Confusing Syria with Libya? Fact checking Amnesty International’s “ hospitals investigation”

Franklin Lamb

Exculsive Al-Manar

Graghics by Alex – updated

En route to Niger

This observer counts himself among Amnesty International’s more than 3 million supporters and members in more than 150 countries and territories who also strongly endorse AI’s campaigns to end grave abuses of human rights. I share AI’s vision for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.

In Beirut, I attend their events and was honored to play a small part in assisting with last spring’s AI research on the subject of disappeared Palestinians and Lebanese which resulted in AI’s excellent April, 2011 publication: Never Forgotten: Lebanon’s Missing People. This report documents one of the bitter legacies of the 1975-1990 civil war which is the thousands of people whose fates remain unknown.

I have crossed paths with AI researchers in the Middle East and recently during three months in Libya I followed their work which included the human rights problems of black Libyans, particularly from the Tawagha region but also in eastern and western Libya where blacks were often taken from hospitals never to be seen again. AI rightly condemned the number of massacres and extra-judicial killings perpetrated by both pro-Gadhafi and NTC partisans, many of which, like the 53 recently executed Gadhafi supporters found at the Mahari Hotel in Sirte involved the kidnapping and murder of patients in hospitals. These grisly scenes have shocked the world’s conscience and all people of goodwill condemn them. They weaken substantially the moral authority of the group currently claiming power in Libya.

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Despite its generally exemplary work, Amnesty International, like the rest of us, in not infallible. This is evident in its 10/25/11 released 39 page report: Health Crisis: Syrian Government Targets the Wounded and Health Workers.

AI’s conclusion from its “research” in Syria, which consisted significantly of collecting Al Jazeera and Al Arabia type media accounts including the dubious reports on the same subject by CNN’s Arwa Damon and sundry anonymous U-tube clips is, interestingly, virtually identical to what it concluded from its investigation in Libya on the same subject.

However, there is a great distinction between Syria and Libya, their medical professions and their current challenges.

AI claims this week, without convincing material, probative or relevant evidence that Syrian authorities, including Hospital administrators and staff, have since March 2011 turned Syrian hospital into instruments of repression in order to crush protests and demonstrations. AI’s j report claims that Syrians wounded in protests or incidents related to the current unrest “have been physically assaulted in state-run hospitals by medical staff, and in some cases denied medical care, while others taken to hospital have been detained or have simply disappeared.” AI offers as its proof of these claims the weakest and seemingly most competition-driven support of any Amnesty International report I have read. It reeks of yet another orientalist double standard and ignores similar claims from citizens in western countries of similar actions by their governments.

This observer recently had the opportunity to visit with administrators and medical staff at some of Syria’s largest state-run Ministry of Health hospitals (Syria also has Higher Education Hospitals for university students and Ministry of Defense Hospitals, the latter being roughly equivalent to American Veterans Hospitals for the military,) which is Damascus General Hospital, established in 1952. Damascus Hospital sees approximately 800 patients daily and is one of 90 hospitals belonging to the Ministry of Hearth that together serve all of Syria with 14, 571 beds. Medical care in Syria is virtually free. .

Damascus Public Hosptial founded in 1953

Among those I had the opportunity to meet with at Damascus Public Hospital and to discuss issues raised by Amnesty International were Dr. Mahmoud Naji (damahosp@mail.s) who is the Director of the Emergency Department and Intensive Care Unit at Damascus Hospital and Dr. Adib Mahmoud, (damahosp@mail.sy), Damascus Hospital administrator.

Both the Syria Medical Emergency Association, of which Dr.Naji is a representative and the Syrian Medical Association, have large memberships with the reputation of being fiercely independent of and resistant to outside influences. At the same time they have achieved individual treatment and medical ethics standards that help make Syria’s medical services the highest rated in the Middle East.

Amnesty qualifies its findings with complaints that it did not have access to Syrian hospital staff, and that it wanted to protect its “witnesses” by withholding some specifics such as time, place, and circumstances of alleged wrongdoing by members the Syrian medical community, as well as the unwillingness of alleged victims of abuse to come forward. For their part, Syrian medical staff complained to this observer that AI’s Report is deeply flawed and that in fact Syrian hospitals welcome foreign visitors for tours and dialogue with all questions honestly addressed. Syria’s medical profession has justifiably taken umbrage at what it considers, as one Physician described, “Amnesty International’s “gratuitous defamation of Syria’s medical community.”

According to Amnesty’s report, but without providing convincing collaborative evidence, wounded patients in at least four government-run hospitals had been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, both by medical workers and security personnel.

AI’s charges that Syrian medical staff humiliate or refuse to treat patients brought laughter from some care givers at Damascus Hospital, as they explained the strict procedure they abide by from the moment a patient arrives at the emergency entrance. “We treat each patient to the best of our ability and we are strictly forbidden from questioning them about the circumstances of their injury,” Dr. Mahmoud Naji explained.

This observer was invited to literally follow arriving emergency room patients as they were admitted and treated and until they were assigned a bed in the appropriate ward.

A nurse, who was filling out a patient’s medical forms noted, “In certain cases if there was an auto accident, for example, and an injured person arrives while the accident is being investigated then we could contact authorities. ”However, our patient privacy rules are very strict in Syria and we can only ask medical and certainly not political questions, “according to one ER intern as she took the blood pressure of an arriving young woman who complained of stomach cramps.

A Physician who had trained at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston explained, “ I am sure there must be some abuse and especially in the middle of an area where there is fighting, but I have personally never heard of any physician or medical personnel doing what some Western media have alleged without submitting proof. Do police officers sometimes come to the hospital? Yes but it’s like what you would see, for example, in America on a week-end night at the emergency room in maybe the 200 largest cities., isn’t it? When I was training in Boston and with all that goes on in the early hours of the morning in big cities, one sees more police cars outside emergency rooms than ambulances. While it’s not like that here, the police presumably sometimes have reason to suspect that a crime may have been committed and the arriving injured person might be the victim or the perpetrator and an officer has the duty to complete a police report. I believe it’s similar anywhere.”

Another Dr. commented, “And yes, our medical profession has been criticized along with our government because it is claimed by some that some injured people may not want to come to our hospital thinking we might report them to the police. We will not. Does that not also happen in every society? Someone is injured while doing something wrong or criminal and they are afraid of being arrested so they seek alternative treatment from friends or private clinics. Yes, that sometimes happens in our country. Every citizen can choose where they seek treatment.”

Syria medical staffs firmly reject what they consider AI’s shallow “investigation” that did not, but could have, included AI visiting any of Syria’s 90 public hospitals. The staff pictured above emphasized that it’s not too late for AI to do its research inside Syria and via U-tube or Al Jazeera type “evidence.”

This observer also toured Syria’s Al Mouwasat government hospital and met at length with a variety of staff just as AI could have and still can. Al Mouwasat, with approximately 850 beds was founded in 1946, the year the French occupiers left. It is Syria’s oldest and largest and has received dozens of patients over the past six months who had been injured during anti-government demonstrations. I participated in briefings from several physicians and staff including the Hospital administrator, physicians and nurses. We discussed at length any subject I raised including AI accusations.

Syria’s Al Mouwasat public hospital founded in 1946 and free to all. 1946 was the same year US President Harry Truman promised to “take on that mean trust-the American Medical Association” and enact free health care for all Americans. 64 years later the gap between Syria and the US in terms of civilized and affordable medical care for its citizens is vast.

Among those who discussed rumors that some Syrian medical staff refused treatment or reported to authorities or intimidated patients were surgeon Dr. Osama Yousef Shahin, Dr. Ayham Obied vascular surgeon, Dr. Imad Alasha, Director of the ER Department, and ER surgeon Dr. D. Shadia as well as Mouwasat hospital’s Administrator and various staff. All can be contacted directly via the hospital email address which is info@almouwasat and arrangements can be made for visitors to come and see for themselves. One doctor who appeared a bit offended by AI type accusations even offered to request from among scores of current or former patients their permission to provide AI with their phone numbers so they could discuss privately sweeping and unsupported allegations against the Syrian Medical community that they work in cooperation with militias or security services.  Dr. Alusha explained:   “A few are still hospitalized and others even come from “field hospitals” set up by opponents of the government. We do not ask them anything about where they received earlier treatment or their political views. We have not seen any of the claimed patient betrayal events described in some western media reports”

Al Mouwasat has 4 ER operating theatres and routinely does about 50 operations per day. As with other hospitals visited, May 2011 was the most active month recently for Syria’s ER departments which are always open 24/7 with no cost to any patient, domestic or foreign. Al Mouwasat hospital, like Damascus General Hospital and others, has received patients from Deraa, Homs, Hama, Idlib, and other communities. Dr. Shahin explained that “any human being will be treated here without charge and without politics or the police being summoned and for as long as necessary until the patient regains good health. Jewish patients are also welcomed and just yesterday we received Lebanese from the Bekaa Valley with gunshot wounds. They come here because our care is of high quality and it’s free and without political complications. We specialize also in Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) which attracts patients from across Syria and abroad. I think I speak for almost every Syrian medical person what I insist that we are doctors and care givers with a variety of political views which we leave at home. We comply with our Hippocratic Oath which we take seriously.”

Syria’s hospital staff, some shown above at Al Mouwasat public hospital said they would welcome anyone who wants to discuss what they claim are fabrications in the AI “investigation” Report and to visit with patients and medical staff in order to make their own judgments.

According to Syria’s Ministry of Health, it has not received any complaint to date, either from the patients nor from their relatives about any maltreatment or encroachment,

In it’s just released report:

“Health Crisis: The Syrian Government Targets the Wounded and Health Workers,” Amnesty International falls far below an objective standard and fails to shoulder its burden of proof for the charges it levels at Syria’s medical community.

To condemn any country’s health service without cause, and mindful of the uncivilized state and expense of our care for profit American health system, one cannot visit hospitals in Syria and Libya and be affected by how much better both systems serve their people than our does.

AI got lazy in its work and its continued hyping of its deeply flawed “investigation” is egregious.

AI also fails to meet the standard of investigative work that we who support and endorse its existence and work expect.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Libya. He is reachable c\o fplamb@gmail.comHe is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon.
He contribute to Uprooted Palestinians Blog

US Sending Sesame St. To Pakistan To Battle Fundamentalist Intolerance

[Perhaps this might reach a few little Pakistani minds, after all.   Just consider how many minds were damaged by our "gift" of the CIA/State Dept.'s Jihadi textbooks.]

U.S. Bankrolls Pakistani Sesame Street Hoping It Will ‘Increase Tolerance’

Associated Press

• 

  October 13, 2011: A Pakistani artist gives final touches to characters of Pakistani Sesame Street in Lahore, Pakistan.

LAHORE, Pakistan –  Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch are nowhere in sight. But there’s Elmo. And new creatures too, like Baily, a kindly donkey who loves to sing, and Haseen O Jameel, a vain crocodile who lives at the bottom of a well.

Sesame Street is coming to Pakistan but not as generations of Americans know it.

The TV show has a new cast of local characters led by a vivacious 6-year-old girl named Rani who loves cricket and traditional Pakistani music. Her sidekick, Munna, is a 5-year-old boy obsessed with numbers and banging away on Pakistani bongo drums, or tabla.

The U.S. is bankrolling the initiative with $20 million, hoping it will improve education in a country where one-third of primary school-age children are not in class. Washington also hopes the program will increase tolerance at a time when the influence of radical views is growing.

“One of the key goals of the show in Pakistan is to increase tolerance toward groups like women and ethnic minorities,” said Larry Dolan, who was the head education officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Pakistan until very recently.

The show, which started filming last week and will air at the end of November, was jointly developed by Sesame Workshop, the creator of the American series, and Rafi Peer Theater Workshop, a group in the Pakistani city of Lahore that has been staging puppet shows for more than three decades.

The American version of Sesame Street first aired in 1969, and the U.S. government has worked with the company since then to produce shows in about 20 foreign countries, including Muslim nations like Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Perhaps nowhere else are the stakes as high as in Pakistan. The U.S. is worried that growing radicalization could one day destabilize the nuclear-armed country. Washington has committed to spend $7.5 billion in civilian aid in Pakistan over five years, despite accusations that the country is aiding insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan.

Rani, the new program’s star, sports pigtails and a blue and white school uniform. Her innate curiosity is exemplified by the magnifying glass she often carries and her endless stream of questions. She is captain of the school cricket team and plays the harmonium, an instrument used to perform Qawwali music.

The creators chose Rani as the lead character to emphasize the importance of sending girls to school, something that doesn’t often happen in Pakistan’s conservative, male-dominated society, said Faizaan Peerzada, the chief operating officer of Rafi Peer and one of several family members who run the organization.

“It makes the girl stand equally with the boy, which is very clear,” said Peerzada.

Rani and Munna are joined by Baily the donkey, Haseen O Jameel the crocodile, and Baaji, a spirited woman who serves as a mother figure for the others.

Elmo, the lovable, red, child monster, is the only traditional Sesame Street character on the show, which is called Sim Sim Hamara, or Our Sim Sim.

The action centers around a mock-up of a Pakistani town, complete with houses, a school and Baaji’s dhaba, a small shop and restaurant found in many places in the country. The town also includes a large Banyan tree, known as the wisdom tree in South Asia, in the shade of which the children often play.

Given the intense ethnic and regional divisions within Pakistan, the creators tried to build a set that was recognizable to Pakistani children but did not stand out as being from one part of the country. For similar reasons, the skin colors of the puppets range from very light brown to orange.

A total of 78 episodes will be aired in Pakistan’s national language, Urdu, over the next three years, as well as 13 in each of the four main regional languages, Baluchi, Pashtu, Punjabi and Sindhi. The shows will appear on Pakistan state television, and the producers hope they will reach 3 million children, 1 million of whom are out of school.

They also plan radio programs and 600 live puppet performances they hope will reach millions more kids and parents.

Each episode will be based around a word and a number, like the U.S. version, and will tackle general themes like friendship, respect and valuing diversity. This last theme is particularly important in Pakistan, where Islamist extremists often target minority religious sects and others who disagree with their views.

“There are many situations where we coexist peacefully, and that’s what we want to focus on,” said Imraan Peerzada, the show’s head writer.

The program will feature holidays celebrated by Muslims, Christians and Hindus in an attempt to get children to respect the traditions of different religious groups in Pakistan, said Peerzada.

American officials stressed they were not involved in creating content for the show. The U.S. is extremely unpopular in Pakistan, and suspicions run high about American manipulation in the country.

The creators realize that there is some risk of militant backlash. Events held by Rafi Peer have been attacked several times in the past, including a world arts festival in 2008 that was hit by three small bomb blasts that wounded at least half a dozen people.

“We can’t just stop because of this fear,” said Faizaan Peerzada.

Chief US Ally Kenya Air Force Accused of Refugee Camp Bombing In Somalia

5 killed, dozens hurt in Somalia after airstrike

FILE – In this Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011 file photo, Kenyan military board a truck headed to Somalia, near Liboi at the border with Somalia in Kenya. Kenyan troops will stay in southern Somalia until Kenyans feel safe again, the chief of Kenya’s armed forces said Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011 raising questions about whether Kenya risks becoming bogged down in an open-ended occupation of its war-ravaged neighbor. (AP Photo, File)

By KATHARINE HOURELD

The Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya — An air strike hit a refugee camp in southern Somalia, killing at least five people and wounding 45, most of them children, an international aid agency said Monday. Kenya’s military acknowledged carrying out an air raid but said it targeted only Islamist militants.

Details emerged, meanwhile, about an American-Somali man who al-Shabab said carried out a suicide attack against an African Union base in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Saturday. Abdisalan Hussein Ali was 19 at the time he disappeared from Minnesota, which has a large Somali-American community, in November 2008.

In July 2010, he was among several men indicted in a long-running investigation in Minnesota. Charges against him included conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to kill, maim, kidnap and injure. The U.S. hasn’t yet confirmed the identity of the bomber. FBI spokesman Kyle Loven in Minneapolis said the agency is using DNA to try to make a positive identification.

A Somali Islamist militant group used the casualties from the Kenyan air strike as a recruitment tool to try to win even more recruits. Kenyan military spokesman Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, though, blamed an al-Shabab fighter for the civilian deaths, saying an al-Shabab fighter drove a burning truck of ammunition into the refugee camp in the town of Jilib where it exploded.

Chirchir said the Kenyan air force hit the truck on Sunday as it drove away from an al-Shabab training camp and accused the driver of attempting to use the refugees as a human shield. He said 10 al-Shabab members were killed and 47 wounded in the attack, citing informers on the ground.

But Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medicines Sans Frontieres or MSF, said the aerial bombardment hit the camp for displaced people. MSF said it treated 52 wounded people. As of Monday morning, MSF confirmed five deaths and said it was still treating 45 wounded, 31 of them children. Seven other patients had been discharged after receiving treatment. The head of the MSF mission in Somalia, Gautam Chatterjee, said most of the wounded had shrapnel injuries.

Jilib town elder Ahmed Sheik Don said the planes hit a bus stop and near the camp before finally hitting a base of al-Shabab, an insurgent group linked to al-Qaida.

It was impossible to immediately reconcile the different versions. Either way, civilian casualties would be a public relations issue for Kenya and could turn ordinary Somalis against Kenya’s military intervention in the lawless nation.

Residents said hundreds ran for cover Sunday as bombs exploded. The town’s population has ballooned this year as about 1,500 families fled to the area amid a famine that has wracked the south. Residents reported that al-Shabab fighters were among the casualties.

Sheik Abukar Ali Aden, an al-Shabab official in southern Somalia, said the militants donated food to those affected by the airstrikes. Bearded men and masked fighters used megaphones to ask Somalis to join their militant group.

“I am urging all Muslims in the Jubba regions to raise their heads and defend themselves against the enemy massacring them,” Aden said at a news conference in the southern port town of Kismayo. “Go! go to the front lines and make jihad with the Christian enemy.”

Kenya sent troops across the border into Somalia in mid-October following cross-border kidnappings blamed on gunmen from southern Somalia.

Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said his government is looking into the airstrike and reports of civilian deaths.

“If it has taken place then it is an unfortunate incident and we are sorry about that,” Ali said during a press conference in Nairobi alongside Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Odinga added: “Our troops have not targeted civilians. It would be most unfortunate.”

The U.N. representative for Somalia, Augustine P. Mahiga, said civilians must be protected during any party’s military operations. He said the U.N. hopes that Kenya’s push into southern Somalia will help gain access to famine victims.

“We think this in the end will contribute to the sum total of gaining more territory, greater security and therefore more access to the victims of famine anddrought, especially in south-central Somalia,” Mahiga said.

The Danish Refugee Council, meanwhile, said it has made its first contact with an American aid worker and her Danish colleague who were kidnapped last week in northern Somalia.

“It has been some very long days as we have been waiting for signs of life. It is truly a relief that we now have received the message that they are as well as possible their circumstances taken into consideration,” said Ann Mary Olsen, the head of the Danish Refugee Council’s International Department.

Olsen said the aid agency is appealing to traditional leaders and clan elders to help release the hostages.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991. African Union troops have been engaged in fierce fighting in Mogadishu to push al-Shabab fro its last base in the city. On Saturday, the Islamists launched an attack with two suicide bombers, killing at least 10 people.

___

Associated Press reporters Jason Straziuso and Tom Odula in Nairobi, Abdi Guled in Mogadishu, Somalia, and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

___

The “Holbrooke Model” of Talk/Bombing Will Not Work With the Taliban

["In 1995, diplomat Richard Holbrooke urged NATO to drop "bombs for peace" in Bosnia - and thereby pressure the Bosnian Serbs, and their protector Slobodan Milosevic, to come to the bargaining table."  Attempting this in Afghanistan is unlikely to have the same effect, since the Pashtun culture which drives the Taliban movement is permeated with a sense of pride in its manly capacity to absorb the enemy's blows and to persevere, as well as the jihadi's desire for martyrdom in the "cause of God."  Punishing the Taliban to drive them to the bargaining table will only harden their resolve and motivate them to seek even greater revenge.  Pushing this tactic upon Pakistan will only drive a wedge between the Army and the militants, the true objective behind the contradictory strategy.  It is merely Obama the devil being devious and spiteful, as usual.]

Pakistan agents part of U.S. push for peace talks

U.S. shifts to rely on agency which has been accused of supporting terror.

By Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger, New York Times
WASHINGTON — Just a month after accusing Pakistan’s spy agency of secretly supporting the Haqqani terrorist network, which has mounted attacks on Americans, the Obama administration is now relying on the same intelligence service to help organize and kick-start reconciliation talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan.

The revamped approach, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called “Fight, Talk, Build” during a high-level U.S. delegation’s visit to Kabul and Islamabad this month, combines continued U.S. air and ground strikes against the Haqqani network and the Taliban with an insistence that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency get them to the negotiating table.

But some elements of the ISI see little advantage in forcing those negotiations, because they see the insurgents as perhaps their best bet for maintaining influence in Afghanistan as the United States reduces its presence there.

The strategy is emerging amid an increase in the pace of attacks against Americans in Kabul, including a suicide attack Saturday that killed as many as 10 Americans and in which the Haqqanis are suspected. It is the latest effort at brokering a deal with militants before the last of 33,000 U.S. “surge” troops prepare to pull out of Afghanistan by September, and comes as early hopes in the White House about having the outlines of a deal in time for a multinational conference Dec. 5 in Bonn, Germany, have been all but abandoned.

But even inside the Obama administration, the new initiative has been met with deep skepticism, in part because the Pakistani government has developed its own strategy, one at odds with Clinton’s on several key points. One senior U.S. official summarized the Pakistani position as “Cease-fire, Talk, Wait for the Americans to Leave.”

In short, the United States is in the position of having to rely heavily on the ISI to help broker a deal with the same group of militants that leaders in Washington say the spy agency is financing and supporting.

“The Pakistanis see the contradictions in the American approach,” said Shamila N. Chaudhary, a former top Obama White House aide on Pakistan and Afghanistan. “The big question for the administration is, ‘What can the Pakistanis actually deliver?’ Pakistan is holding its cards very closely.”

On Sunday, U.S. intelligence officials deepened an investigation into what role, if any, the Haqqani network played in the bombing in Kabul on Saturday.

Several current and former U.S. officials say the United States has tried this bomb-them-to-the-bargaining-table approach before. In the 1990s, it helped drive Serbian leaders to peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, but it has resulted in little so far with the Afghan Taliban.

“I don’t think anyone expects Secretary Clinton’s visit to produce reconciliation,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former CIA officer and the author of “Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad.” Riedel, who advocates a policy of containment in Pakistan, added, “The deterioration of U.S.-Pakistan relations is likely to continue.”

Senior Pakistani officials say they are confused by a lack of clarity in the administration’s long-term goals in Afghanistan, and are working with U.S. officials to hammer out specific plans after Clinton’s visit. As an incentive, the United States has offered Pakistan a prominent role in reconciliation talks. But U.S. officials have warned that they will take unilateral action if negotiations fail.

Several administration officials said they considered Clinton’s trip to Kabul and Islamabad, from Oct. 19 to 21, a success largely because it had happened at all. In the months after the killing of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil, talks were frozen, U.S. intelligence officers were denied visas, and the administration accused the ISI of turning a blind eye to attacks on Americans launched from the country’s tribal areas.

Wahhabi Religious Police Brutally Beat and Arrest Canadian Shia Imam

[The monster of Wahhabi false Islam raises its ugly head once again, in yet another demonstration of intolerance.  Will American led double-standards, concerning the Saudi pseudo-"Islamists," get in the way of this Canadian citizen's liberation?  Wahhabism is a disease that has infected millions of Muslim minds.  Liberating these minds is the path to eliminating "militant Islam."]

Edmonton imam beaten, ‘manhandled’ by police in Saudi Arabia, witnesses say

Stuart Davis/Postmedia News

Usama Al-Atar speaks to young muslims at a youth session at the Az-Zahra Islamic Center in Richmond.

Tristin Hopper 

An Edmonton-based Imam is in a Saudi Arabian jail after being beaten and “manhandled” by religious police, according to witness reports. On Sunday morning, Usama Al-Atar, 33, was leading a group of 10 pilgrims in prayer outside the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina when “[Saudi] religious police began to hassle him, and intimidate him into stopping,” according to a release by the U.K.-based Islamic Human Rights Association (IHRA).

 

Mr. Al-Atar attempted to leave, but he was set upon by guards, labelled a thief, violently restrained and brought into custody.

“It’s very clear that without having committed any crime, [Mr. Al-Atar] has been arrested by the Saudi authorities,” said Mahmood Mavani, president of the Islamic Shia Association of Edmonton, where Mr. Al-Atar is a resident lecturer. On Sunday, Edmonton’s Shia Muslims gathered at the Association’s main congregation hall to pray for Mr. Al-Atar’s release.

Mr. Al-Atar is a Shiite, a sect of Islam that is often subject to persecution in Saudi Arabia. “Mr. Al-Atar is a Canadian citizen and at this juncture we need Foreign Affairs to find out the facts and make sure he is safe,” said Mr. Mavani.

The Department of Foreign Affairs would only say they were “aware of the arrest a Canadian citizen in Medina.” “The Canadian Embassy in Riyadh has been notified and stands ready to provide consular assistance as required,” read a Sunday afternoon email by Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Aliya Mawani.

Mr. Al-Atar left Canada on Monday to travel to Saudi Arabia for the hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca performed annually by more than two million Muslims each year. Mr. Al-Atar was reportedly approached by Saudi religious police while offering prayers at a graveyard — a Shia practice that is frowned upon by Saudi Arabia’s ruling class, who practice a puritanical form of Sunni Islam.

Mr. Al-Atar’s group closed their prayer books and tried to leave the area, but the imam was set upon by guards after the police called out that Mr. Al-Atar was a thief, reported Ahlulbayt TV, a U.K.-based Shia Islamic channel.

The religious police then “manhandled him badly,” eyewitness Mohammed Hayward told IHRA. “They forced him to sit under an air conditioning unit, and squashed him until he was blue in the face.” Mr. Al-Atar’s arrest was witnessed by more than 200 Canadian, American and British pilgrims, the U.K. channel reported.

On Sunday, 60 pilgrims held silent vigil outside the Central Medina jail where Mr. Al-Atar was being held, reported the IHRA. Mr. Al-Atar is scheduled for a court appearance on Monday morning, where he will face accusations that he broke the arm of one of the police — although witnesses say that the Edmonton imam stayed passive throughout the scuffle.

Throughout Sunday, social networks in Canada and the U.K. abounded with appeals to free the imprisoned Canadian. Ahlulbayt TV held an emergency live show on Sunday evening to protest Mr. Al-Atar’s arrest.

The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations on Sunday condemned Mr. Al-Atar’s arrest. “Irrespective of any allegations against Imam Al-Attar it is unconscionable that he should be physically assaulted — whether during the Hajj pilgrimage or at any other time,” wrote council executive director Ihsaan Gardee in a prepared release. “If there is no basis for holding Mr. Al-Atar, then he should be immediately released,” he added.

A cancer and diabetes researcher, Mr. Al-Atar is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the chemistry department at the University of Alberta. He has been a prominent voice for inter-faith relations and for stamping out violent extremism within the Islamic community. “Although [terroristic] acts may be carried out by Muslims, these are not the teachings of Islam,” he told Postmedia in 2005.

As recently as March, Mr. Al-Atar publicly denounced the Saudi Arabian leadership. “The atrocities committed today against innocents in several countries such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia among others, are crimes one cannot stand silent about,” said Mr. Al-Atar in a March speech delivered in Edmonton following violence crackdowns against Arab Spring protesters in the Middle East.

Campaigners for his release fear the severity of the charges against him.

“With Saudis, you never know how extreme they can go,” Montreal-based campaigner Musarrat Pyarali wrote in a letter to the Post.

National Post

thopper@nationalpost.com

Protests of Kyrgyz Electoral Fraud Begin, Bishkek-Osh Road Blocked By Protestors

If the elections’ results will not be canceled, disorders are inevitable in Kyrgyzstan – Kamchibek Tashiyev

31/10-2011 12:39, Bishkek – 24.kg news agency , by Julia KOSTENKO

“If the elections’ results will not be canceled, disorders are inevitable in Kyrgyzstan,” presidential candidate Kamchibek Tashiyev stated at today’s press conference.

According to him, about 1, 200 million people could not take part in voting. “Kyrgyzstan had an opportunity to hold honest elections refusing Akayev’s and Bakiyev’s technology for the first time. However, the present authorities followed exactly the last way having improved it a bit. I do not recognize these elections. The people will not tolerate cheating. So people who came to power would feel distrust of the population. If they begin governance with deception, they can not be worthy power representatives. People will decide by themselves what power they need. First reactions are starting from today,” explained Kamchybek Tashiyev.

He added that people will take their own decision. “My voters expect me to proceed. We can not accept rigged election results. The commissions’ members replaced all electoral lists. They were the people of the current government. This is unacceptable,” said Kamchybek Tashiyev.

URL: http://eng.24.kg/politic/2011/10/31/21300.html

Adherents of Kamchibek Tashiev blocks Bishkek-Osh road in Kyrgyzstan

31/10-2011 13:31, Bishkek – 24.kg news agency , by Makhinur NIYAZOVA

In Kyrgyzstan, adherents of Kamchibek Tashiev blocked Bishkek-Osh road as the head of Suzak district public administration Zhanybek Zholborsov reported to 24.kg news agency.

According to him, around 200 people blocked the road near Barpy aiyl okmotu. They are demanding to recognize returns as invalid.

The head of the district, the chief of local department of the State National Security Committee and the head of aiyl okmotu headed to the scene.

Recall, the rally in support of the presidential candidate Kamchibek Tashiev is going in Jalal-Abad. Around 300 people gathered. They are demanding to recognize returns invalid.

URL: http://eng.24.kg/politic/2011/10/31/21303.html

Former Kyrgyz Prime Minister Atambayev Receives Overwhelming Majority of Votes Counted

CEC processed 96.42 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s voting protocols: the presidential election still leads Atambaev 31/10/11 7:34, Bishkek -  News Agency “24.kg” , Aizada KUTUEVA         CEC processed 96.42 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s voting protocols: the presidential election still leads Atambaev. This was reported on the CEC website. At 09.30 received information on two 35 thousand polling stations out of 2 thousand 318. The distribution of votes (in percentages): Atambaev – 62.97; Kamchybek Tashiev – 14.36; Adahan Madumarov – 14.86; Temirbek Asanbekov – 0.94; Tursunbai Bakir uulu – 0.8; Kubatbek Baibolov – 0.83; Omurbek Suvanaliev – 0.87; Anarbek Kalmatov – 0.72; Arstanbek Abdyldaev – 0.53; Marat Imankulov – 0.45; Kubanychbek Isabekov – 0.18; Torobaev Kolubaev – 0.1; Kurmanbek Osmonov – 0.13; Akbaraly Aitikeyev – 0.11; Sooronbai Dyykanov – 0,007; Almazbek Karimov – 0,007; Against all – 0.49.

URL: http://www.24kg.org/election2011/113026-cik-kyrgyzstana-obrabotal-9642-procenta.html

Billion-Dollar Drug Gang Busted

[Ouch!]

“The cartel is believed to handle 65 percent of all drugs illegally transported to the United States, drug experts say.”

70 members of ‘billion-dollar’ drug gang arrested, official says

‘Jaw-dropping’ amount of narcotics seized; alleged drug smugglers thought to have close ties to violent Mexican cartel

Law enforcement officials in Arizona seized thousands of pounds of narcotics and arrested at least 70 suspected drug smugglers with apparent ties to a violent drug cartel in Mexico, an official involved with the investigation in the U.S. Southwest told Reuters.

The operation, which included three raids conducted jointly by local, state, and federal officials over 17 months, led to the arrests of Mexican and American nationals working with a notorious drug cartel based in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Further details of the operation will be released at a press conference at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration field office in Phoenix on Monday.

Authorities confiscated drugs, money, weapons, ammunition, and bullet-proof vests, cracking a “sophisticated network” of international drug smuggling in one of the largest such operations conducted in the Southwestern United States, the official said on Sunday.

Drugs were smuggled from Mexico into Arizona by car, plane, on foot, and through tunnels.

“This is one of the more substantial drug-smuggling operations going on right now. This is a billion-dollar drug trade organization linked to the cartel,” the official said.

The cartel is headquartered in the northwestern state of Sinaloa on Mexico’s Pacific coast, an area home to big marijuana and opium poppy plantations and considered the cradle of Mexican narcotics trafficking since the 1960s.

The cartel is believed to handle 65 percent of all drugs illegally transported to the United States, drug experts say.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in drug-related violence since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched his military campaign against the cartels after he took office in late 2006.

‘Jaw-dropping’
The raids were overseen by the DEA, Arizona state officials, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The official said the operation will shed light on elaborate drug smuggling into the United States and said the contraband confiscated in the raids was “jaw-dropping.”

Officials captured some of the key players in the smuggling operation, the source said, adding that the suspects will be prosecuted at the state level.

The official said law enforcement officials are still looking for dozens of people in connection with the operation.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters

The Glaring Contradictions of Gaza and the Orgy of Violence

[A truce is declared and the IDF bombing runs resume.  Some patterns never change.]

Palestinian-Israeli truce agreed

Relatives of a Palestinian killed in an Israeli air strike on Oct 30 cry at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City (AFP PHOTO / MOHAMMED ABED)

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Egypt helped broker a fresh ceasefire by militants in Gaza Sunday, after violence left nine Palestinians and one Israeli dead, sources close to the groups said.

The truce with Israel was due to come into effect at 6:00 am (0400 GMT, 12pm Singapore time), said sources close to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two main Islamist groups in the Gaza Strip.

The agreement between all the Palestinian factions in Gaza came after the intervention of Egypt, the sources said.

“The efforts and intensive contacts led by senior Egyptian intelligence service officials led to a national consensus to restore calm” with Israel, a leader of one Palestinian group, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP.

Israeli warplanes raided the Gaza Strip Saturday and early Sunday, killing nine Islamic Jihad militants, while retaliatory rocket fire from Gaza killed one Israeli.

The exchanges were the bloodiest since a tacit ceasefire was agreed between Gaza Palestinian militants and Israel in late August.

Israel Aircraft Hit Gaza, 2 Found Dead

By IBRAHIM BARZAK Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip, October 31, 2011

“Israeli defense officials have confirmed that contingency plans have been drawn up for a broad invasion of Gaza to topple Hamas, which would require Israel to reoccupy the territory. But they said this is a worst-case scenario among many options, would take several months and be extremely complicated, and the preference is to restore the calm that has largely prevailed since 2009.

Israel captured Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war, but withdrew all troops and settlers from the area in 2005.

‘I don’t rule out that at some point we might find ourselves required to embark upon a full-fledged operation (in Gaza),” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio. “(But) I am not one of those people who miss returning to Gaza.’”

The Wahhabi Threat To Real Islam and To Everyone Else

“India’s Partition was a British plot to divide and rule the subcontinent that succeeded in Pakistan because of the nexus between the military dictators and the jihadists.”

A threat to multilayered secular cultures

MADANJEET SINGH

Thousands of young people attended Salman Ahmad’s Sufi Junoon concert in 2008, ignoring the threat of the chairman of the United Jihad Council (UJC), Syed Salahuddin to kill Salman Ahmad if he came to Srinagar and performed during the inauguration of the Institute of Kashmir Studies, established by the South Asia Foundation.

Wahabism, with enormous Saudi petrodollars at its disposal, has wrought havoc worldwide. The writer travels back to Kashmir, Kerala, Lahore, and Indonesia of some decades ago to get a measure of the tragic and vicious effects — and hopes resilient, multilayered secular cultures will be able to fight back.

I am happy that finally someone has had the courage to frankly articulate the suppressed hopes and fears of mainstream Muslims in India. Addressing a public meeting of the Sufi Maha Panchayat at Muradabad, Maulana Syed Mohammad Ashraf Kachochavi declared: “Hamey Wahabiyon ki na Immanat kabool hai, na kayadat Kabul (We reject both the belief and politics of the Wahabis”). The gathering attended by thousands of Shia and Sunni Muslims applauded as he said: “lf anyone knocks on your door with the message of extremism, hand him over to the nearest police station.”

Politics is the bane of all religions. But unlike other faiths, the Wahabis have enormous petrodollars at their disposal, funded by the so-called Saudi charities that have wrought havoc worldwide. Personally for me, who have known diverse cultures from the north to the southern tip of India, it is not hearsay but a veritable reality. My ancestors hailed from Kashmir; I lived in the state of Travancore and went to school in Trivandrum; then I joined the Hindu University in Benares; and finally graduated from the Government College in Lahore. Excerpts from the story (to be published by Penguin India titled,Cultures & Vultures) are presented here to give a glimpse of the politics and violence with which the Wahabi vultures are tearing apart Kashmir’s syncretic Sufi-Bhakti-Rishi culture, Kerala’s unique matrilineal society, Pakistan’s Sufi Islam, and Indonesia’s indigenous kebatinan culture.

In Kashmir

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s comment, “In the darkness engulfing the subcontinent the only ray of light came from Kashmir,” I put up a Peace Campaign exhibition of my photographs in Delhi that was inaugurated on November 10, 1948 by Sheikh Abdullah. It prompted him to invite me to Srinagar to participate in the National Cultural Front (NCF) he had established to ward off the tribal Kabaili invaders from Pakistan.

On arrival at Srinagar, I met Khawaja Ahmad Abbas, the veteran journalist, at the airport and he drove me to the riverside guesthouse where the NCF group was staying. The group comprised a number of well-known writers. They had joined hands with visual artists including Raza, a Muslim from Bombay, and Anand, a Hindu, and Amar Singh, a Sikh, both from Amritsar. Then there was Sheila Bhatia, an active member of the Indian People’s Theatre Association from Lahore, who inspired Kashmiri women from all the communities with her folk songs and plays.

But no group or individual was as effective in promoting secular culture at the grassroots as the ‘coolie poet,’ Aasi. I was amazed to see him standing in the middle of Srinagar’s Lal Chowk surrounded by crowds listening to the oral poetry of this illiterate labourer. He was a devotee of the Kashmir’s patron Sufi saint, Hazrat Nuruddin Nurani, known as Nund Rishi like the legendary Hindu sages. Aasi was a true interpolator of Kashmir’s Sufi-Bhakti-Rishi culture that Pakistan’s ISI has been destroying since the 1965 Operation Gibraltar by infiltrating Wahabi terrorists to inflict “a thousand cuts” and incite a rebellion in Kashmir.

Among the ferocious vultures was the chairman of the United Jihad Council, Syed Salahuddin, who in 2008 threatened to kill Salman Ahmad if his Sufi concert Junoon came to perform during the inauguration of the Institute of Kashmir Studies, established by the South Asia Foundation. Salman ignored the threat and called on the jihadis to “join Junoon in a musical jihad” instead of fear mongering and threatening to boycott the concert. The Sufi culture triumphed as thousands of young people flocked to hear Junoon, a memorable event widely covered by the Indian as well as international media. But the Pakistani jihadi gangsters have not given up their Wahabi agenda invoking over a 100suras (verses) in the Quran that call on Muslims to kill or maim infidels. Funded by the ISI, they continue to impose the 7th century Shariah law of the Arabian Desert on the 21st century culture of the civilised people living in the beautiful fertile valley of Kashmir.

Kerala

Shortly after my father Dodger Singh, a professor at the Hindu University in Benares, took up a job offered to him by the Maharaja of Travancore, my mother Sumitra Kaur was on the lookout for a maidservant. One day, standing in the porch of our villa, she spotted two Malayali women walking barefoot. They were simply dressed, wearing traditional mundus and blouses. Attracted by my mother’s Punjabi salwar-kamiz and dupatta-covered head, they approached her curiously as my sister interpreted; women in Punjab were discouraged from learning English. They had recently returned from the United States, having graduated from Harvard University. Indeed they were looking for a job but not the kind my mother had in mind. She felt so small and ashamed. Later she told her husband that the Punjabi adage, ‘one can identify a person’s status and level of education by looking at the shoes,’ was totally invalid in Travancore. Even the Maharaja came barefoot to open the ceramic factory that my father built.

The two women, a Hindu and her Muslim friend, told Ranjeeta that even though they were not Christians, the Anglican missionaries had offered them the scholarships. They gave my sister the address of the missionary school in case she wanted to apply for a scholarship to study abroad.

Today a Wahabi outfit euphemistically named Popular Front of India (PFI) is teaching Shariah law in the madrassas where boys and girls are segregated. Muslim girls are obliged to wear ‘Islamic clothes,’ including the hijab. In Kasargod, a PFI stronghold, Rayana Khasi, a journalist was threatened for wearing jeans. Uniformed Muslim youngsters are marching in ‘Freedom Parades,’ like the danda-wielding fascists of the Hindu Right.

The undertow of Wahabi intolerance and violence was highlighted on July 4, 2010, when Muslim fanatics brutally attacked T.J. Joseph, a Newman College lecturer in the town of Thodupuzha. They chopped off the palm of his hand for the ‘crime’ of framing a question for an examination of his students based on a text written by the filmmaker Kunhi Mohammed. The college authorities, threatened by the rioting fanatics, cowered and dismissed Mr. Joseph. They agreed to reconsider their action only if “the Muslim community made an appeal to reinstate him, or the court issued an order to that effect.”

Pakistan

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, my senior at Lahore’s Government College, visited Paris in 1983, a few months before he died. I had invited a number of my Indian and Pakistani Urdu-speaking friends to a reception in his honour. He was sitting next to me and noticed tears rolling down my cheeks as he recited his poignant compositions. As he was leaving, the great poet put his hand on my knee and said: “India’s Partition was a British plot to divide and rule the subcontinent that succeeded in Pakistan because of the nexus between the military dictators and the jihadists.”

Faiz was obviously alluding to General Zia-ul-Haq after he grabbed power in a 1977 coup and then set out to break the Sufi link that united Pakistan with India’s traditional secular and pluralist culture by enforcing Wahabi Islam funded by Saudi Arabia. The Sufi shrines were destroyed or closed and all forms of cultural activity categorised as blasphemous, including figurative painting, singing, dancing, and music.

It was only when I visited Lahore in search of my roots in 1996 that I realised the havoc caused by Wahabi politics. There was no trace of my grandfather’s sprawling joint family house in which I was born. And when I went to see the New Hostel of the Government College, I was stunned to see black graffiti scribbled on the walls in Urdu: “Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Ahmadiyas are enemies of Islam.” The warden reluctantly led me to the cubicle in which I had lived for about four years. I found that the door had been smashed open and inside there was only a dirty carpet spread on the floor. Equally shocking was to find later that there were no students in the common dining room on the first floor. Instead a number of militants with Kalashnikov rifles hung on their shoulders were joking and laughing as they swallowed the food cooked for the college alumni. It was a far cry from the glamorous boarding house in which I had once lived in the ‘Paris of the Orient.’

Indonesia

I married Dhyanawati, called Kiki, daughter of the Indonesian ambassador in Sweden in 1963 while I was posted as a first secretary at the Indian Embassy in Stockholm. I was greatly impressed by the unique multi-layered syncretic culture of Indonesia with the largest Muslim population in the world. It was amazing to see during a previous visit to Bali common people performing the Mahabharata and Ramayana by the roadside and the marvellous wayang kulitpuppet shows depicting the Indian epics.

Shortly after our marriage, Kiki and I arrived in New Delhi and I joined the UN division in the Ministry of External Affairs. We attended many diplomatic receptions and I was glad that as an ambassador’s daughter, Kiki enabled me to get acquainted with several senior foreign diplomats. But I was disconcerted to find that the Saudi Ambassador invariably made a beeline to my wife, took her aside, and brainwashed her about Wahabi Islam. He insisted that she must pray five times a day. Later I learned that his attempt to pressurise my wife was not an isolated case. He was working under instructions from his government.

Since then, in a matter of four decades, the Saudis have spent millions of petrodollars to build hundreds of Wahabi mosques and thousands of madrassasand largely succeeded in effacing Indonesia’s syncretic culture.

I also learned to my dismay that, inspired by the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha idols by Taliban vandals in Afghanistan, Wahabi extremists in Java made several attempts to damage the 8th-9th century Buddhist temple of Borobodur, a world heritage site. The terrorists who carried out the 2002 bombings in Bali were also Wahabi fanatics who killed more than 200 tourists in a suicide bomb explosion in a bar.

Hopefully, the resilient multi-layered syncretic culture of Indonesia will be able to prevent the Wahabis from turning this picturesque secular country into another Pakistan where rose petals are being showered on the killer of the liberal Punjab governor Salman Taseer, and the judge who sentenced the assassin to death has since fled the country in fear for his life.

(Madanjeet Singh is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and founder of the South Asia Foundation.)