to ensure the highest fiduciary standards to see that resources go to the poor and not the powerful,” she added.

Donors said the funds had been tied up by red tape and only $188.1 million of the $524.1 million of funds given to the trust fund had been disbursed since Sudan ended more than two decades of north-south civil war in 2005.

Much of the south is still in ruins and the U.N. said this month that almost half the population in South Sudan faced food shortages because of conflict and drought.
Anti-corruption efforts

World Bank figures show that of the $594 million committed by donors to the trust fund, some $213 million had been disbursed. The Bank has targeted another $100 million for projects in the current fiscal year which ends in July.

In addition, 12 projects worth $326 million have been approved over the next several years.

The Bank has long been pressured by donors, especially the United States, to ensure that money for development is well spent and not lost through corruption. In recent years it has stepped up its anti-corruption efforts and barred companies that have abused its funding.

Ezekwesili said that despite the criticism there had also been progress in South Sudan, including the rehabilitation of the main hospital in the southern capital Juba and half of the city’s water supply. Financing has also providing basic materials for health care and education, and supported agricultural projects and ensured government ministries are set up with offices.

“Nevertheless, we need to move faster,” Ezekwesili added.

She said the Bank had nearly doubled the number of staff on the ground over the past two years, with many living in tents, and assigned two international procurement specialists to its team and added experts in the finance ministry to handle funds.

It also simplified requirements for small business contractors and increased the threshold for the number of contracts that can be locally approved.

“The development issue in Sudan is urgent and in addressing that urgency we must ensure that limited resources that are available are effectively and efficiently used,” she said.

“That has meant we would have to comply with at least the possible minimum level that ensures us effectiveness of use of resources in such a challenging and complex environment,” Ezekwesili added.

Letter to Iran's leader: son of opposition figure harshly beaten inside mosque

2010-02-14T09:53:00.000-08:00

The wife of one of Iran's opposition leaders accused the nation's supreme leader Sunday of allowing violence and abuses to crush opponents, including the alleged beating of her son during last week's protests.

Fatameh Karroubi claimed her son Ali was savagely attacked inside a mosque by hard-line militiamen amid a massive security crackdown during events Thursday marking the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

[caption id="attachment_458" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Ali Karoubi"][/caption]

"They beat him up and insulted him along with other people arrested. This occurred in a house of God," she wrote in an open letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appearing on prominent pro-reform Web sites Rahesabz and Sahamnews.

The Web sites also posted photos purportedly showing bruises across Ali Karroubi's back.

She said the country's rulers have resorted to "violence and cruelty" in attempts to wipe out dissent.

The letter reflects the anger and dismay of many opposition groups after authorities unleashed a massive security crackdown to prevent disruptions of state-backed celebrations of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. There are now questions whether the opposition can rebound with more large-scale street demonstrations.

Ali Karroubi was hauled away during an attack on the motorcade of his father Mahdi Karroubi, who was an opponent of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in last June's disputed elections. The elder Karroubi was not injured, but he abandoned plans to attend an opposition gathering.

Ali's mother claimed that her son was taken from the mosque to a security base, where he received further beatings before he was released. She wrote that one agent told Ali that "his family would receive his corpse" if he was allowed to continue the punishment for another day.

She begged Khamenei to reverse the country's direction "before more people die." Khamenei, however, has strongly backed Ahmadinejad and the nation's powerful Revolutionary Guard, which has led the assault on the opposition.

URGENT - Silent march in protest of the human and civil rights violations taking place in Iran

2010-02-13T03:11:00.000-08:00

"Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind." Ralph Waldon Emerson - “A great revolution in just one single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of humankind.” Daisaku Ikeda quotes

Iranian elections left millions with a struggle to make their vote count. The streets of Iran swelled with those who had tasted oppression one too many times, and had at once together dreamed of a better day, a better way of life. Their struggle came at a great cost, and many lost their lives, became incarcerated, were tortured, and beaten. But their struggle continues. On 11th of February, the Iranian regime celebrates the 31st anniversary of the revolution. Again the freedom loving people of Iran are planning to conquer the streets, to raise their voices, hoping it will reach the ears of those who can help. Help them reach that better day.

United4Iran London will hold a peaceful silent march in protest of the human and civil rights violations taking place in Iran, and to magnify the voices of those most needing and deserving to be heard.

The march will take place on February 13th at 13:00 and start from Piccadilly Circus. 50 people will walk from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square, where they will remain for up to half an hour, before proceeding to the North Terrace of the Trafalgar Square, where they will demonstrate until 16:00.

The purpose of the march is to raise awareness for the continuing human rights violations against the peaceful protesters and members of the civil society and the press. This event is particularly relevant as Iran plans to celebrate the 31st anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Republic, while protesters in Iran and around the world hope to draw attention to Iran's failing human rights record.

Please join us and on this Valentines weekend, why not give part of your heart to a people whose own government has forgotten.

United4Iran London, London is organizing this event
Time: 13:00 SHARP
Date: 13/Feb/2010
Address: Piccadilly Circus

IRAN: Internet access, text-messaging service down as 22 Bahman protests approach

2010-02-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

In the last week, Internet connections across Iran have slowed to a crawl, with sources in Tehran reporting that, when service is available at all, it is so slow that checking e-mail is nearly impossible.

After connections worsened, Iran's communications minister, Reza Taghipour, told a state broadcaster (via Agence France-Presse): "The cause of the reduced service in recent days is that part of the fiber-optic network is damaged." The minister asserted that the damage to an undersea cable was due to shipping traffic and anchoring. As for the concurrent slowing of text-messaging service, Taghipour attributed the disruption to "changing software."

Given the Tehran government's recent history of Internet censorship and the vital role of social media and texting to the opposition movement, the disruption seems less than coincidental as Thursday's 22 Bahman holiday is expected to be an occasion of massive anti-regime protests. Taghipour did little to dismiss such suspicions by stating that "the breakage will be repaired by next week and the Internet speed will be back to normal," conveniently right after the planned protests.

Iran: unveiled plans to assassinate Khatami

2010-02-09T07:30:00.000-08:00

With only three days remaining until the Iranian Green Movement’s 22 Bahman rally (this is the 11th of February coinciding with the victory of the 1979 revolution), a commander of the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) explained what he referred to as “details of the plan to assassinate Mohammad Khatami and the martyrdom conspiracy,” raising concerns in political circles about the possibility of the assassination of one of the Green Movement’s leaders in the coming days.

Fars news agency, which is closely affiliated with the IRGC, published the remarks of this IRGC commander, quoting him as having said that the terrorist plans were scheduled to be carried out by the “Monafeghin” last year and during Mohammad Khatami’s visit to Ahwaz in February of 2008. [The government and many Iranians refer to the MKO People’s Mojaheddin opposition group, as the Monafeghin, which literally means the ‘hypocrites.’]

According to the commander, the People’s Mojaheddin group planned to plant a bomb in the airplane carrying the former president to the Khuzistan provinces.

In another part of his speech, however, he referred to the bombers as “friends” of Mohamad Khatami.

“Mohammad Khatami’s assassination” plot was discussed in February last year by the hardline Kayhan daily in an editorial penned by the supreme leader’s representative at the daily. Writing the editorial while Mohammad Khatami was still a presidential contender, Hossein Shariatmadari made a comparison between Mohammad Khatami and Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, noting, “The goal of hardliners from participating in the election is to increase the costs to the regime, not benefiting the electoral process and accepting its results.”

He added, “When they reach a dead-end in one scenario, do they not follow another? The Americans tried in Pakistan first to bring to power Bhutto through propaganda and diplomatic efforts in order to plunder Pakistan with her help; but when they realized that her party could not win the majority [of votes] under any circumstances they resorted to another scenario. That is a lesson. Some of the reformists have a clear background (!) in this regard.”

A journalist tells Rooz about the connection between the IRGC commander’s recent remarks and the infamous Kayhan editorial: “It seems like this IRGC commander has detailed a scenario that is consistent with that of Kayhan daily, both in terms of timeline and tone, but not consistent with the pre-election developments.”

He added, “Placing the People’s Mojaheddin and the green movement next to one another is one of Kayhan daily’s major strategies, but according to the IRGC commander’s timeline, meaning February 2008, the two movements cannot be linked because at that time neither the Green Movement existed nor any source other than Kayhan had reported the possibility of Khatami’s assassination.”

It must be noted that during the July 8 protests at Hafte Tir square in Tehran, plain clothed agents affiliated with the Basij had attacked Mehdi Karoubi.

Open letter of Iranian Journalists to Foreign Colleagues

2010-02-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Fellow Journalists

A group of Iranian journalists have written a letter to foreign reporters who are invited to Iran by Iran’s government to provide media coverage to the celebrations of the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

The letter of Iranian journalists to their foreign colleagues is as follows:

Dear Fellow Journalists

We are writing to those of you who have been invited to go to Iran in February 2010 to provide media coverage to the celebrations of the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution. We are a group of Iranian journalists who have been forced to live in exile. There are many others like us around the world, 45 of whom will be in Iranian prisons when you arrive in Tehran. They will be under torturous conditions in Iranian prisons that are, as you know, among the most hideous in the world.

Dear Fellow Journalists

As imprisoned or exiled journalists our crime is nothing other than our desire to report freely on events in Iran, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides.

Since the electoral coup that took place in Iran last summer, the Iranian regime has intensified its suppression of press freedom this year and along with it is striving to remove the country’s peaceful movement through sophisticated suppressive means.

After failing for eight months to achieve its goals, the illegal and fraudulent government has now prepared a new show. We have received precise information that Ahmadinejad’s electoral coup-perpetrated administration is busy preparing to muster its own crowd in Tehran through the use of all possible means and the government’s extensive resources.

Its plan is, on one hand, to prevent the pro-Green Movement million strong group from approaching the location of the celebrations in Azadi circle in Tehran where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to give a speech, while on the other, fill this area with pro-government demonstrators.

Dear Fellow Journalists

Inviting foreign journalists to provide media coverage of the anniversary of the 1979 revolution on February 11, 2010 is another part of the deceitful plan of Ahmadinejad’s illegal administration. As you know, this government has till now arrested many foreign journalists and accused them of being spies while banning the activities of most international media. Now, it is using them, through its invitation, so they can show the world that it is a government that enjoys popular support.

The goal of the Iranian government is to direct journalists towards the pro-government demonstrations and prevent them from going to other locale.

Dear Fellow Journalists

You are going to Iran not only as media representatives of the free world, but also as representatives of your Iranian fellow journalists who are either in prison or in exile outside Iran. Your host is a government that is anti freedom, anti free media, and one that practices the most basic human rights of people.

You will be stepping onto streets that still bear the blood of Iran’s best and the brightest. You must have seen the film that shows how Neda Agha-Soltan was murdered. This young woman is a symbol and representative of those who have been arrested, raped, tortured and murdered by Iran’s coup administration. While Neda and others like her were killed on the streets, there are hundreds of others who have been raped, tortured and murdered in dungeons, prisons or unknown places by this government.

Dear Fellow Journalists

We are providing you the names of Iranian journalists who are now in prison, based on the list prepared by Reporters Without Border and request that you search for them and find them. Ask them and their prison wardens why are they in prison.

Dear Fellow Journalists

As you go to our country that is under a dictatorship not to be duped by the schemes of those who murder freedom.

We draw your attention to these points:

Demonstrations will begin on the night of February 11. The Allaho Akbar cries that will fill the night in Iranian towns will be the cries of people’s protests and the start of the march of million green Iranians who will fill the streets at the invitation of Mohammad Khatami, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi.

The main march will start from Enghelab street in east Tehran – go through Imam Hossein Circle – and end at Azadi Circle in west Tehran. The Passdaran Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has already made plans to close the streets leading to Enghelab street and to crackdown people as a measure to prevent them from taking to these streets. The Green Movement should be visible around this route and all over Tehran and not only on the paths that pro-government demonstrators will be provided.

Dear Fellow Journalists

Like on other similar occasions, the coup government will attempt to control all the paths so that the only people that will come in view of your cameras will be the Basijis, who will present a caricature of the Iranian nation for your television cameras.

You will hear the protesting voice of the Iranian people clearer than ever if you look beyond the fences, cordons, and barriers and look at the real people of Iran.

Dear Fellow Journalists

We are confident that you will push aside the bloody hands of the coup perpetrators and that you will shake the hands of the suffered people of Iran. You are going to a historic trip. We will see you off with our hearts filled with dreams of freedom and eyes filled with tears.

We look forward to seeing the leading media headline in February 2010 be: “The Victory of a Nation.”

Dear Fellow Journalists

Do not be fooled by the deceptions of your hosts, look at everything that is worth looking at, expose their shows, and listen to the true calls of the Iranian people. And on this historic trip relay and report the innocence of the Iranian people. This is the expectation that your suffering fellow journalists have of you.

For more information:

EMAIL:

Roozirani@yahoo.com

TELEPHONE:

France : Nooshabeh amiri : 0033-674307842

England: Alireza Nourizadeh: 0044- 7717400500

Canada: Nikahnag kowsar: 001-6478341348

U.S.A: Omid Memarian: 001-510 6379590

Netherland: Afshin Ellian: 0031- 613316819

Germany: Babak Sina: 0049-17622622512

Norway:Asieh Amini:004796845526

The names of Iranian journalists who are now in prison

5 janvier 2010 - Kivan Farzin - Farhangh é ahangh

5 janvier 2010 - Behrangh Tonkaboni - Farhangh é ahangh

2 janvier 2010 - Mohammad Sadegh Javadihessar - éditorialiste du quotidien suspendu Etemad-e Melli

2 janvier 2010 - Mahssa Hekmet - journaliste du quotidien suspendu Etemad-e Melli

2 janvier 2010 - Ali Hekmet - membre du Comité de défense de la liberté de la presse

2 janvier 2010 - Rozbeh Karimi - Shargh et Kargozaran

28 décembre 2009 - Emadoldin Baghi - journaliste et figure emblématique de la défense des droits de l’homme en Iran

28 décembre 2009 - Abdolreza Tajik - Journaliste au quotidien Farhikhteghan

28 décembre 2009 - Mostafa Izadi - Etemad-e Melli

28 décembre 2009 - Mortaza Kazemian - journaliste de plusieurs journaux réformateurs

28 décembre 2009 - Badrolssadat Mofidi, - secrétaire général de l’Association des journalistes iraniens,

28 décembre 2009 - Kivan Mehrgan, - journaliste du quotidien Etemaad

28 décembre 2009 - Nassrin Vaziri - journaliste de l’agence ILNA

28 décembre 2009 - Mashaallah Shamsolvaezin - porte-parole de l’Association des journalistes iraniens et du Comité de défense de la liberté de la presse

27 décembre 2009 - Reza Al-Bacha - télévision Dubaï TV

27 décembre 2009 - Mohammad Javad Saberi - journaliste

20 décembre 2009 - Mohammad Norizad - Journaliste et directeur du blog (http://mohammadnurizad.blogfa.com/)

22 novembre 2009 - Sasan Aghaei - Journaliste au quotidien Farhikhteghan

4 août 2009 - Reza Norbakhsh - rédacteur en chef du quotidien Farhikhteghan

31 juillet 2009 - Mehdi Hossinzadeh - Journaliste

4 juillet 2009 - Masoud Bastani - rédacteur en chef "Nedat Eslahat"

4 juillet 2009 - Issa Saharkhiz - Journaliste

26 juin 2009 - Reza Rafiee Foroshani - Journaliste freelance

20 juin 2009 - Bahaman Ahamadi Amoee

17 juin 2009 - Saide Lylaz - Sarmayeh

16 juin 2009 - Mohsein Azmodeh - journaliste de l’agence Mehr

14 juin 2009 - Ahmad Zeydabadi

14 juin 2009 - Omid Salimi - Photoreporter

13 juin 2009 - Kivan Samimi Behbani

26 avril 2009 - Sajad Khaksari - Galam Moalem

18 novembre 2008 - Bahman Totonchi - Karfto

1er juillet 2007 - Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand - Payam-e mardom-e Kurdestan

25 janvier 2007 - Adnan Hassanpour – Aso

11 february 2010 – nooshin jafari- etemad

11 february 2010 –mazeyar samii – journalist

11 february 2010 –ali mohamad eslampoor- journalist

11 february 2010 – sahar ghasen nejad – joirnalist

11 february 2010 –nazanin hasan neya- journalist

11 february 2010 – kave ghasmi kermanshahi- journalist

11 february 2010- alireza saghafi - journalist

Signatures :

Nazi Azima, Samnak Aghai, Houshang Asadi, Nooshabeh Amiri, Asieh Amini, Farahmand Alipour, Shabnam Azar, Fariba Amini, Maryam Aghvami, Nima Amini, Massoud Behnoud, Arash Bahmani, Maziar Bahari, Babak Dad, Farzaneh Bazrpour, Hadi Ebrahimi, Pouyan Fakhrai, Farshid Faryabi, Fereshteh Ghazi, Mryam Ghavami, Saghi Ghahraman, Massoud Ghoraishi, Arash Ghafouri, Manouchehr Honarmand, Linda Hosseininejad,Vahid Jahanzadeh, Nikahang Kowsar, Malihe Mohamadi, Javad Montazeri, Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, Mehdi Mohseni, Searajedin Mirdamadi, Hanif Mazroui, Ebrahim Nabavi, Javad Moghimi, Alireza Noorizadeh, Nahid Pilvar, Shahram Rafizadeh, Bahram Rafizadeh, Saman Rasoolpoor, Khosrow Raesi, Ferydon Shaibani, Mohamad Sefriyan, Beniamin Sadr,Vida Samei, Mohamad Tajdolati, Hamed Yousefi…

New shocking video from taliban: how to convert an infidel with flogging

2010-02-07T02:18:00.000-08:00

A new shocking video was released by the Taliban. In the video you can see the flogging of some men who do not respect the Taliban rules. Back to the controversy between Secondo Protocolo and YouTube for censorship applied by the most famous video platform on these movies.

The video was shot on a mobile phone on Feb. 3 and passed to a local journalist who occasionally provides video to Associated Press Television News. The man who provided the clip said it was taken in the Mamozai area of the Orakzai tribal region, though there was no way of verifying that because travel there is dangerous for outsiders. The tribal elder requested anonymity out of fear for his life.

The Taliban are known to beat people in areas they control if they are suspected of criminal acts, spying or violating the militants' ultra-strict interpretation of Islamic law. People accused of serious crimes are often reportedly killed.

Using a piece of rope or leather, a militant repeatedly strikes a man who wears trousers but no shirt, and who looks to be covered in dirt or soot. The man at times has to be restrained. He falls to the ground repeatedly, but is hauled back up during the beating.

The tribal elder who provided the footage said the man was being punished for allegedly "working against the Taliban" by speaking out against the militants. The second victim appears to be a teenage boy, who the tribal elder said was being blamed for not growing a beard. The third victim was said to be punished for not praying.

A crowd of men and boys watched the beatings, mostly in silence.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/9247200[/vimeo]

China Action Day in Support of Freedom in Iran: Friday, February 5, 2010

2010-02-05T06:58:00.000-08:00

STOP CRACKDOWNS ON IRANIAN PEOPLE - Demand China end support for Ahmadinejad and Basij Militia
WHERE -(1) Outside Chinese embassies and consulates including Washington D.C., Chicago, and Houston in US and beyond (Other cities are expected to be added) (2) Chinese Consulate in Chicago 100 West Erie Street , Chicago, IL60611 (Gathering is on the Opposite Side of the Street)
WHEN - Friday, February 5th, 11:30 am - 1pm

To All Friends of the Iranian People, Spread the Word:

China is supporting Ahmadinejad’s crackdown against the Iranian people, most recently by arming the Basij with anti-riot equipment and crowd control vehicles. These Chinese arms pose a lethal threat to the millions of Iranians who plan to protest for freedom and democracy in Iran on February 11th.

By supporting Ahmadinejad’s coup against the Iranian people, China is banking on profiting from the triumph of tyranny and terror over freedom and faith in Iran. Instead of defending the Iranian people in their call for free and fair elections, China’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, is blaming social media for the Iranian people’s protests against electoral fraud, prisoner abuse, and political violence.

The Islamic Republic has offered China a 25 year contract for 110 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas, estimated at over 100 billion dollars. In exchange for mortgaging Iran’s gas and oil fields to China, Ahmadinejad uses these profits to fund the Basij militia—a military and economic mafia attacking the Iranian people, culture and economy in the name of religion.

Let us lend the Iranian people our strength in their struggle for freedom and justice, dignity and humanity. Let us prove China wrong.

Millions risk losing their lives, freedoms, jobs and security because China subsidizes terror and tyranny in Iran to export products made from cheap oil. It is time for China to stop playing a double game: burying the United States in debt to finance a war on terror it perpetuates by shielding Ahmadinejad from the devastating consequences of a genocidal domestic and foreign policy that threatens the security and stability of Iran and its neighbors.

We invite our friends around the world to demonstrate their solidarity with the Iranian people by demanding that the Chinese government:

1) Cease its support for Ahmadinejad’s coup

2) Cease arming and supplying the Basij militia and revolutionary guards

3) Cease its support for tyranny and terror

If China is a true friend of the Iranian people and Islamic world, then it must join the Iranian people and the international community in calling for:

1) Respect for the human rights of all Iranian people in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations

2) Release of all political prisoners

3) Free and fair elections

China is betraying its own tradition and culture as an ancient Asian civilization, its own prosperity as an economic power, and its own security as a nuclear power by discounting the life of Iran ’s youth to profit from their death.

Whether it is in the Sudan , Zimbabwe , Burma or Iran , China cannot insure its own prosperity and security by preying upon the corpse of enslaved populations and vulnerable nations. Such predatory forms of capitalism divest China ’s economy and currency from sanctity and security.

China risks damaging its reputation in Iran, the Islamic world and the international community for the privilege of selling cheap products contaminated with the price of Neda’s flesh and blood.

We invite—and expect—China to use its tremendous lobbying power and international influence for the benefit of the Iranian people rather than Ahmadinejad’s thugs.

The true gift Iranians have always offered their friends and neighbors is their unflinching faith in the sanctity of love and life. Chinese leaders should recognize that it is the good faith of the Iranian people—and not the corruption and violence of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei’s bogus republic and religion—that is the sacred rock upon which China can secure its long-term future.

The Iranian people’s wealth flows through their heart, not their death.

THINGS WE CAN DO TO END CHINA ’S SUPPORT FOR AHMADINAJED:

1) Organize protests outside Chinese embassies and consulates (see list below)

2) Call/Write China’s Political and Economic Representatives in the United States and around the world (see list below)

3) Call/Write to China’s Ambassador in Iran: Ambassador Xie Xiaoyan, #13 Narenjestan 7th, Pasdaran Avenue, Tehran, Iran P.O. Box 11364-3937

Embassy Telephones: 009821-22291240 009821-22291240 , 22291241
Office of Military Attaché: 009821-22282840 009821-22282840 Consul Office: 009821-22812500 009821-22812500 , 22816600
Website: http://www.chinaembassy.ir

Code of Conduct: The focus of CHINA ACTION DAY is to demonstrate our solidarity with the Iranian people. Our goal is to demand that the Chinese government end its support for Ahmadinejad’s crackdown on the Iranian people. We ask that all participants demonstrate their solidarity with the Iranian people by demonstrating in a non-partisan, peaceful, and respectful manner. People from all backgrounds, cultures, political and religious beliefs are welcome.

Chinese Embassies and Consulates by Country

United States:

*Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC

Address: 3505 International Place, N.W., Washington DC 20008

Phone: (202) 338-6688, (202) 588-9760

Fax: (202) 588-9760

*Chinese Consulate in Chicago, IL

Address: 100 West Erie Street, Chicago, IL60611

Phone: (312) 453-0210, (312) 803-0095

Fax: (312) 803-0122

*Chinese Consulate in Houston, TX

Address: 3417 Montrose Blvd., Houston, TX77006

Phone: (713) 520-1462

Fax: (713) 521-3064

*Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, CA

Address: 443 Shatto Place, Los Angeles, CA90020

Phone: (213) 807-8088

Fax: (213) 807-8091

*Chinese Consulate in New York, NY

Address: 520 12th Avenue, New York, NY10036

Phone: (212) 244-9392

Fax: (212) 465-1708

*Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, CA

Address: 1450 Laguna Street, San Francisco, CA94115

Phone: (415) 674-2900

Fax: (415) 563-0494

Canada:

*Chinese Embassy in Ottawa

Address: 515 St. Patrick Street, Ottawa, Ont. K1N 5H3

Phone: 613-789-3434

Fax: 613-789-1911

*Chinese Consulate in Calgary

Address: 1011 6th Ave. S.W., Suite 100, Calgary, ABT2P 0W1

Phone: (403) 264-3322

Fax: (403) 264-6656

*Chinese Consulate in Toronto

Address: 240 St. George Street, Toronto OntarioM5R 2P4

Phone: (416) 964-7260

Fax: (416) 324-6468

*Chinese Consulate in Vancouver

Address: 3380 Granville Street, Vancourver, BCV6H 3K3

Phone: (604) 736-5188

Fax: (604) 737-0154

Mexico:

*Chinese Embassy in Mexico City

Address: Avenue Rio Magdalena 172, Col. Tizapan San Angel, D.F.

Phone: 52-55-56160609

Fax: 52-55-56160460

*Chinese Consulate in Tijuana

Address: Avenue Lomas del Monte 1614. Fracc. Lomas de Agua Caliente, Primera Seccion Tijuana, B.C. 22440

Phone: 0052-664-6816771

Fax: 0052-664-6219762

Australia:

*Chinese Embassy in Canberra

Address: 15, Coronation Drive, Yarralumla, A.C.T. 2600, Canberra, Australia

Phone: 0061-2-62734878

Fax: 0061-2-32734878

*Chinese Consulate in Brisbane

Address: Level 9, 79 Adelaide St. Brisbane, QLD 4000

Phone: 07-32106509

Fax: 07-32106517

*Chinese Consulate in Perth

Address: 45 Brown Street, East Perth, W.A. 6004, Australia

Phone: 0061-8-92220333

Fax: 0061-8-92216144

*Chinese Consulate in Melbourne

Address: 75-77 Irving Road, Toorak, Melbourne, Victoria 3142

Phone: 00613-98220604

Fax: 00613-98220320

*Chinese Consulate in Sydney

Address: 39 Dunblane Street, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia

Phone: 0061-2-85958002

Fax: 0061-2-85958001

Japan:

*Chinese Embassy in Tokyo

Address: 3-4-33 Moto-Azabu, Minato-Ku, Tokyo, Japan

Phone: 0081-3-34033388

Fax: 0081-3-34033345

*Chinese Consulate in Sapporo

Address: 5-1, Nishi 23-Chome, Minam 13-J0, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Japan

Phone: 0081-11-5635563

Fax: 0081-11-5631818

*Chinese Consulate in Nagasaki

Address: 10-35 Hashiguchi Machi Nagasaki City, Japan

Phone: 0081-958493311

Fax: 0081-958493312

*Chinese Consulate in Fukuoka

Address: Fukuoka-Shi Chiuo-Ku Jigyohama 1-3-3, Japan

Phone: 0081-92-7131121

Fax: 0081-92-7818906

*Chinese Consulate in Nagoya

Address: 2-8-37 Higashisakura, Higashi-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 461-0005 Japan

Phone: 81-52-9321098

Fax: 81-52-9321169

*Chinese Consulate in Osaka

Address: 3-9-2 Utsubohonmach Nishiku Osaka, Japan 550

Phone: 00816-64459481

Fax: 00816-64459475

United Kingdom:

*Chinese Embassy in London

Address: 49-51 Portland Place London W1B 1JL

Phone: 0044-20-72994049

Fax: 0044-20-76362981

*Chinese Consulate in Edinburgh

Address: 55 Corstorphine Road, Edinburth, EH12 5QG Scotland, U.K.

Phone: 44-131-3379896

Fax: 44-131-3378871

*Chinese Consulate in Manchester

Address: Denison House, 71 Denison Road, Rusholme, Manchester M14 5RX, U.K.

Phone: 0044-161-2489304

Fax: 0044-161-2572672

France:

*Chinese Embassy in Paris

Address: 11, Av. George V, 75008 Paris

Phone: 0033-1-49521950

Fax: 0033-1-47202422

*Chinese Consulate in Lyon

Address: 26, Rue Louis Blanc, 69006 Lyon, France

Phone: 437248307

Fax: 437240099

*Chinese Consulate in Marseill

Address: 20, Boulevard Carmagnole, 13008 Marseille, France

Phone: 33-491320017

Fax: 33-491320008

*Chinese Consulate in Strasbourg

Address: 35, Rue Bautain, 67000 Strasbourg, France

Phone: 33-3-88453232

Fax: 33-3-88453223

Germany:

*Chinese Embassy in Berlin

Address: Markisches Ufer 54, 10179 Berlin

Phone: 030-27588-0

Fax: 030-27588221

*Chinese Consulate in Frankfurt

Address: Mainzer Landstrasse 17560326 Frankfurt Am Main

Phone: 0049-69-75085545

Fax: 0049-69-75085530

*Chinese Consulate in Hamburg

Address: Elbchaussee 268, 22605 Hamburg, Bundessrepublik Deutschland

Phone: 0049-40-82276018

Fax: 0049-40-82276022

*Chinese Consulate in Munich

Address: Generalkonsulat Der Vr China in Muenchen, Germany Romanstr. 107 80639 Muenchen

Phone: 0175-5440383

Fax: 49-89-17301619