By William Fisher
Almost eight years after US-led forces invaded Iraq, the country's transition to a functioning and sustainable democracy built on rule of law is far from
accomplished.
And knowledgeable observers are divided about whether the country is a work in progress full of growing pains, a case of wishful thinking – or a propaganda vehicle.
According to a new report from Human Rights Watch, “the rights of Iraq's most vulnerable citizens, especially women and detainees, are violated with impunity, and those who would expose official malfeasance or abuses by armed groups do so at enormous risk.”
“Iraq's future as a society based on respect for fundamental human rights depends in large part on whether Iraqi authorities will adequately defend those rights and establish a credible national criminal justice system embodying international standards with respect to torture, free expression, and violence against women and other vulnerable sectors of society,” the report says.
Bikya Masr, an independent Iraqi website, has reported on the latest outrage committed by Iraqis against other Iraqis. At about 2 a.m. on February 23, 2011, more than 20 armed men, some of them wearing brown military uniforms and red berets, and others wearing black military uniforms with skull-and-cross-bones insignia on their helmets, pulled up in Humvees outside the group’s office in Baghdad and broke in, a witness told
Human Rights Watch.
The security forces conducted a destructive search of the office that lasted more than an hour and seized the organization’s computers, external hard drives, cameras, cell phones, CDs, documents, and several flak jackets and helmets marked “Press,” the witness said.
“This raid on the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory shows the contempt of Iraqi authorities for groups that challenge the state’s human rights record,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
A spokesman for the Baghdad Operations Command confirmed to Human Rights Watch that the men were part of the Iraqi army but gave few other details.
Ziyad al-Ajili, the group’s executive director, told Human Rights Watch that the authorities “were obviously sending us a message to stop our work of supporting journalists…. This kind of governmental intimidation is precisely what we try to shed light on.” In Iraqi television interviews over the days leading up to the raid, al-Ajili voiced support for the right of Iraqis to protest peacefully and the media’s right to report on the protests.
Human Rights Watch visited the group’s office the morning after the raid and saw extensive damage, including broken furniture, destroyed equipment, kicked-in doors, and ripped-up posters and literature for the organization’s events, such as their annual “Press Courage Awards.” Framed photographs of journalists killed in Iraq since 2003 were strewn on the floor, covered in broken glass.
Human Rights Watch expressed concern that authorities would not return the computer hard drives and other electronic data storage devices seized from the group.
Al-Ajili said he fears that the authorities used the raid as a pretext to close
the office, which serves as an informal gathering point for local journalists.
In late January, the group held an awards ceremony in Baghdad, honoring
investigative journalists who had uncovered corruption and other wrongdoing.
Although improvements in security since 2008 have reduced the assaults against media workers, journalists and press freedom advocates remain at risk in Iraq.
In the months following the 2003 invasion, Iraq experienced a media boom as hundreds of new publications and television and radio channels sprung up across the country, and Iraqis gained access to satellite dishes and the Internet.
But media freedom was short-lived with the introduction of restrictive legislative and other barriers and an upsurge in violence that made Iraq one of the most the most dangerous countries in the world to work as a journalist.
While improvements in security since 2008 have reduced the murder rate of media workers, journalism remains a hazardous occupation. Extremists and unknown assailants continue to kill media workers and bomb their bureaus. In addition, journalists now also have to contend with emboldened Iraqi and Kurdish security forces and their respective image-conscious central and regional political leaders.
Increasingly, journalists find themselves harassed, intimidated, threatened, arrested, and physically assaulted by security forces attached to government institutions and political parties. Senior politicians are quick to sue journalists and their publications for unflattering articles. The government should amend vague legislative and regulatory content-based restrictions that curtail the right to freedom of expression, and direct security forces not to harass, abuse, and intimidate journalists.
According to Human Rights Watch, the 2003 invasion and its resulting chaos “have exacted an enormous toll on Iraq's citizens. Over the past eight years, violence has claimed tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and millions continue to suffer from the effects of insecurity.”
Iraq has made some recent progress as it has pulled itself away from the civil strife that engulfed the country, especially in 2006 and 2007. “But terror attacks increased again in the run-up to the March 2010 parliamentary elections” and did not abate in the months that followed. Only
in November, eight months after those elections, did Iraq's political parties
finally agree to form a new coalition government ending the political crisis that has stunted progress on security and other fronts, including human rights.
The Human Rights Watch report is based on on-the-ground research conducted in April 2010, visiting seven cities across Iraq and interviewing 178 activists, lawyers, journalists, religious leaders, detainees (former and current), security officers, victims of violence, and ordinary Iraqis.
“We found that, beyond the continuing violence and crimes associated with it, human rights abuses are commonplace. This report presents those findings regarding violations of the rights of women and other vulnerable populations, the right to freedom of expression, and the right to be free from torture and ill-treatment in the 2009-2010 period,” HRW said.
The Rights of Women and Girls have also been adversely affected by the
deterioration of security, which has promoted a rise in tribal customs and
religiously-inflected political extremism. “This has had a deleterious effect
on women's rights, both inside and outside the home. For Iraqi women, who
enjoyed some of the highest levels of rights protection and social participation in the region before 1991, these have been heavy blows,” HRW said.
It added: “Militias promoting misogynist ideologies have targeted women and girls for assassination, and intimidated them to stay out of public life. Increasingly, women and girls are victimized in their own homes, sometimes killed by their fathers, brothers and husbands for a wide variety of perceived transgressions that allegedly shame the family or tribe. If they seek official protection from violence in the home, women risk harassment and abuse from Iraq's virtually all-male police and other security forces.”
HRW notes that “Iraqi law protects perpetrators of violence against women: Iraq's penal code considers ‘honorable motives’ to be a mitigating factor in
crimes including murder. The code also gives husbands a legal right to
discipline their wives. Trafficking in women and girls in and out of the country for sexual exploitation is widespread. There have been no reported convictions for trafficking, and a long-awaited anti-trafficking bill is on hold in the parliament, awaiting revisions.”
Outside of Kurdistan, there are no government-run shelters. The many women who have fled sectarian or other violence, who have been widowed, or who for other reasons are heads of households and dependent on state aid are particularly vulnerable to abuse.
The organization claims religious and government institutions are “sometimes complicit in their exploitation - in exchange for charity or benefits, widows have been asked to engage in "pleasure marriages," a previously banned traditional practice that critics say is akin to prostitution.”
The women who are coerced into the practice face stigmatization and have no recourse. Human Rights Watch calls on Iraq to immediately suspend and proceed to repeal sections in the penal code that allow mitigation of sentences on grounds of "honor" for violent crimes against women.
Women are but one of the groups being marginalized by the Iraqis. The country today has numerous communities whose marginalization has left them in dire straits.
Although the government has passed laws (including constitutional
safeguards) to protect some of these different communities, and in some cases has instituted significant assistance programs, it is still failing some of its most vulnerable citizens, such as internally displaced persons, minorities and persons with disabilities. Many of the government's assistance or protection programs are non-operational or sub-operational, and insufficient to meet the needs of target populations, despite Iraq's international and domestic commitments. More than 1.5 million Iraqis fled their neighborhoods as sectarian violence tore up their communities in 2006 and 2007.
Thousands of internally displaced persons now reside in squatter settlements without access to basic necessities such as clean water, electricity and sanitation. An over-stretched Ministry of Displacement has promised aid, but none of the more than a dozen displaced persons we interviewed had received any.
Human Rights Watch calls on Iraq's government to develop a coherent national strategy on refugees and internally displaced persons to facilitate their voluntary return, local integration in places of displacement, or relocation to other places in safety and dignity.
Armed groups proclaiming intolerant ideologies have continued their
assaults on minority communities, decimating Iraq's indigenous populations, and forcing thousands to flee abroad with no plans to return. The government has failed to stop such attacks targeting minority groups, including Sabian andaeans, Chaldo-Assyrians, Yazidis, and Shabaks. To end a climate of impunity, the government must conduct thorough and impartial investigations when attacks occur and bring those responsible to justice.
Years of armed conflict have resulted in thousands of war amputees and other persons with disabilities. Stigmatized, unable to find work, get adequate medical care, or obtain new prostheses and wheelchairs, persons with disabilities in Iraq find themselves relegated to the margins of society. The government needs to ensure access to education and employment, strengthen health-care services, and establish rehabilitation and psychosocial support facilities.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqis hoped that torture as an instrument of state coercion would end. But US and British forces tortured Iraqi detainees at their facilities across Iraq, most famously at Abu Ghraib. And despite knowing there was a clear risk of torture, US authorities transferred thousands of Iraqi detainees to Iraqi custody, where Iraqi security forces have continued the torture tradition.
Iraqi interrogators routinely abuse detainees, regardless of sect, usually in order to coerce confessions. Interviews with dozens of detainees transferred from a secret detention facility outside Baghdad revealed the significant shortcomings of Iraq's criminal justice system. Interrogators sodomized and whipped detainees, burned them with cigarettes and pulled out their fingernails and teeth.
Yet Iraq's prime minister, instead of ordering a public inquiry and prosecuting those responsible for the abuse, dismissed both our findings and those of the Ministry of Human Rights as fictitious, and suspended the government's prison inspection team that initially uncovered the abuse. The government should launch independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of torture and ill-treatment, and institute disciplinary measures and criminal prosecution proceedings, as appropriate, against officials at all levels who are responsible for the abuse of detainees.
The United States and other governments should assist with legal reforms in Iraq by advising how to amend existing laws so that they are consistent with Iraq's obligations under international human rights standards. The international community should press Iraq to promptly investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment and criminally prosecute officials who are responsible for the abuse of detainees.
INTERPRESS News Service has reported that “the publication of a motherlode of secret field reports from the Iraq War is shining a bright light on heretofore unknown or underreported suspicions about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by their fellow Iraqis, often with their U.S. military counterparts “turning a blind eye.”
The Wikileaks documents offer graphic proof that U.S. servicemen and women often witnessed or were aware of Iraqi brutality against prisoners, but turned a blind eye.
While the Wikileaks documents are sparse on information about mistreatment of prisoners in U.S.-run detention facilities, they are heavy on the chilling details of abuse of Iraqis by Iraq's own army and police.
During the period covered by the Wikileaks documents, at least six prisoners died in Iraqi custody, most of them in recent years. Hundreds of reports referenced beatings, burnings and lashings. Such treatment appeared to be considered normal by the Iraqis.
According to The New York Times, “In one case, Americans suspected Iraqi Army officers of cutting off a detainee's fingers and burning him with acid. Two other cases produced accounts of the executions of bound detainees. And while some abuse cases were investigated by the Americans, most noted in the archive seemed to have been ignored, with the equivalent of an institutional shrug: soldiers told their officers and asked the Iraqis to investigate.”
U.S. military orders said that if U.S. personnel were not directly involved in prisoner abuse, U.S. soldiers need not take any action. This order caused U.S. forces to look the other way in cases of the abuse of Iraqis by Iraqis.
When U.S. forces discovered and reported abuse, Iraqis frequently failed to act. One report said a police chief refused to file charges “as long as the abuse produced no marks.” Another police chief told military inspectors that his officers engaged in abuse “and supported it as a method of conducting investigations.”
The Wikileaks documents also show that U.S. forces sometimes used the threat of Iraqi brutality to persuade prisoners to cooperate with interrogators.
It was not until later in the war that some of the worst examples of Iraqi abuse came to light. For example, in August 2009, an Iraqi police commando unit reported that a detainee committed suicide in its custody, but an autopsy conducted in the presence of a U.S. official “found bruises and burns on the detainee's body as well as visible injuries to the head, arm, torso, legs, and neck.” The report stated that the police “have reportedly begun an investigation.”
And in December, 12 Iraqi soldiers, including an intelligence officer, were caught on video in Tal Afar shooting to death a prisoner whose hands were tied, The Times reports.
Wikileaks reports that, while the U.S. forces told the local Iraqi Army commander, no inquiry was begun because U.S. soldiers were not involved.
It was not unusual, however, for U.S. soldiers to intervene. One U.S. soldier heard screams in a prison cell and found two badly dehydrated detainees with bruises on their bodies. He ordered them out of Iraqi custody.
In August 2006, Wikileaks documents show, a U.S. sergeant in Ramadi walked into an Iraqi military police station and found an Iraqi lieutenant using an electrical cable to slash the bottom of a detainee's feet. The sergeant stopped him, but later he found the same Iraqi officer whipping a detainee's back.
The Wikileaks disclosures, while reporting little that was unknown, paint a far more detailed picture of the military sea-change that defined the United States' involvement in Iraq. The New York Times says, “The early days of the Iraq war, with all its Wild West chaos, ushered in the era of the private contractor, wearing no uniform but fighting and dying in battle, gathering and disseminating intelligence and killing presumed insurgents.”
WikiLeaks is an international organization that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of otherwise unavailable documents while preserving the anonymity of sources. Its website was launched in 2006.
Meanwile, Marian Wang of ProPublica, wrote that “Iraqi protesters clashed with Iraqi riot police on Feb. 25, 2011, in Baghdad's Tahrir square following a rally calling for improved public services, more jobs and less corruption.”
She continued: “As the Mideast protests and government crackdowns continue, one country to watch closely is Iraq, with whom the U.S. has a long-term partnership and where clashes between protesters and government forces recently turned violent. Even as Iraqi security forces detained and abused hundreds of intellectuals and journalists, the U.S. government—in keeping with a pattern of silence on Iraq's abuses—has withheld criticism of its strategic ally. (Salon noticed this too )
“Asked generally about the violence against Iraqi demonstrators on Friday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said only “the approach we’ve taken with regard to Iraq is the same that we’ve taken with regard to the region,” which he said was to call on governments to respond to the protests peacefully. Neither the White House nor the State Department seem to have mentioned the matter since. Yesterday's State Department briefing discussed Libya, Egypt, Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China, Pakistan, Argentina, South Africa and Haiti—Iraq was never discussed.
ProPubica wrote that “nearly 30 people have been killed in the Iraqi unrest so far. Unlike in other Mideast countries, the Iraqis are demanding better services and an end to corruption, not an end to the government.
Four journalists who had been released described being rounded up well after they had left a protest of thousands at Baghdad's Tahrir Square. They said they were handcuffed, blindfolded, beaten and threatened with execution by soldiers from an army intelligence unit.
One journalist told the Washington Post that Iraqi soldiers used electric shocks on him.
It’s far from the first time the government of Iraq has been accused of detaining and abusing citizens, including journalists. Allegations of abuse by the post-Saddam Iraqi government have been made year after year , even at times by the U.S. government, which has also had to come to terms with its own detainee torture and abuse in American-run prisons in Iraq.
Last year, the Los Angeles Times uncovered a secret Baghdad prison where hundreds of Sunni men were detained and tortured by Iraqi security forces. “They beat people, they used electricity,” one Iraqi official told the Times. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to shut the prison, saying: “Our reforms continue, and we have the Human Rights Ministry to monitor this. We will hold accountable anybody who was proven involved in such acts."
Asked about the detention and torture by Iraqi forces in July 2010, a senior administration official said in a background briefing that the U.S. is "engaged with the Iraqis" on these kind of issues "on a regular basis." The administration official noted that what was "particularly striking" was that the Iraqi government took corrective action and "Iraqis are finding a way to use the political system."
Months later, Amnesty International released another report detailing continued widespread abuse and torture in Iraqi prisons. And earlier this month, Human Rights Watch released a report that described yet another secret prison run by Maliki that was still operating. (Iraqi government officials denied the report.) Two Iraqi journalists told NPR their stories—one said he had been imprisoned at a secret facility for nine months; the other said his nephew was detained by Maliki’s personal combat brigade, which reportedly controls the secret prison.
Asked earlier this month about the latest prison allegations, a U.S. military spokesman made clear that U.S. troops were not involved and referred further questions to Maliki’s government, the Post reported
Finally, the Post reported on Sunday that Iraqi security forces detained about 300 people, including prominent journalists, artists and lawyers who took part in nationwide demonstrations Friday, in what some of them described as an operation to intimidate Baghdad intellectuals who hold sway over popular opinion.
On Saturday, the Post wrote, four journalists who had been released described being rounded up well after they had left a protest of thousands at Baghdad's Tahrir Square. They said they were handcuffed, blindfolded, beaten and threatened with execution by soldiers from an army intelligence unit.
"It was like they were dealing with a bunch of al-Qaeda operatives, not a group of journalists," said Hussan al-Ssairi, a journalist and poet who described seeing hundreds of protesters in black hoods at the detention facility.
"Yesterday was like a test, like a picture of the new democracy in Iraq."
The Iraq protests were different from many of the revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa in that demonstrators were calling for reform, not for getting rid of the government. Their demands ranged from more electricity and jobs to ending corruption, reflecting a dissatisfaction with government that cuts across sectarian and class lines, the Post wrote.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Democracy A Minefield for Egypt’s Rulers
By William Fisher
As Egypt’s interim rulers unveiled proposed constitutional amendments and a timetable for elections, more than twenty Egyptian human rights organizations charged that the military is failing to “lay the foundation for a democratic, civil state that respects human rights -- the overriding goal for which Egyptians made costly sacrifices.”
The organizations acknowledged that “The armed forces acted as a pillar of support for the Egyptian revolution, helping to achieve its first goal of the removal of the former president and the dissolution of the People’s Assembly and Shura Council, which were stigmatized and delegitimized by flagrantly fraudulent elections.”
But they said the military wasn’t moving rapidly enough in many areas and too rapidly in a few others.
The Egyptian State web site reported that, “Members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces confirmed during a meeting with the Youth Union of the revolution, their full understanding of the demands of the January 25 Revolution paying attention to the legitimate people’s demands. The Supreme Council stressed that all promises given by the Armed Forced will be achieved.”
The Council pledged to hand the authority to the coming president in October, adding that, “within this period the Armed Forces have exerted efforts since January 28 and are still doing their best in order to achieve all people’s demands, but it takes time, as the Armed Forces is the only institution in charge shouldering the responsibility of everything where almost other bodies engaged in a sit-in which affect the production process.”
The accelerated elections timetable announced by the military has also drawn criticism from other quarters. Human Rights First, a U.S.-based human rights group believes the rapid timetable “could undermine efforts to reform the nation’s existing government.”
Human Rights First’s Neil Hicks declared, ““Today’s announcement raises concerns that the military leadership may be seeking an electoral rubber stamp to preserve the status quo of a military dominated government, which Egypt has had since 1952. This swift timetable will make it difficult for opposition political parties to organize or for new political groupings to coalesce and register.”
According to today’s SCAF announcement, a referendum on
constitutional amendments will take place in April 2011, followed by
parliamentary elections in June 2011 and a presidential election in October
2011.
Zyad El-Eleimy, a member of the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, said the council's timeframe for the referendum and the elections reflected its eagerness to hand over power; however many worry that the timeframe is not long enough to allow newer political parties to establish support and legitimacy.
The Coalition of the Youth Revolution warned against the fast-approaching elections, and called for all timetables to be delayed one year so as not to affect the revolution and its gains. The Youth Coalition has called for the presidential election to take place before the parliamentary elections, or at least for there to be a presidential council appointed beforehand
The interim ruling Coalition has proposed a 12-month interim government, with a presidential council of two lawyers or judges and one military figure ruling alongside a cabinet of technocrats. The army has refused to give a concrete timetable for the removal of the remaining ministers of the Mubarak regime.
Legal experts and politicians have suggested that the presidential election be held before the parliamentary poll so no single group can seize parliament to mobilize support for a presidential candidate. Opposition groups have called for the postponement of parliamentary elections until political parties are strong enough to gain people's trust and build popular bases.
The human rights organizations said the Supreme Council must assume its responsibilities and honor its vows to respond to the demands and aspirations of the Egyptian people as expressed in the January 25 revolution.
Additionally, it must face the repercussions of the overthrow of the Mubarak regime and the disintegration and suspicious withdrawal of the security establishment that accompanied it.
The Council “must also expose and curb the catastrophic consequences of theft, financial and administrative corruption, and the ruination of the country’s political life perpetrated by a broad network of interests, including the office of the presidency, prominent figures of what was previously known as the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), and influential leaders within the parliament and the executive branch.”
The organizations made four principal observations:
1. Making a clean break with the former dictator’s regime required the immediate removal of the government created by him to mislead the people and contain their revolution. Attempts to repair this government with piecemeal changes will not dispel the legitimate fears many people feel about the political survival of certain figures close to the deposed president and cannot so easily shirk their responsibility for both the wide range of crimes committed during Mubarak’s tenure and the criminal misinformation campaigns designed to discredit the goals of the revolution and incite against those who were part of it.
2. Making a clean break with the policies and crimes of the Mubarak regime, restoring the rule of law, and subordinating state institutions to that law requires more decisive, transparent steps to hold accountable and punish figures responsible for crimes and grave abuses committed under Mubarak’s regime in public and fair trials.
The groups said the measures taken thus far by the military “seem selective and not aimed at establishing a legal system for accountability and punishment or announcing facts to the public.”
In particular, they note “severe shortcomings, or at the very least an unjustified secrecy, surrounding the measures that must be taken to ensure accountability for major crimes,”
These include:
a) The identification and prosecution of those responsible for issuing orders to open fire on demonstrators.
b) The identification and prosecution of those responsible for giving the green light to acts of murder and paid thuggery in the name of “loyalty to Mubarak.”
c) Making public the facts surrounding the agencies and persons responsible for the suspicious withdrawal and disappearance of police forces and the release of prisoners and criminals from prisons, which left the country vulnerable to widespread looting and theft.
d) Former Information Minister Anas al-Fiqqi must be prosecuted for his responsibility in managing the media campaigns aimed at misleading public opinion, smearing participants in the popular revolution, and the xenophobic campaign inciting hatred of foreigners.
3. Confirming the legitimacy of the demands of the Egyptian labor movement since 12 February demanding its social and economic rights, the undersigned organizations announce their solidarity with the labor strikes and urge the Supreme Council of Armed forces to:
a) Quickly implement court decisions to set a minimum wage that is truly compatible with prices;
b) Quickly transform temporary into permanent labor;
c) Set unemployment benefits;
d) Dissolve the board of directors of the Egyptian General Federation of Trade Unions and of the general labor unions, which their elections were held in violation to orders of the administrative courts and the Supreme Administrative Court;
e) Depose the heads and board members of holding companies, who took part in wasting public money and assets, crushing national industry, and overlooking labor rights.
4. Making a clean break with the police state, the systematic practices of torture, involuntary disappearance, and murder, and the executive’s control of the Public Prosecutor’s Office that have existed in Egypt for several decades requires the dissolution of the State Security apparatus. It is unfortunate that the leaders of this agency—responsible for grave human rights abuses, the destruction of political life, and the undermining of Egyptians’ dignity—are still walking the streets freely.
Thus far the public has been given only brief statements indicating that the director of the agency has been suspended and is being investigated, with no clarification as to the nature of these investigations. In addition, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces should open an immediate investigation in the documented reports indicating the involvement of members of the Military Police in cases of arbitrary detention and torture of detainees during the last period and refer those responsible to trial.
The organizations said they have previously stated that “the coming elections, both parliamentary and presidential, should come at the end of a transitional period of no less than one year during which civil liberties are fully respected, particularly the freedom to establish political parties, trade unions, NGOs, and all forms of media.”
Today, the groups accused the military of moving too quickly toward elections for which proper preparations have not been made.
Such haste, they said, “is liable to lead to the establishment of constitutional institutions in a manner that differs little from those under the Mubarak regime and will do little to enable the forces and youth movements that led this revolution to express themselves politically in new political parties and independent media.”
They added, “Indeed, as it currently stands, the outcome of the coming elections will continue to be disputed by the ability of NDP members to mobilize factional sentiment and money and the organizational ability of the Muslim Brotherhood to employ religion and charitable work to attract votes.”
The organizations cautioned that “holding elections after only minor constitutional revisions threatens aspirations for a real separation and balance of powers and runs the risk of preserving the same dictatorial prerogatives enjoyed by the president in the suspended constitution, with no accountability or genuine parliamentary oversight. This threatens the perpetuation of the same autocratic system, only without Mubarak and some of his supporters.”
“The democratic transition process – under the joint leadership of a presidential council and a new civil government – should enjoy the wide partnership of the people represented in the forces that led the revolution – women and men – and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. This needs opening an institutional dialogue with political parties and groups and civil society, led by youth groups who have instigated the revolution. The dialogue should not be reduced to discussion with individuals and must provide the opportunity for the widest societal dialogue to make the aspired future,” the groups said.
Signatories included virtually all of the major human rights groups in Egypt.
The military’s announcements came on the heels of more violence in Egypt over the weekend. Egyptian security forces used force to disrupt protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and in the city of Mansoura. The Army later apologized to the peaceful demonstrators.
HRF’s Hicks observed that these actions and today’s announcement “are raising concerns that Egypt may be reverting to business as usual in its form of government.”
Over the weekend, the Constitutional Committee announced proposed constitutional amendments that ease restrictions on eligibility conditions for presidential elections, limit the number of presidential terms to two four-year periods and ensure full judicial monitoring of elections.
Specifically, the Articles planned for amendment are Article 75, 76, and 77, which deal with presidential term limits and nominations; Article 139, which will force the president to appoint a deputy; Article 189, which mandates next president to draft a new constitution within six months; Article 148, which will give parliament control over the emergency law; Article 93, which will give the Supreme Court control over the legitimacy of parliament; and Article 179, which will limit the government's power to infringe on rights in the name of stopping terrorism.
A national referendum on the changes is expected on March 19th. The Muslim Brotherhood has said the changes are reasonable, however they expressed concern that Article 5, which prohibits religious party formation, remains.
The April 6 Youth Movement has expressed contentment but proposed that each amendment receive a separate vote and there should be additional language protecting political freedoms. The amendments have garnered mixed reactions, as some groups feel more is needed.
While opposition groups welcomed the proposed amendments to the constitution, they maintain they are not enough to guarantee free and fair presidential elections.
Many voiced concerns that the proposed amendments still give the president the ultimate authority and does not change the fundamental system wherein the president can interfere directly in all aspects of government.
Others stressed that there is not enough protection for civil liberties and political parties.
The Egyptian Coalition for Civic Education and Women's Participation, which comprises over 100 NGOs, denounced amendments proposed to Articles 75, 76 and 189, saying they exclude women candidates from presidential elections. A widespread debate has emerged between human rights organizations in Egypt as to whether the proposed amendments will provide enough protection for Egyptian citizens.
It is worth noting that there has been something of a strain developing between the Army and the pro-democracy forces. During the height of the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, the Army was greeted affectionately by protestors, who felt the military had kept pro-Mubarak forces at bay outside Tahrir Square.
But the weekend violence by police toward demonstrators has perhaps taken some of the edge off those warm feelings. In addition, both the army and demonstrators are beginning to learn the full extent of what has to be changed before Egypt can have a democratic form of government – and both are feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task.
Finally, pro-democracy forces point out that every member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces owes his appointment to Hosni Mubarak. They question whether this panel can be independent enough and robust enough to rid the government of those who profited so handsomely from Mubarak’s crony capitalism.
As Egypt’s interim rulers unveiled proposed constitutional amendments and a timetable for elections, more than twenty Egyptian human rights organizations charged that the military is failing to “lay the foundation for a democratic, civil state that respects human rights -- the overriding goal for which Egyptians made costly sacrifices.”
The organizations acknowledged that “The armed forces acted as a pillar of support for the Egyptian revolution, helping to achieve its first goal of the removal of the former president and the dissolution of the People’s Assembly and Shura Council, which were stigmatized and delegitimized by flagrantly fraudulent elections.”
But they said the military wasn’t moving rapidly enough in many areas and too rapidly in a few others.
The Egyptian State web site reported that, “Members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces confirmed during a meeting with the Youth Union of the revolution, their full understanding of the demands of the January 25 Revolution paying attention to the legitimate people’s demands. The Supreme Council stressed that all promises given by the Armed Forced will be achieved.”
The Council pledged to hand the authority to the coming president in October, adding that, “within this period the Armed Forces have exerted efforts since January 28 and are still doing their best in order to achieve all people’s demands, but it takes time, as the Armed Forces is the only institution in charge shouldering the responsibility of everything where almost other bodies engaged in a sit-in which affect the production process.”
The accelerated elections timetable announced by the military has also drawn criticism from other quarters. Human Rights First, a U.S.-based human rights group believes the rapid timetable “could undermine efforts to reform the nation’s existing government.”
Human Rights First’s Neil Hicks declared, ““Today’s announcement raises concerns that the military leadership may be seeking an electoral rubber stamp to preserve the status quo of a military dominated government, which Egypt has had since 1952. This swift timetable will make it difficult for opposition political parties to organize or for new political groupings to coalesce and register.”
According to today’s SCAF announcement, a referendum on
constitutional amendments will take place in April 2011, followed by
parliamentary elections in June 2011 and a presidential election in October
2011.
Zyad El-Eleimy, a member of the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, said the council's timeframe for the referendum and the elections reflected its eagerness to hand over power; however many worry that the timeframe is not long enough to allow newer political parties to establish support and legitimacy.
The Coalition of the Youth Revolution warned against the fast-approaching elections, and called for all timetables to be delayed one year so as not to affect the revolution and its gains. The Youth Coalition has called for the presidential election to take place before the parliamentary elections, or at least for there to be a presidential council appointed beforehand
The interim ruling Coalition has proposed a 12-month interim government, with a presidential council of two lawyers or judges and one military figure ruling alongside a cabinet of technocrats. The army has refused to give a concrete timetable for the removal of the remaining ministers of the Mubarak regime.
Legal experts and politicians have suggested that the presidential election be held before the parliamentary poll so no single group can seize parliament to mobilize support for a presidential candidate. Opposition groups have called for the postponement of parliamentary elections until political parties are strong enough to gain people's trust and build popular bases.
The human rights organizations said the Supreme Council must assume its responsibilities and honor its vows to respond to the demands and aspirations of the Egyptian people as expressed in the January 25 revolution.
Additionally, it must face the repercussions of the overthrow of the Mubarak regime and the disintegration and suspicious withdrawal of the security establishment that accompanied it.
The Council “must also expose and curb the catastrophic consequences of theft, financial and administrative corruption, and the ruination of the country’s political life perpetrated by a broad network of interests, including the office of the presidency, prominent figures of what was previously known as the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), and influential leaders within the parliament and the executive branch.”
The organizations made four principal observations:
1. Making a clean break with the former dictator’s regime required the immediate removal of the government created by him to mislead the people and contain their revolution. Attempts to repair this government with piecemeal changes will not dispel the legitimate fears many people feel about the political survival of certain figures close to the deposed president and cannot so easily shirk their responsibility for both the wide range of crimes committed during Mubarak’s tenure and the criminal misinformation campaigns designed to discredit the goals of the revolution and incite against those who were part of it.
2. Making a clean break with the policies and crimes of the Mubarak regime, restoring the rule of law, and subordinating state institutions to that law requires more decisive, transparent steps to hold accountable and punish figures responsible for crimes and grave abuses committed under Mubarak’s regime in public and fair trials.
The groups said the measures taken thus far by the military “seem selective and not aimed at establishing a legal system for accountability and punishment or announcing facts to the public.”
In particular, they note “severe shortcomings, or at the very least an unjustified secrecy, surrounding the measures that must be taken to ensure accountability for major crimes,”
These include:
a) The identification and prosecution of those responsible for issuing orders to open fire on demonstrators.
b) The identification and prosecution of those responsible for giving the green light to acts of murder and paid thuggery in the name of “loyalty to Mubarak.”
c) Making public the facts surrounding the agencies and persons responsible for the suspicious withdrawal and disappearance of police forces and the release of prisoners and criminals from prisons, which left the country vulnerable to widespread looting and theft.
d) Former Information Minister Anas al-Fiqqi must be prosecuted for his responsibility in managing the media campaigns aimed at misleading public opinion, smearing participants in the popular revolution, and the xenophobic campaign inciting hatred of foreigners.
3. Confirming the legitimacy of the demands of the Egyptian labor movement since 12 February demanding its social and economic rights, the undersigned organizations announce their solidarity with the labor strikes and urge the Supreme Council of Armed forces to:
a) Quickly implement court decisions to set a minimum wage that is truly compatible with prices;
b) Quickly transform temporary into permanent labor;
c) Set unemployment benefits;
d) Dissolve the board of directors of the Egyptian General Federation of Trade Unions and of the general labor unions, which their elections were held in violation to orders of the administrative courts and the Supreme Administrative Court;
e) Depose the heads and board members of holding companies, who took part in wasting public money and assets, crushing national industry, and overlooking labor rights.
4. Making a clean break with the police state, the systematic practices of torture, involuntary disappearance, and murder, and the executive’s control of the Public Prosecutor’s Office that have existed in Egypt for several decades requires the dissolution of the State Security apparatus. It is unfortunate that the leaders of this agency—responsible for grave human rights abuses, the destruction of political life, and the undermining of Egyptians’ dignity—are still walking the streets freely.
Thus far the public has been given only brief statements indicating that the director of the agency has been suspended and is being investigated, with no clarification as to the nature of these investigations. In addition, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces should open an immediate investigation in the documented reports indicating the involvement of members of the Military Police in cases of arbitrary detention and torture of detainees during the last period and refer those responsible to trial.
The organizations said they have previously stated that “the coming elections, both parliamentary and presidential, should come at the end of a transitional period of no less than one year during which civil liberties are fully respected, particularly the freedom to establish political parties, trade unions, NGOs, and all forms of media.”
Today, the groups accused the military of moving too quickly toward elections for which proper preparations have not been made.
Such haste, they said, “is liable to lead to the establishment of constitutional institutions in a manner that differs little from those under the Mubarak regime and will do little to enable the forces and youth movements that led this revolution to express themselves politically in new political parties and independent media.”
They added, “Indeed, as it currently stands, the outcome of the coming elections will continue to be disputed by the ability of NDP members to mobilize factional sentiment and money and the organizational ability of the Muslim Brotherhood to employ religion and charitable work to attract votes.”
The organizations cautioned that “holding elections after only minor constitutional revisions threatens aspirations for a real separation and balance of powers and runs the risk of preserving the same dictatorial prerogatives enjoyed by the president in the suspended constitution, with no accountability or genuine parliamentary oversight. This threatens the perpetuation of the same autocratic system, only without Mubarak and some of his supporters.”
“The democratic transition process – under the joint leadership of a presidential council and a new civil government – should enjoy the wide partnership of the people represented in the forces that led the revolution – women and men – and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. This needs opening an institutional dialogue with political parties and groups and civil society, led by youth groups who have instigated the revolution. The dialogue should not be reduced to discussion with individuals and must provide the opportunity for the widest societal dialogue to make the aspired future,” the groups said.
Signatories included virtually all of the major human rights groups in Egypt.
The military’s announcements came on the heels of more violence in Egypt over the weekend. Egyptian security forces used force to disrupt protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and in the city of Mansoura. The Army later apologized to the peaceful demonstrators.
HRF’s Hicks observed that these actions and today’s announcement “are raising concerns that Egypt may be reverting to business as usual in its form of government.”
Over the weekend, the Constitutional Committee announced proposed constitutional amendments that ease restrictions on eligibility conditions for presidential elections, limit the number of presidential terms to two four-year periods and ensure full judicial monitoring of elections.
Specifically, the Articles planned for amendment are Article 75, 76, and 77, which deal with presidential term limits and nominations; Article 139, which will force the president to appoint a deputy; Article 189, which mandates next president to draft a new constitution within six months; Article 148, which will give parliament control over the emergency law; Article 93, which will give the Supreme Court control over the legitimacy of parliament; and Article 179, which will limit the government's power to infringe on rights in the name of stopping terrorism.
A national referendum on the changes is expected on March 19th. The Muslim Brotherhood has said the changes are reasonable, however they expressed concern that Article 5, which prohibits religious party formation, remains.
The April 6 Youth Movement has expressed contentment but proposed that each amendment receive a separate vote and there should be additional language protecting political freedoms. The amendments have garnered mixed reactions, as some groups feel more is needed.
While opposition groups welcomed the proposed amendments to the constitution, they maintain they are not enough to guarantee free and fair presidential elections.
Many voiced concerns that the proposed amendments still give the president the ultimate authority and does not change the fundamental system wherein the president can interfere directly in all aspects of government.
Others stressed that there is not enough protection for civil liberties and political parties.
The Egyptian Coalition for Civic Education and Women's Participation, which comprises over 100 NGOs, denounced amendments proposed to Articles 75, 76 and 189, saying they exclude women candidates from presidential elections. A widespread debate has emerged between human rights organizations in Egypt as to whether the proposed amendments will provide enough protection for Egyptian citizens.
It is worth noting that there has been something of a strain developing between the Army and the pro-democracy forces. During the height of the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, the Army was greeted affectionately by protestors, who felt the military had kept pro-Mubarak forces at bay outside Tahrir Square.
But the weekend violence by police toward demonstrators has perhaps taken some of the edge off those warm feelings. In addition, both the army and demonstrators are beginning to learn the full extent of what has to be changed before Egypt can have a democratic form of government – and both are feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task.
Finally, pro-democracy forces point out that every member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces owes his appointment to Hosni Mubarak. They question whether this panel can be independent enough and robust enough to rid the government of those who profited so handsomely from Mubarak’s crony capitalism.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Could Syria Be Next?
By William Fisher
As the state dominos continue to fall across the Arab Middle East and North Africa, “who’s next?” has become the most fashionable parlor game in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and points East.
Tunisia and Egypt have had their so-far successful uprisings. Pro-democracy demonstrators in Yemen and Bahrain are still trying to tip over their dominos. Libya’s domino is, as of five minutes ago, in a horizontal position. Morocco, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia appear to be vertical for the moment, with the Saudis offering its people the most aggressive rewards to stay quiet and enjoy the sunshine: cold hard cash.
But what about Syria? We haven’t heard much about this bastion of democracy, but that’s because the media tends to go where cataclysms have already happened, not those where the explosion is sometime in the future.
How far in the future, lord only knows. But assignment editors might do well to keep a special eye on Syria as possibly the next domino to fall.
Why not? It seems to have all the ingredients!
Syria’s 20 million people live under the authoritarian presidential regime of Bashar al-Asad. The president makes key decisions with counsel from a small circle of security advisors, ministers, and senior members of the ruling Ba'ath (Arab Socialist Renaissance) Party. The constitution mandates the primacy of Ba'ath party leaders in state institutions and society. President al-Asad and party leaders, supported by security services, dominate all three branches of government in what is characterized as a republic.
But, regardless of its structure, it is a dictatorship.
According to the U.S. State Department, in 2007 al-Asad was confirmed for another seven-year term in a "yes or no" referendum that local and international human rights advocates considered neither free nor fair.
What’s Syria’s human rights situation today? Probably as miserable as anywhere in the Middle East. But receiving a lot less attention from the U.S. press. When American journalists write about Syria, it’s generally within the context of its proximity to and violent history with neighboring Israel. Or Syria’s relationship with Iran, whose shipments of arms for Hezbollah must pass through Syrian territory.
But Syria could become a crashing domino for none of those reasons. It might happen because, in a neighborhood peopled by monster governments, Syria is a monster in its own right.
Just look at 2010 alone. In its annual report on human rights around the world, the State Department tells us that during 2010 “the government and members of the security forces committed numerous serious human rights abuses, and the human rights situation worsened.”
Here’s more from the State Department report:
During 2010, the government systematically repressed citizens' abilities to change their government. In a climate of impunity, there were instances of arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life.
Members of the security forces tortured and physically abused prisoners and detainees. Security forces arrested and detained individuals--including activists, organizers, and other regime critics -- without due process.
Lengthy pretrial and incommunicado detention remained a serious problem. During the year the government sentenced to prison several high-profile members of the human rights and civil society communities.
The government violated citizens' privacy rights and imposed significant restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, and travel. An atmosphere of corruption pervaded the government.
Violence and societal discrimination against women continued, as did sexual exploitation, increasingly aimed at Iraqi refugees, including minors. The government discriminated against minorities, particularly Kurds and Ahvazis, and severely restricted workers' rights.
During the year there were numerous reports of deaths in detention, torture, and people being disappeared. Security Services appear to act with total impunity and there are no reports of arrests, trials or even reprimands of law enforcement officials.
So sayeth our State Department.
There is no freedom of expression in Syria. The most recent outrage in this department is the arrest and jailing of a 20-year-old woman blogger, who has been sentenced after a closed-door trial to five years in jail on state security charges -- "divulging information to a foreign state."
It is widely believed that she was targeted for her online poems and
writings on political and social issues, such as on the fate of Palestinians
after the 2008 military operations in Gaza.
The State Security Court's verdict is final, and there is no possibility of
appeal.
Before the current president, Basher al-Assad, there was his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled the country for more than thjirty years. His reign was brutal and retrograde. Syria’s support for terrorist groups isolated it even from the more moderate Arab governments.
While Assad has from time to time made gestures toward a more open and mild regime, Syria has remained a dictatorship.
Assad’s government demonstrated its hold on the country last month, while the Middle East and North Africa was exploding in a wave of protest and civil disobedience. Anti-Assad citizens ran campaigns on Facebook and Twitter, calling for demonstrations in Damascus on Feb. 4 and 5. But, as the New York Times reported, “no one showed up except for police officers and members of the security forces.”
The Times wrote: “In stark contrast to several other Arab capitals, where hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated against their governments, planned ‘Day of Rage’ in Damascus on Friday failed to attract any protesters against President Bashar al-Assad, a sign that he opposition here remains too weak to challenge one of the region’s most entrenched ruling parties.”
Syrian activists warn that Syria is “not ready" to sustain a Tahrir-type protest.
But authorities are taking no chances. On Friday, security officials arrested Ghassan al-Najjar, an Islamist who heads a small opposition group. He had called on Syrians in his city to demand more freedoms.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement last week that at least 10 people were summoned by the police in the previous 48 hours and pressed to not demonstrate. There were also reports that prominent opposition figures, many of whom spent years in jail for opposing the government, were also summoned. On Thursday, three Syrians were briefly detained and forced to sign pledges not to participate in future protests, after they protested, along with 12 others, against corruption and high cellphone costs.
At least 100 Syrians held a vigil in support of their Egyptian counterparts last Saturday near the Egyptian Embassy in Damascus, and quietly lit candles as police officers kept a watchful eye nearby.
Eventually, witnesses said, one of them shouted: “Oh blow, winds of change. Yesterday Tunisia became green, tomorrow Egypt will be free. Oh, winds of change, blow and sweep away injustice and shame.” As she finished, they said, officers quickly moved in, ordering them to leave immediately or else they would be detained.
“It is still soon for us,” a Syrian activist told the New York Times. “We have time. The street is definitely not ready yet,” he said.
One factor possibly discouraging Syrian activists from staging a Tahrir Square-type demonstration is the memory of The Hama massacre of February 1982,when the Syrian army bombarded the town of Hama to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood. An estimated 17,000 to 40,000 people were killed, including about 1,000 soldiers, and large parts of the old city were destroyed. The attack has been described as possibly being "the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East".
But there are other fctors as well. Chip Pitts, a lecturer in law at Stanford and Oxford universities, told The Public Record, “Syria would certainly be more of an uphill battle, being relatively insular as compared to the other regimes in the region, and likely falling on the Libyan side of the equation, where economic and political pressures and latent resentment against the long-standing and repressive rule by the minority elite (the Alawites, in Syria) could result in even wider and more effective action than the fairly small protests seen to date.”
But, he addds, “the regime would almost certainly continue to resort to brutal force in order to defend and perpetuate itself as revealed in its recent reactions, its crackdowns on bloggers, and the alleged killings of prisoners who had started an uprising at Sednaya Prison last week.”
“The continued serious human rights violations and extreme intolerance of dissent under Syria’s ever-present emergency laws combine with the limited economic opportunity for the 65% of the populace under age 30, to set the stage for a wider revolt that could put the lie to the somewhat kinder, gentler, and less hated face presented by Bashar al-Assad (including in his turnabout in granting the recent civil pay rise and his stated willingness to embrace political reforms),” he said. President Assad lifted the three-year ban on Facebook and YouTube only three weeks ago.
Pitts added: “The Assad family has already proven itself capable, like Gaddafi, of repeatedly deploying the Syrian military against the Syrian people, especially including the Kurdish Syrians and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the notorious massacre of tens of thousands in the town of Hama in 1982 remains very much in everyone’s mind. Former staff colonel Bashar al-Assad still depends on the military and the secret police/intelligence Mukhaberat to retain power, and despite some perceptions to the contrary, is still his uncle’s nephew and his father’s son. That said, the ongoing events of the past few weeks certainly demonstrate that anything is possible –and long overdue change in Syria would be very welcome.”
Pitts concluded, “I also think it’s undoubtedly true that Bashar al-Assad is less hated than Ghadafi, in part because he hasn’t been in power for so long -- i.e. he’s a younger generation and the successor autocrat rather than the decades-long autocrat -- but also because he comes across as more normal and (relatively) less arbitrary. The fact that unemployment in Syria (8%) is only about one-third that of Libya (25%) probably also plays a role.”
Americans who have followed the “war on terror” as waged by the George W. Bush Administration may be familiar with Syrian justice through the ordeal experienced by Maher Arar.
Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian origin who was detained at Kennedy Airport in New York in September 2002, held in detention for two weeks, flown to Jordan, and then driven to Syria, where he was detained for ten months and, he says, tortured repeatedly.
It appears that Arar had been named by two other Canadians, `Abdullah al-Malki, of Syrian origin, and Ahmad al-Maati, of Egyptian origin, whom Syrian intelligence agents reportedly interrogated and tortured earlier in 2002. All three were eventually released without ever being charged with a criminal offense.
The Canadian Government convened a blue-ribbon inquiry into the circumstances of Arar’s “rendition” to Syria, determined that it had been guilty of providing false intelligence to U.S. authorities. The head of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police was forced to resign his post. The Canadian government apologized to Arar and awarded him a settlement of approximately $10 million.
As the state dominos continue to fall across the Arab Middle East and North Africa, “who’s next?” has become the most fashionable parlor game in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and points East.
Tunisia and Egypt have had their so-far successful uprisings. Pro-democracy demonstrators in Yemen and Bahrain are still trying to tip over their dominos. Libya’s domino is, as of five minutes ago, in a horizontal position. Morocco, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia appear to be vertical for the moment, with the Saudis offering its people the most aggressive rewards to stay quiet and enjoy the sunshine: cold hard cash.
But what about Syria? We haven’t heard much about this bastion of democracy, but that’s because the media tends to go where cataclysms have already happened, not those where the explosion is sometime in the future.
How far in the future, lord only knows. But assignment editors might do well to keep a special eye on Syria as possibly the next domino to fall.
Why not? It seems to have all the ingredients!
Syria’s 20 million people live under the authoritarian presidential regime of Bashar al-Asad. The president makes key decisions with counsel from a small circle of security advisors, ministers, and senior members of the ruling Ba'ath (Arab Socialist Renaissance) Party. The constitution mandates the primacy of Ba'ath party leaders in state institutions and society. President al-Asad and party leaders, supported by security services, dominate all three branches of government in what is characterized as a republic.
But, regardless of its structure, it is a dictatorship.
According to the U.S. State Department, in 2007 al-Asad was confirmed for another seven-year term in a "yes or no" referendum that local and international human rights advocates considered neither free nor fair.
What’s Syria’s human rights situation today? Probably as miserable as anywhere in the Middle East. But receiving a lot less attention from the U.S. press. When American journalists write about Syria, it’s generally within the context of its proximity to and violent history with neighboring Israel. Or Syria’s relationship with Iran, whose shipments of arms for Hezbollah must pass through Syrian territory.
But Syria could become a crashing domino for none of those reasons. It might happen because, in a neighborhood peopled by monster governments, Syria is a monster in its own right.
Just look at 2010 alone. In its annual report on human rights around the world, the State Department tells us that during 2010 “the government and members of the security forces committed numerous serious human rights abuses, and the human rights situation worsened.”
Here’s more from the State Department report:
During 2010, the government systematically repressed citizens' abilities to change their government. In a climate of impunity, there were instances of arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life.
Members of the security forces tortured and physically abused prisoners and detainees. Security forces arrested and detained individuals--including activists, organizers, and other regime critics -- without due process.
Lengthy pretrial and incommunicado detention remained a serious problem. During the year the government sentenced to prison several high-profile members of the human rights and civil society communities.
The government violated citizens' privacy rights and imposed significant restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, and travel. An atmosphere of corruption pervaded the government.
Violence and societal discrimination against women continued, as did sexual exploitation, increasingly aimed at Iraqi refugees, including minors. The government discriminated against minorities, particularly Kurds and Ahvazis, and severely restricted workers' rights.
During the year there were numerous reports of deaths in detention, torture, and people being disappeared. Security Services appear to act with total impunity and there are no reports of arrests, trials or even reprimands of law enforcement officials.
So sayeth our State Department.
There is no freedom of expression in Syria. The most recent outrage in this department is the arrest and jailing of a 20-year-old woman blogger, who has been sentenced after a closed-door trial to five years in jail on state security charges -- "divulging information to a foreign state."
It is widely believed that she was targeted for her online poems and
writings on political and social issues, such as on the fate of Palestinians
after the 2008 military operations in Gaza.
The State Security Court's verdict is final, and there is no possibility of
appeal.
Before the current president, Basher al-Assad, there was his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled the country for more than thjirty years. His reign was brutal and retrograde. Syria’s support for terrorist groups isolated it even from the more moderate Arab governments.
While Assad has from time to time made gestures toward a more open and mild regime, Syria has remained a dictatorship.
Assad’s government demonstrated its hold on the country last month, while the Middle East and North Africa was exploding in a wave of protest and civil disobedience. Anti-Assad citizens ran campaigns on Facebook and Twitter, calling for demonstrations in Damascus on Feb. 4 and 5. But, as the New York Times reported, “no one showed up except for police officers and members of the security forces.”
The Times wrote: “In stark contrast to several other Arab capitals, where hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated against their governments, planned ‘Day of Rage’ in Damascus on Friday failed to attract any protesters against President Bashar al-Assad, a sign that he opposition here remains too weak to challenge one of the region’s most entrenched ruling parties.”
Syrian activists warn that Syria is “not ready" to sustain a Tahrir-type protest.
But authorities are taking no chances. On Friday, security officials arrested Ghassan al-Najjar, an Islamist who heads a small opposition group. He had called on Syrians in his city to demand more freedoms.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement last week that at least 10 people were summoned by the police in the previous 48 hours and pressed to not demonstrate. There were also reports that prominent opposition figures, many of whom spent years in jail for opposing the government, were also summoned. On Thursday, three Syrians were briefly detained and forced to sign pledges not to participate in future protests, after they protested, along with 12 others, against corruption and high cellphone costs.
At least 100 Syrians held a vigil in support of their Egyptian counterparts last Saturday near the Egyptian Embassy in Damascus, and quietly lit candles as police officers kept a watchful eye nearby.
Eventually, witnesses said, one of them shouted: “Oh blow, winds of change. Yesterday Tunisia became green, tomorrow Egypt will be free. Oh, winds of change, blow and sweep away injustice and shame.” As she finished, they said, officers quickly moved in, ordering them to leave immediately or else they would be detained.
“It is still soon for us,” a Syrian activist told the New York Times. “We have time. The street is definitely not ready yet,” he said.
One factor possibly discouraging Syrian activists from staging a Tahrir Square-type demonstration is the memory of The Hama massacre of February 1982,when the Syrian army bombarded the town of Hama to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood. An estimated 17,000 to 40,000 people were killed, including about 1,000 soldiers, and large parts of the old city were destroyed. The attack has been described as possibly being "the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East".
But there are other fctors as well. Chip Pitts, a lecturer in law at Stanford and Oxford universities, told The Public Record, “Syria would certainly be more of an uphill battle, being relatively insular as compared to the other regimes in the region, and likely falling on the Libyan side of the equation, where economic and political pressures and latent resentment against the long-standing and repressive rule by the minority elite (the Alawites, in Syria) could result in even wider and more effective action than the fairly small protests seen to date.”
But, he addds, “the regime would almost certainly continue to resort to brutal force in order to defend and perpetuate itself as revealed in its recent reactions, its crackdowns on bloggers, and the alleged killings of prisoners who had started an uprising at Sednaya Prison last week.”
“The continued serious human rights violations and extreme intolerance of dissent under Syria’s ever-present emergency laws combine with the limited economic opportunity for the 65% of the populace under age 30, to set the stage for a wider revolt that could put the lie to the somewhat kinder, gentler, and less hated face presented by Bashar al-Assad (including in his turnabout in granting the recent civil pay rise and his stated willingness to embrace political reforms),” he said. President Assad lifted the three-year ban on Facebook and YouTube only three weeks ago.
Pitts added: “The Assad family has already proven itself capable, like Gaddafi, of repeatedly deploying the Syrian military against the Syrian people, especially including the Kurdish Syrians and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the notorious massacre of tens of thousands in the town of Hama in 1982 remains very much in everyone’s mind. Former staff colonel Bashar al-Assad still depends on the military and the secret police/intelligence Mukhaberat to retain power, and despite some perceptions to the contrary, is still his uncle’s nephew and his father’s son. That said, the ongoing events of the past few weeks certainly demonstrate that anything is possible –and long overdue change in Syria would be very welcome.”
Pitts concluded, “I also think it’s undoubtedly true that Bashar al-Assad is less hated than Ghadafi, in part because he hasn’t been in power for so long -- i.e. he’s a younger generation and the successor autocrat rather than the decades-long autocrat -- but also because he comes across as more normal and (relatively) less arbitrary. The fact that unemployment in Syria (8%) is only about one-third that of Libya (25%) probably also plays a role.”
Americans who have followed the “war on terror” as waged by the George W. Bush Administration may be familiar with Syrian justice through the ordeal experienced by Maher Arar.
Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian origin who was detained at Kennedy Airport in New York in September 2002, held in detention for two weeks, flown to Jordan, and then driven to Syria, where he was detained for ten months and, he says, tortured repeatedly.
It appears that Arar had been named by two other Canadians, `Abdullah al-Malki, of Syrian origin, and Ahmad al-Maati, of Egyptian origin, whom Syrian intelligence agents reportedly interrogated and tortured earlier in 2002. All three were eventually released without ever being charged with a criminal offense.
The Canadian Government convened a blue-ribbon inquiry into the circumstances of Arar’s “rendition” to Syria, determined that it had been guilty of providing false intelligence to U.S. authorities. The head of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police was forced to resign his post. The Canadian government apologized to Arar and awarded him a settlement of approximately $10 million.
Egypt: Army Attacks Pro-Democracy Demonstrators; Later Apologizes
By William Fisher
As press attention shifted away from Egypt in the wake of the unanimous vote of the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Libya's leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his cronies, Egypt was experiencing developments that some observers viewed with alarm while others downplayed as an “entirely predictable dynamic” we can “expect to see” in other countries undergoing similar changes.
These developments included brutal beatings of peaceful demonstrators in Tahrir Square by members of the military. The Army has since apologized for the abuse of peaceful demonstrators, but it remains unclear why the army attacked these citizens in the first place.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information reported that “hundreds of thousands” of Egyptians demonstrated in Tahrir Square on Friday in protest the continuation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik in office. The group said the protestors demanded the dissolution of the state security apparatus and the release prisoners of conscience.
Despite continued cheers in support of the army, army units assaulted the protesters, beating and chasing them on the streets of Cairo using electric batons that led to many casualties, the organization charged.
One of the abused demonstrators, whose name is being withheld for his safety, blogged the following first hand account of what occurred:
“We were a little less than 150 people [in Tahrir Square] that night [February 25]. At around 11:30 in the evening of the 25th of February, army soldiers formed a cordon around us without violations; one of my friends thinks this might have been their way of kettling us and making sure our numbers don’t grow around the ministerial cabinet. They dismantled their human cordon at 15 minutes past midnight of the 26th of February. At around that time we started hearing news of the sit-in in Tahrir being violently dispersed. And at around 1:30 am that very night, the army started using electric batons to disperse the sit-in and of-course we ran. They continued to push, beat and kick at us, until they managed to disperse us.
“And then I was arrested…As I ran, I came across a fallen protestor, and stopped to check on him. An officer grabbed me and started to push and beat at me and I said to him “Don’t hit! Just arrest me!” And he replied “Come here ya ruh ummak,” and they pulled me into a garage in the ministerial cabinet; and this is where the physical and moral torture began.
“In the ministerial cabinet’s garage…I was shocked at the numbers of army personnel beating up protestors in the garage. At first I thought these must have been thugs, but before I had a chance to finish the thought, I was pulled very roughly and ordered to squat on the ground. With that they started to kick at every part of my body; I tried to cover my face to protect it, but one of the officers pulled my arm away and stepped on my face pushing it to the ground, while they tied my hands behind my back. They – Lieutenants, First Lieutenants and a row of officers and soldiers -- then proceeded to kick at my face as if my head were a soccer-ball.
“Others around me were much worse off. One was stripped bare in the cold and sprayed with water and beaten, while another was beaten until his shoulder was dislocated, while others were electrocuted with the electric batons. One protestor called out to declare he had a heart condition; and they shouted back at him to ask what he was doing in a protest if he had such a condition, as they proceeded to pull his hand away from his heart, and kick him where it was.
“Twice we heard what sounded like a high-ranking officer giving an order to end the beating “No one hit any of them anymore!”. But as soon as he would leave, the beating would start again; it was difficult to tell if they really weren’t following orders, or if the whole thing was just theatrical. For the beating never ceased.
“What was said in the Garage…What was worse than the beating and the insults, were the accusations that the officers and military personnel were throwing at us while we were in there. When I first got in they played the old reel of accusations related to treachery and our being spies; I could even hear an officer shout as he beat a protestor “And you’re getting 50 Euros to insult president Mubarak ya ruh ummak?!”.
“And while we were all hearing variations of this, each of us was specifically asked to say “Long live Hosni Mubarak”, and those who refused got a fresh course of beating. It was clear to us that they didn’t think they were dealing with thugs, but believed they were dealing with paid security threats.
“And one of the personal violations that I could note is their occasional calling out that “We’re in Abu Ghareeb [Abu Ghraib] here,” as they piled protestors un-top of each other and beat them.”
It remained unclear why the government soldiers assaulted the demonstrators. The Military has apologized for the beatings, according to Muhammed Tolba, Executive Secretary of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
The apology is confirmed by one of those who was abused.
In his blog, he refers to “the kind treatment we received from the unit 28 military prosecution, as well as the respect and grace with which we were treated on the morning of the 26th of February when we were transferred to the military police administration. To be honest the Major General running the military police administration, and fellow officers and individuals were all very generous, and treated us like guests and not criminals.”
And he concludes, “And an extra thanks to the Major General for paying special attention to our cases – those who were beaten and assaulted the dawn of that very day – and taking me and a friend to Kobry El Qubba hospital in the company of an Officer to help with the ex-rays and check-ups and ensure our safety himself. They sent the rest back to Tahrir in a microbus at the same time.”
The assault on the Tahrir Square demonstrators came a few hours after Prime Minister Shafik issued instructions to cut a TV show by because guests of the show “criticized Shafiq and expressed solidarity with public demands to dismiss the prime minister.”
The group said that yesterday’s assault by the army “coincided with the return of police forces to practice repression, police forces assaulted thousands of peaceful demonstrators.” They added that “police used tear gas and batons.”
“The army assault on protestors calls for a clear apology from the army. To make [up] for this insult, the army must expel Ahmed Shafik and all the ministers loyal to Mubarak: Mahmoud Wagdy and Ahmed Aboul Gheit as well as dissolution of the state security department and prosecuting all its officers.”
The Network said, “The military’s insistence on keeping of the symbols deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak, and the attack on demonstrators, calls for an immediate apology to the Egyptian people and dismissing Shafik immediately.”
It added, “The Egyptians who made a revolution for their right to freedom and democracy, will not give up on deposing all symbols of dictatorship, starting with the dismissal of Shafik, the enemy of the people and enemy of freedom of the press, and reaching to dissolve state security and to prosecute all its officers, interior minister Mahmoud Wagdy on top.”
“The military has to know that there is no turning back. This revolution has sacrificed hundreds of martyrs for freedom and the Egyptians will not be give up by any force their the claim for a democratic civilian government clean of all symbols of dictatorship,” the Network added.
According to Chip Pitts, a long-time human rights defender and law lecturer at Stanford University, “The situation remains very fraught and uncertain, and I’m with the protesters. The government must move sooner rather than later to institutionalize truly new and democratic civilian rule.”
But he denied the Army’s action was a step backward. He told The Public Record, “I believe that this isn’t necessarily a regression, but is rather the entirely predictable dynamic arising as a result of the tumultuous changes now taking place in Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa (and, I hope, elsewhere), and we can expect to see them in the other countries undergoing change as well.”
He added, “The continued resort to repression by Shafik and the remnants of the Mubarak regime represents their attempt to firmly manage and even co-opt the reform process through the same measures that have worked for decades. Thanks to the persistent courage of the protesters and the Egyptian people, those measures will work no longer and will only increase the risks that Shafik and his ilk will be held personally accountable for human rights violations if they don’t step forward fully onto the right side of this historic movement of peoples.”
The Arabic Network also said that the ministry of interior suppressed peaceful demonstrators in Mansoura on the same day.
It said, “The consecutive attacks on freedom of expression and media freedoms in Egypt during the past few days are similar to those of the days of police repression before January 25th . The attempts of Shafik to impose himself as a guest on a popular show despite the refusal of the producer is an unacceptable violation of freedom of expression and a breach to principles and objectives of the revolution.”
“We do not know the reasons for the insistence of the military council on keeping Shafik who was appointed by the deposed dictator despite his participation in crimes against the revolution of January 25 as PM. His government hired thugs to attack protesters with petrol bombs, camels and bladed weapons.”
Shafik is the interim Prime Minister of Egypt. He was appointed Prime Minister by then-president Hosni Mubarak on January 29, 2011 in response to the 2011 Egyptian protests.
After a career as a fighter pilot, squadron, wing and base commander, he served as the commander of the Egyptian Air Force from 1996–2002, and was nominated in 2002 to become the Egyptian Minister for Civil Aviation.
All the members of the Supreme Military Council currently governing Egypt owe their appointments to Mubarak. In addition, many Mubarak appointees are still in place in senior posts.
Yesterday, Saturday, was also the day when the committee appointed to amend several articles of the Egyptian constitution was to have turned its work over to the Supreme Council.
The articles were to be amended to make it easier to form and register political parties, enter candidates in political contests, and ensure fair and free elections in the future.
As press attention shifted away from Egypt in the wake of the unanimous vote of the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Libya's leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his cronies, Egypt was experiencing developments that some observers viewed with alarm while others downplayed as an “entirely predictable dynamic” we can “expect to see” in other countries undergoing similar changes.
These developments included brutal beatings of peaceful demonstrators in Tahrir Square by members of the military. The Army has since apologized for the abuse of peaceful demonstrators, but it remains unclear why the army attacked these citizens in the first place.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information reported that “hundreds of thousands” of Egyptians demonstrated in Tahrir Square on Friday in protest the continuation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik in office. The group said the protestors demanded the dissolution of the state security apparatus and the release prisoners of conscience.
Despite continued cheers in support of the army, army units assaulted the protesters, beating and chasing them on the streets of Cairo using electric batons that led to many casualties, the organization charged.
One of the abused demonstrators, whose name is being withheld for his safety, blogged the following first hand account of what occurred:
“We were a little less than 150 people [in Tahrir Square] that night [February 25]. At around 11:30 in the evening of the 25th of February, army soldiers formed a cordon around us without violations; one of my friends thinks this might have been their way of kettling us and making sure our numbers don’t grow around the ministerial cabinet. They dismantled their human cordon at 15 minutes past midnight of the 26th of February. At around that time we started hearing news of the sit-in in Tahrir being violently dispersed. And at around 1:30 am that very night, the army started using electric batons to disperse the sit-in and of-course we ran. They continued to push, beat and kick at us, until they managed to disperse us.
“And then I was arrested…As I ran, I came across a fallen protestor, and stopped to check on him. An officer grabbed me and started to push and beat at me and I said to him “Don’t hit! Just arrest me!” And he replied “Come here ya ruh ummak,” and they pulled me into a garage in the ministerial cabinet; and this is where the physical and moral torture began.
“In the ministerial cabinet’s garage…I was shocked at the numbers of army personnel beating up protestors in the garage. At first I thought these must have been thugs, but before I had a chance to finish the thought, I was pulled very roughly and ordered to squat on the ground. With that they started to kick at every part of my body; I tried to cover my face to protect it, but one of the officers pulled my arm away and stepped on my face pushing it to the ground, while they tied my hands behind my back. They – Lieutenants, First Lieutenants and a row of officers and soldiers -- then proceeded to kick at my face as if my head were a soccer-ball.
“Others around me were much worse off. One was stripped bare in the cold and sprayed with water and beaten, while another was beaten until his shoulder was dislocated, while others were electrocuted with the electric batons. One protestor called out to declare he had a heart condition; and they shouted back at him to ask what he was doing in a protest if he had such a condition, as they proceeded to pull his hand away from his heart, and kick him where it was.
“Twice we heard what sounded like a high-ranking officer giving an order to end the beating “No one hit any of them anymore!”. But as soon as he would leave, the beating would start again; it was difficult to tell if they really weren’t following orders, or if the whole thing was just theatrical. For the beating never ceased.
“What was said in the Garage…What was worse than the beating and the insults, were the accusations that the officers and military personnel were throwing at us while we were in there. When I first got in they played the old reel of accusations related to treachery and our being spies; I could even hear an officer shout as he beat a protestor “And you’re getting 50 Euros to insult president Mubarak ya ruh ummak?!”.
“And while we were all hearing variations of this, each of us was specifically asked to say “Long live Hosni Mubarak”, and those who refused got a fresh course of beating. It was clear to us that they didn’t think they were dealing with thugs, but believed they were dealing with paid security threats.
“And one of the personal violations that I could note is their occasional calling out that “We’re in Abu Ghareeb [Abu Ghraib] here,” as they piled protestors un-top of each other and beat them.”
It remained unclear why the government soldiers assaulted the demonstrators. The Military has apologized for the beatings, according to Muhammed Tolba, Executive Secretary of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
The apology is confirmed by one of those who was abused.
In his blog, he refers to “the kind treatment we received from the unit 28 military prosecution, as well as the respect and grace with which we were treated on the morning of the 26th of February when we were transferred to the military police administration. To be honest the Major General running the military police administration, and fellow officers and individuals were all very generous, and treated us like guests and not criminals.”
And he concludes, “And an extra thanks to the Major General for paying special attention to our cases – those who were beaten and assaulted the dawn of that very day – and taking me and a friend to Kobry El Qubba hospital in the company of an Officer to help with the ex-rays and check-ups and ensure our safety himself. They sent the rest back to Tahrir in a microbus at the same time.”
The assault on the Tahrir Square demonstrators came a few hours after Prime Minister Shafik issued instructions to cut a TV show by because guests of the show “criticized Shafiq and expressed solidarity with public demands to dismiss the prime minister.”
The group said that yesterday’s assault by the army “coincided with the return of police forces to practice repression, police forces assaulted thousands of peaceful demonstrators.” They added that “police used tear gas and batons.”
“The army assault on protestors calls for a clear apology from the army. To make [up] for this insult, the army must expel Ahmed Shafik and all the ministers loyal to Mubarak: Mahmoud Wagdy and Ahmed Aboul Gheit as well as dissolution of the state security department and prosecuting all its officers.”
The Network said, “The military’s insistence on keeping of the symbols deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak, and the attack on demonstrators, calls for an immediate apology to the Egyptian people and dismissing Shafik immediately.”
It added, “The Egyptians who made a revolution for their right to freedom and democracy, will not give up on deposing all symbols of dictatorship, starting with the dismissal of Shafik, the enemy of the people and enemy of freedom of the press, and reaching to dissolve state security and to prosecute all its officers, interior minister Mahmoud Wagdy on top.”
“The military has to know that there is no turning back. This revolution has sacrificed hundreds of martyrs for freedom and the Egyptians will not be give up by any force their the claim for a democratic civilian government clean of all symbols of dictatorship,” the Network added.
According to Chip Pitts, a long-time human rights defender and law lecturer at Stanford University, “The situation remains very fraught and uncertain, and I’m with the protesters. The government must move sooner rather than later to institutionalize truly new and democratic civilian rule.”
But he denied the Army’s action was a step backward. He told The Public Record, “I believe that this isn’t necessarily a regression, but is rather the entirely predictable dynamic arising as a result of the tumultuous changes now taking place in Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa (and, I hope, elsewhere), and we can expect to see them in the other countries undergoing change as well.”
He added, “The continued resort to repression by Shafik and the remnants of the Mubarak regime represents their attempt to firmly manage and even co-opt the reform process through the same measures that have worked for decades. Thanks to the persistent courage of the protesters and the Egyptian people, those measures will work no longer and will only increase the risks that Shafik and his ilk will be held personally accountable for human rights violations if they don’t step forward fully onto the right side of this historic movement of peoples.”
The Arabic Network also said that the ministry of interior suppressed peaceful demonstrators in Mansoura on the same day.
It said, “The consecutive attacks on freedom of expression and media freedoms in Egypt during the past few days are similar to those of the days of police repression before January 25th . The attempts of Shafik to impose himself as a guest on a popular show despite the refusal of the producer is an unacceptable violation of freedom of expression and a breach to principles and objectives of the revolution.”
“We do not know the reasons for the insistence of the military council on keeping Shafik who was appointed by the deposed dictator despite his participation in crimes against the revolution of January 25 as PM. His government hired thugs to attack protesters with petrol bombs, camels and bladed weapons.”
Shafik is the interim Prime Minister of Egypt. He was appointed Prime Minister by then-president Hosni Mubarak on January 29, 2011 in response to the 2011 Egyptian protests.
After a career as a fighter pilot, squadron, wing and base commander, he served as the commander of the Egyptian Air Force from 1996–2002, and was nominated in 2002 to become the Egyptian Minister for Civil Aviation.
All the members of the Supreme Military Council currently governing Egypt owe their appointments to Mubarak. In addition, many Mubarak appointees are still in place in senior posts.
Yesterday, Saturday, was also the day when the committee appointed to amend several articles of the Egyptian constitution was to have turned its work over to the Supreme Council.
The articles were to be amended to make it easier to form and register political parties, enter candidates in political contests, and ensure fair and free elections in the future.
Friday, February 25, 2011
It’s On to Cali and a Real Good Time!
By William Fisher
It’s dangerous to draw too many parallels between the folks who turned out to protest in Tahrir Square in Egypt and the folks protesting outside the State Capital in Madison, Wisconsin.
Both situations are complicated and it’s too easy to fall into a Glenn Beck simplistic, fact-free prescriptive rant about how we got here and what we should do about it.
But there are a few similarities.
In Cairo, you had a brutal dictator, the right-wing conservative Hosni Mubarak, backed by a powerful army, trying to persuade his people yet again that if they just maintained order, and went back to being docile and obedient, his rule would magically bring them all those wonderful things in life denied to them for so long.
In Madison, you have a right-wing conservative governor, backed by wealthy and powerful economic interests, yet again asking the middle class to act against its own economic interests. And they are doing so by trying to persuade these middle class “have-nots” that if they just give up their collective bargaining rights they would magically become “haves” and henceforth be free to pursue their “American Dream.”
Behind the elected officials doing the official persuading were the puppet-masters: the folks we used to call fat cats whose formula for getting richer depends on the rest of us getting poorer.
This is now known as trickle-not economics. In America, trickle-not economic has resulted in the largest disparity in income distribution in our history. We have a tiny slice of the very rich. Then we have all the rest of us. And what used to be the Middle Class is disappearing.
In Egypt, the puppet-masters wore military uniforms; in Madison, business suits.
Even though it was a prank phone call, I think we learned a lot by being able to listen in to Minnesota’s Governor Scott Walker talking to the man he thought was his puppet-master. After all, how often is it we get to eavesdrop on a call from the impersonator of David Koch, the multibillionaire oil guy who, with his brother, has funded much of the right wing’s battle plan? FBI, maybe; ordinary folks, nah!
Two things in particular were revealing. The first was the tone of the conversation. It was clearly puppet-master talking to puppet. And then there was the glee with which the puppet seemed to jump out of the phone to accept the puppet-master’s gracious invitation: “Once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and show you a real good time!”
By the time that conversation took place, the public sector unions had already agreed to meet the governor’s financial demands – but it was clear he was out to take no prisoners. Give up your collective bargaining rights or else!
The trouble with the governor, and with far too many elected officials, is that they weren’t paying attention when American history was being taught to them in grade school. Or they are memory-challenged. Or they just don’t give a damn and want to obliterate their country’s history and substitute their own.
What American history tells us is that without unions, the captains of industry would have rolled over working people like a Thompson CAT. Without unions, we would never have had a middle class in America. And without a middle class, who would have campaigned so tirelessly for so long for better schools, better teachers, better health care, better everything.
When conservatives talk about “family values,” isn’t this what they should be talking about?
The past half-century has witnessed the sharp decline in organized labor, with corporate ownership-management waging an unrelenting campaign to convince working Americans that they’d do so much better if American industry could be more competitive with the rest if the world, and that wouldn’t ever happen if unions were dictating outrageously exorbitant wages and benefits.
Dictating? Maybe Governor Scott Walker doesn’t understand all this, but it was Collective Bargaining that was responsible for wage and benefit restraints from both unions and ownership. Among other benefits, collective bargaining prevented countless strikes.
And, my old boss from JFK days, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce Jack Behrman, reminds me that the National Labor Relations Board was set up in the 1930s to support collective bargaining. It was critical in World War Two in moderating labor's wage demands to prevent inflation, which restriction led the NLRB to permit bargaining for other benefits; these led to donations by companies to health insurance and was the beginning of national health insurance.
But shouldn’t we fault the American labor movement for not doing a better job of educating union members so that they wouldn’t vote against their own economic self-interests and remain quiet while their elected representatives legislated against those very same interests?
Where was the outcry from labor when President Obama acceded to demands to continue George W. Bush’s upper-class tax cut as the Republicans’ price for not raising taxes on ordinary working Americans? It was largely AWOL. And ineffectual.
So, fault the unions? You bet. We should be mad as hell. Just as we should be mad as hell at some of the excesses of the union movement. But in the Great Crash of 2008, it was banks and other corporations who created our economic nightmare. Was our response to throw banks and other corporations under the bus? To abolish them altogether? No, in fact, it was to bail them out.
In his faux phone talk with Charles Koch, it was clear that closing his state’s fiscal gap was a secondary objective for Governor Walker. His primary goal was to break the unions. It had to be, since these teachers, firefighters, nurses and other first responders have already said they would go along with the governor and make the sacrifices necessary to do their part to help close the state’s $6.3 billion budget deficit.
But Governor Walker is still saying he has the same $3.6 billion budget deficit to balance. It was like the union response never happened!
And, by the way, I wonder if the Governor was thinking of that gap when, shortly after taking office, he handed the wealthiest people in his state a generous tax cut.
Does the Governor really expect us to believe that it is public service unions alone that are responsible for that $6.3 billion budget gap?
If he believes that, I have a terrific bridge to sell him.
There are many in Wisconsin who don’t believe the Governor’s budget gap is real. One of them is the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office, which concluded that “Wisconsin isn’t even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.”
And Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future, a public interest think tank, says, “Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control. “He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts… so he could rush through these other changes.”
But Messrs. Koch and Walker aren’t listening to Jack Norman. I’m sure Mr. Koch is just tickled pink with how things are going and is keeping busy making preparations to fly Mr. Walker to “Cali and show you a real good time.”
It’s dangerous to draw too many parallels between the folks who turned out to protest in Tahrir Square in Egypt and the folks protesting outside the State Capital in Madison, Wisconsin.
Both situations are complicated and it’s too easy to fall into a Glenn Beck simplistic, fact-free prescriptive rant about how we got here and what we should do about it.
But there are a few similarities.
In Cairo, you had a brutal dictator, the right-wing conservative Hosni Mubarak, backed by a powerful army, trying to persuade his people yet again that if they just maintained order, and went back to being docile and obedient, his rule would magically bring them all those wonderful things in life denied to them for so long.
In Madison, you have a right-wing conservative governor, backed by wealthy and powerful economic interests, yet again asking the middle class to act against its own economic interests. And they are doing so by trying to persuade these middle class “have-nots” that if they just give up their collective bargaining rights they would magically become “haves” and henceforth be free to pursue their “American Dream.”
Behind the elected officials doing the official persuading were the puppet-masters: the folks we used to call fat cats whose formula for getting richer depends on the rest of us getting poorer.
This is now known as trickle-not economics. In America, trickle-not economic has resulted in the largest disparity in income distribution in our history. We have a tiny slice of the very rich. Then we have all the rest of us. And what used to be the Middle Class is disappearing.
In Egypt, the puppet-masters wore military uniforms; in Madison, business suits.
Even though it was a prank phone call, I think we learned a lot by being able to listen in to Minnesota’s Governor Scott Walker talking to the man he thought was his puppet-master. After all, how often is it we get to eavesdrop on a call from the impersonator of David Koch, the multibillionaire oil guy who, with his brother, has funded much of the right wing’s battle plan? FBI, maybe; ordinary folks, nah!
Two things in particular were revealing. The first was the tone of the conversation. It was clearly puppet-master talking to puppet. And then there was the glee with which the puppet seemed to jump out of the phone to accept the puppet-master’s gracious invitation: “Once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and show you a real good time!”
By the time that conversation took place, the public sector unions had already agreed to meet the governor’s financial demands – but it was clear he was out to take no prisoners. Give up your collective bargaining rights or else!
The trouble with the governor, and with far too many elected officials, is that they weren’t paying attention when American history was being taught to them in grade school. Or they are memory-challenged. Or they just don’t give a damn and want to obliterate their country’s history and substitute their own.
What American history tells us is that without unions, the captains of industry would have rolled over working people like a Thompson CAT. Without unions, we would never have had a middle class in America. And without a middle class, who would have campaigned so tirelessly for so long for better schools, better teachers, better health care, better everything.
When conservatives talk about “family values,” isn’t this what they should be talking about?
The past half-century has witnessed the sharp decline in organized labor, with corporate ownership-management waging an unrelenting campaign to convince working Americans that they’d do so much better if American industry could be more competitive with the rest if the world, and that wouldn’t ever happen if unions were dictating outrageously exorbitant wages and benefits.
Dictating? Maybe Governor Scott Walker doesn’t understand all this, but it was Collective Bargaining that was responsible for wage and benefit restraints from both unions and ownership. Among other benefits, collective bargaining prevented countless strikes.
And, my old boss from JFK days, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce Jack Behrman, reminds me that the National Labor Relations Board was set up in the 1930s to support collective bargaining. It was critical in World War Two in moderating labor's wage demands to prevent inflation, which restriction led the NLRB to permit bargaining for other benefits; these led to donations by companies to health insurance and was the beginning of national health insurance.
But shouldn’t we fault the American labor movement for not doing a better job of educating union members so that they wouldn’t vote against their own economic self-interests and remain quiet while their elected representatives legislated against those very same interests?
Where was the outcry from labor when President Obama acceded to demands to continue George W. Bush’s upper-class tax cut as the Republicans’ price for not raising taxes on ordinary working Americans? It was largely AWOL. And ineffectual.
So, fault the unions? You bet. We should be mad as hell. Just as we should be mad as hell at some of the excesses of the union movement. But in the Great Crash of 2008, it was banks and other corporations who created our economic nightmare. Was our response to throw banks and other corporations under the bus? To abolish them altogether? No, in fact, it was to bail them out.
In his faux phone talk with Charles Koch, it was clear that closing his state’s fiscal gap was a secondary objective for Governor Walker. His primary goal was to break the unions. It had to be, since these teachers, firefighters, nurses and other first responders have already said they would go along with the governor and make the sacrifices necessary to do their part to help close the state’s $6.3 billion budget deficit.
But Governor Walker is still saying he has the same $3.6 billion budget deficit to balance. It was like the union response never happened!
And, by the way, I wonder if the Governor was thinking of that gap when, shortly after taking office, he handed the wealthiest people in his state a generous tax cut.
Does the Governor really expect us to believe that it is public service unions alone that are responsible for that $6.3 billion budget gap?
If he believes that, I have a terrific bridge to sell him.
There are many in Wisconsin who don’t believe the Governor’s budget gap is real. One of them is the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office, which concluded that “Wisconsin isn’t even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.”
And Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future, a public interest think tank, says, “Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control. “He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts… so he could rush through these other changes.”
But Messrs. Koch and Walker aren’t listening to Jack Norman. I’m sure Mr. Koch is just tickled pink with how things are going and is keeping busy making preparations to fly Mr. Walker to “Cali and show you a real good time.”
The Constitution: Egypt’s Job One
By William Fisher
Eleven days before he finally resigned, Hosni Mubarak may have had a chance to reverse his fortunes. Suddenly filled with a spirit of peace-making and reconciliation, the president offered up a smorgasbord of “reforms” he promised to make.
Among them was amending several articles of the Egyptian Constitution. Calls for these amendments had been going on for years. So central were they to the political well-being of the Egyptian people, that foreign powers – principally the United States –had intervened privately and publicly -- to persuade its most dependable Middle East ally to actually get something done.
But it was too late. The crowd in Tahrir Square didn’t believe their President. They had heard it all before. Mubarak was through.
So, days later, the task of re-writing the Constitutional amendments fell to a committee appointed by the Military Panel now governing Egypt.
Why is this important? Because over the years, the Mubarak regime created amendments to the Constitution. Their purpose was to make it virtually impossible to become a candidate, become a recognized political party, and have competent and independent monitoring of all elections.
Writing these new Constitutional articles is a modest assignment. The committee is not mandated to rewrite the entire Constitution; that may come later. But the Committee’s work is nonetheless critical. For it will be addressing the articles that, more than any others, have promulgated one-man rule in Egypt, kept the opposition from forming legal political parties, and thus effectively marginalized all candidates not named Mubarak.
The committee will work to be responsive to the leaders of the Tahrir Square opposition. They want the constitutional changes to reflect clearer separation of powers, strengthening of an independent judiciary, and less power for the president. That won’t all happen by writing a few amendments, but it’s a start.
And unless the committee finishes its work and the public votes ‘yes’ in a scheduled April referendum, it will be impossible to hold a presidential election in November.
Here, with thanks to Reuters, are the Articles the Committee is working on:
Article 77 of the suspended constitution allowed the president to seek re-election indefinitely. After specifying the length of the president’s term, the article says he “may be re-elected for other successive terms.”
The term of the Presidency is six Gregorian years starting from the date of the announcement of the result of the plebiscite that is used to decide the winner. The opposition has frequently called for a two-term limit on the president. This is a customary practice ion many democratic countries.
Article 88 cancelled the direct supervision of elections by the judiciary. Replacing it in 1977 was the Supreme Electoral Commission, of which the opposition has been widely critical for its lack of independence. Parliamentary elections were largely controlled by the Ministry of Interior.
The opposition has always called for constitutional changes to deter election rigging, a widespread practice for many decades. Supervision of selections by the relatively clean-handed judiciary was seen by the opposition as a deterrent to vote rigging. This practice has resulted in election results that were patently fraudulent and which earned Egypt the disrespect of many of its most important allies.
Article 93 dictates that the eligibility of its members can be decided only the People’s Assembly. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) majority has used this article to ignore court rulings invalidating election results.
Article 179, which will be eliminated, allowed the president to refer any terror related case to any judicial body, which gave him the right to use
military courts.
Article 189 says the president can ask parliament to approve an amendment or parliament can propose its own amendments. But all amendments must be approved in a referendum.
Heading the Committee is retired judge Tareq al-Bishry, reputedly respected in legal circles for his independent views. Marwa Al-A'sar of Egypt’s Daily News reports that Al-Bishry has been a strong supporter of an independent judiciary, though legal experts have said the Egyptian judiciary was subjected to increasing political meddling during Mubarak's 30-year rule.
Many in the opposition are voicing criticism of their new military bosses for not acting quickly to lift the so-called Emergency Law, which has been in effect continuously, with one brief hiatus, for thirty years. The emergency powers were implemented in 1981, after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.
Mubarak made numerous promises to repeal these laws, but never followed through. In the last few years, the Mubarak regime introduced a set of 34 new constitutional articles, meant to be a substitute for the emergency laws.
But Mubarak’s critics say the amendments would have enabled a replacement of emergency laws with something just as authoritarian - but permanent.
The 34 new articles were approved by a vote in parliament, which was dominated by members of the ruling National Democratic Party. They would have written into permanent law emergency-style powers that, according Amnesty International, would have been used to violate human rights.
A week later they were put to a popular vote. Government officials said they were approved by more than three-quarters of voters, although the turnout was low - 27% according to official figures, much lower by other independent groups.
The opposition, led by independent supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, boycotted the vote, saying the lightening referendum did not give them a chance to mount a proper "No" campaign.
The 34 new articles never became part of the Constitution.
But, in whatever form, the emergency laws have been used to trash the human rights of thousands of people who found themselves in conflict with the police and the security services. Capricious detentions. Incommunicado imprisonment. Torture. Police impunity. Denial of legal and family visits. Deaths in detention.
It is clear that democracy cannot flourish when laws like these are on the books and are being widely used. So hopefully the new military leaders will lift the emergency laws even before the April referendum.
But that moment is down the road a bit.
The first order of business now is the composition of four or five constitutional articles. And, even at this early stage, the hand-over of the rewriting to a committee has not gone without criticism. Thirty-one human rights organizations have criticized the amendment committee constituted by the military.
Rights groups say that committee membership is tilted toward particular ideologies, that it includes former Mubarak officials, and that it is a male-only group, despite the presence of many qualified women.
The organizations also charged that, in 2005 and 2007, some committee members belonged to legislation committees under the former regime, where they helped prepare flawed legislation and constitutional amendments.
The Rights groups also said that the committee lacked constitutional law experts who were independent and trusted by the public. Nor did it
reflect Egypt's political and social diversity, they declared.
They said it looked like a coalition between members of the former regime and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Michele Dunne, a senior Middle East analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Truthout that the drafting committee has adopted “a very fast process.” But she adds, “We should also bear in mind that the articles to be amended were very controversial and lawyers and NGOs had already done a lot of spade work on how they should be amended, so perhaps some of that work will be used now.”
But even if the committee completes its work on time and an April referendum overwhelmingly approves the new constitutional articles, the new Egypt will have simply taken another of many baby steps toward democracy.
The Emergency Law must be addressed. Some new rules will have to be written regarding Parliamentary elections and Parliamentary power. Someone or some body is sooner or later going to have to take a look at the opaque web of business and economic interests spun by the military’s crony-capitalism . The issue of corruption probably does not require any new laws, rather the implementation of laws already on the books.
The former Mubarak ministers now charged with corruption were charged as a last-gasp distraction by Mubarak. Their guilt or innocence will be decided by a court, but there is nothing to suggest that they would have been charged with anything at any time absent the Mubarak crisis.
How much of such an agenda the military will welcome with open arms is questionable. Every senior military man now on the ruling council owes his appointment – and in many case, his prosperity -- to Mubarak.
Arguably, the most important next step for Egypt beyond amending the constitution, is the emergence of a leader. Many in the country are calling for a leader capable of exercising “adult supervision” over the incredibly diverse souls who slept in Tahrir Square. Just as many others are saying that only the youth of the country can carry the spirit of the uprising from Tahrir Square into the Presidential Palace.
Notes of caution have been delivered to the folks in the Square by thousands of commentators inside and outside Egypt. They have been cautioned about euphoria. They have been told that “democracy is not a plan.” They have been warned about faux leaders, about running too fast, about trying to get everything absolutely perfect.
That’s not possible, and is it undisputed that these young people and their elders are going to make mistakes along the way. Expect them and undoing them can be easier.
And follow the advice of Rami Khoury, Lebanese-born, American-educated journalist and policy wonk:
“It takes time and energy to re-legitimize an entire national governance system and power structure that have been criminalized, privatized, monopolized and militarized by small groups of petty autocrats and thieving families.
“Tunisia and Egypt are the first to embark on this historic journey, and other Arabs will soon follow, because most Arab countries suffer the same deficiencies that have been exposed for all to see in Egypt.
“Make no mistake about it, we are witnessing an epic, historic moment of the birth of concepts that have long been denied to ordinary Arabs: the right to define ourselves and our governments, to assert our national values, to shape our governance systems, and to engage with each other and the rest of the world as free human beings, with rights that will not be denied forever.”
Eleven days before he finally resigned, Hosni Mubarak may have had a chance to reverse his fortunes. Suddenly filled with a spirit of peace-making and reconciliation, the president offered up a smorgasbord of “reforms” he promised to make.
Among them was amending several articles of the Egyptian Constitution. Calls for these amendments had been going on for years. So central were they to the political well-being of the Egyptian people, that foreign powers – principally the United States –had intervened privately and publicly -- to persuade its most dependable Middle East ally to actually get something done.
But it was too late. The crowd in Tahrir Square didn’t believe their President. They had heard it all before. Mubarak was through.
So, days later, the task of re-writing the Constitutional amendments fell to a committee appointed by the Military Panel now governing Egypt.
Why is this important? Because over the years, the Mubarak regime created amendments to the Constitution. Their purpose was to make it virtually impossible to become a candidate, become a recognized political party, and have competent and independent monitoring of all elections.
Writing these new Constitutional articles is a modest assignment. The committee is not mandated to rewrite the entire Constitution; that may come later. But the Committee’s work is nonetheless critical. For it will be addressing the articles that, more than any others, have promulgated one-man rule in Egypt, kept the opposition from forming legal political parties, and thus effectively marginalized all candidates not named Mubarak.
The committee will work to be responsive to the leaders of the Tahrir Square opposition. They want the constitutional changes to reflect clearer separation of powers, strengthening of an independent judiciary, and less power for the president. That won’t all happen by writing a few amendments, but it’s a start.
And unless the committee finishes its work and the public votes ‘yes’ in a scheduled April referendum, it will be impossible to hold a presidential election in November.
Here, with thanks to Reuters, are the Articles the Committee is working on:
Article 77 of the suspended constitution allowed the president to seek re-election indefinitely. After specifying the length of the president’s term, the article says he “may be re-elected for other successive terms.”
The term of the Presidency is six Gregorian years starting from the date of the announcement of the result of the plebiscite that is used to decide the winner. The opposition has frequently called for a two-term limit on the president. This is a customary practice ion many democratic countries.
Article 88 cancelled the direct supervision of elections by the judiciary. Replacing it in 1977 was the Supreme Electoral Commission, of which the opposition has been widely critical for its lack of independence. Parliamentary elections were largely controlled by the Ministry of Interior.
The opposition has always called for constitutional changes to deter election rigging, a widespread practice for many decades. Supervision of selections by the relatively clean-handed judiciary was seen by the opposition as a deterrent to vote rigging. This practice has resulted in election results that were patently fraudulent and which earned Egypt the disrespect of many of its most important allies.
Article 93 dictates that the eligibility of its members can be decided only the People’s Assembly. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) majority has used this article to ignore court rulings invalidating election results.
Article 179, which will be eliminated, allowed the president to refer any terror related case to any judicial body, which gave him the right to use
military courts.
Article 189 says the president can ask parliament to approve an amendment or parliament can propose its own amendments. But all amendments must be approved in a referendum.
Heading the Committee is retired judge Tareq al-Bishry, reputedly respected in legal circles for his independent views. Marwa Al-A'sar of Egypt’s Daily News reports that Al-Bishry has been a strong supporter of an independent judiciary, though legal experts have said the Egyptian judiciary was subjected to increasing political meddling during Mubarak's 30-year rule.
Many in the opposition are voicing criticism of their new military bosses for not acting quickly to lift the so-called Emergency Law, which has been in effect continuously, with one brief hiatus, for thirty years. The emergency powers were implemented in 1981, after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.
Mubarak made numerous promises to repeal these laws, but never followed through. In the last few years, the Mubarak regime introduced a set of 34 new constitutional articles, meant to be a substitute for the emergency laws.
But Mubarak’s critics say the amendments would have enabled a replacement of emergency laws with something just as authoritarian - but permanent.
The 34 new articles were approved by a vote in parliament, which was dominated by members of the ruling National Democratic Party. They would have written into permanent law emergency-style powers that, according Amnesty International, would have been used to violate human rights.
A week later they were put to a popular vote. Government officials said they were approved by more than three-quarters of voters, although the turnout was low - 27% according to official figures, much lower by other independent groups.
The opposition, led by independent supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, boycotted the vote, saying the lightening referendum did not give them a chance to mount a proper "No" campaign.
The 34 new articles never became part of the Constitution.
But, in whatever form, the emergency laws have been used to trash the human rights of thousands of people who found themselves in conflict with the police and the security services. Capricious detentions. Incommunicado imprisonment. Torture. Police impunity. Denial of legal and family visits. Deaths in detention.
It is clear that democracy cannot flourish when laws like these are on the books and are being widely used. So hopefully the new military leaders will lift the emergency laws even before the April referendum.
But that moment is down the road a bit.
The first order of business now is the composition of four or five constitutional articles. And, even at this early stage, the hand-over of the rewriting to a committee has not gone without criticism. Thirty-one human rights organizations have criticized the amendment committee constituted by the military.
Rights groups say that committee membership is tilted toward particular ideologies, that it includes former Mubarak officials, and that it is a male-only group, despite the presence of many qualified women.
The organizations also charged that, in 2005 and 2007, some committee members belonged to legislation committees under the former regime, where they helped prepare flawed legislation and constitutional amendments.
The Rights groups also said that the committee lacked constitutional law experts who were independent and trusted by the public. Nor did it
reflect Egypt's political and social diversity, they declared.
They said it looked like a coalition between members of the former regime and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Michele Dunne, a senior Middle East analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Truthout that the drafting committee has adopted “a very fast process.” But she adds, “We should also bear in mind that the articles to be amended were very controversial and lawyers and NGOs had already done a lot of spade work on how they should be amended, so perhaps some of that work will be used now.”
But even if the committee completes its work on time and an April referendum overwhelmingly approves the new constitutional articles, the new Egypt will have simply taken another of many baby steps toward democracy.
The Emergency Law must be addressed. Some new rules will have to be written regarding Parliamentary elections and Parliamentary power. Someone or some body is sooner or later going to have to take a look at the opaque web of business and economic interests spun by the military’s crony-capitalism . The issue of corruption probably does not require any new laws, rather the implementation of laws already on the books.
The former Mubarak ministers now charged with corruption were charged as a last-gasp distraction by Mubarak. Their guilt or innocence will be decided by a court, but there is nothing to suggest that they would have been charged with anything at any time absent the Mubarak crisis.
How much of such an agenda the military will welcome with open arms is questionable. Every senior military man now on the ruling council owes his appointment – and in many case, his prosperity -- to Mubarak.
Arguably, the most important next step for Egypt beyond amending the constitution, is the emergence of a leader. Many in the country are calling for a leader capable of exercising “adult supervision” over the incredibly diverse souls who slept in Tahrir Square. Just as many others are saying that only the youth of the country can carry the spirit of the uprising from Tahrir Square into the Presidential Palace.
Notes of caution have been delivered to the folks in the Square by thousands of commentators inside and outside Egypt. They have been cautioned about euphoria. They have been told that “democracy is not a plan.” They have been warned about faux leaders, about running too fast, about trying to get everything absolutely perfect.
That’s not possible, and is it undisputed that these young people and their elders are going to make mistakes along the way. Expect them and undoing them can be easier.
And follow the advice of Rami Khoury, Lebanese-born, American-educated journalist and policy wonk:
“It takes time and energy to re-legitimize an entire national governance system and power structure that have been criminalized, privatized, monopolized and militarized by small groups of petty autocrats and thieving families.
“Tunisia and Egypt are the first to embark on this historic journey, and other Arabs will soon follow, because most Arab countries suffer the same deficiencies that have been exposed for all to see in Egypt.
“Make no mistake about it, we are witnessing an epic, historic moment of the birth of concepts that have long been denied to ordinary Arabs: the right to define ourselves and our governments, to assert our national values, to shape our governance systems, and to engage with each other and the rest of the world as free human beings, with rights that will not be denied forever.”
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
EXPERTS: UN NOT GOING FAR ENOUGH ON LIBYA
By William Fisher
Major human rights groups and Middle East experts unanimously agreed today that the United Nations was not nearly tough enough in its condemnation of Libyan dictator Moammar El-Gadhafi, who is currently trying desperately to hang on to power by mobilizing his army, air force, and mercenary militias to attack Libyan citizens demanding an end to the strongman’s iron-fisted rule of 41 years.
Amnesty International (AI, Human Rights Watch (HRW)and Human Rights First (HRF) are among rights groups voicing strong opinions today. The Public Record has also talked with one of the nation’s most respected Middle East scholars, Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab Politics at George Univerisity.
Amnesty accused the international community of failing the people of Libya in their hour of greatest need as violence spirals and Colonel al-Gadhafi threatens to “cleanse Libya house by house”.
The organization said the response to the Libya crisis by the U.N. Security Council fell “shamefully below what was needed to stop the spiraling violence, and called for concrete action, including an immediate arms embargo and assets freeze.
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday issued a statement calling for an end to the violence and urging Libya to act with restraint and respect human rights, but took no substantive measures.
AI also criticized the African Union, which has not convened its Peace and Security Council to address the human rights crisis in Libya.
“Colonel al-Gadhafi has publicly made clear his readiness to kill those who oppose him in order to stay in power,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary-General.
“This is unacceptable. Colonel al-Gadhafi and all those reporting to him need to know that they will be held personally accountable under international law for the crimes they commit.”
“His threats make the half-hearted response from the international community even more shocking. What Libyans need now is not mere words of concern but immediate, concrete action,” he said, adding:
“As a bare minimum, the Security Council must impose an immediate arms embargo against Libya and an asset freeze against al-Gadhafi and his key security and military advisers.”
AI’s call came as Colonel al-Gadhafi gave a speech in which he called protesters “cockroaches” and “rats,” and compared the situation to China, saying that national unity had been “more important than the people of Tiananmen Square."
AI also criticized the response of the African Union to the unfolding crisis, which has seen hundreds killed and persistent reports of mercenaries being brought in from African countries by the Libyan leader to violently suppress the protests against him.
“It is outrageous that the African Union Peace and Security Council has not even met to discuss the emergency taking place in one of its own member states,” said AI’s Shetty.
Amnesty called on the African Union to ensure that its member states, particularly those bordering Libya, are not complicit in human rights abuses in Libya.
The organization also urged the Arab League, which yesterday banned Libya from participation in its meetings, to act at once on its public commitments, in particular by launching an independent Arab investigative committee into the crisis in Libya.
In full, Amnesty International called on:
· The United Nations Security Council: to immediately impose an arms embargo on Libya preventing transfer of equipment and personnel, implement an asset freeze against Colonel al-Gadhafi and his senior military and security advisers and state unequivocally that crimes under international law in Libya will be investigated and punished.
· The African Union and its member states: to immediately investigate reports that armed elements are being transported from African countries to Libya, acting to secure the land borders into Libya and monitor suspicious flights.
· The U.N. General Assembly: to immediately suspend Libya from the 47-member UN Human Rights Council.
· The UN Human Rights Council: to deploy a fact-finding mission to Libya to make rapid recommendations on human rights abuses and whether a referral to the International Criminal Court is warranted.
· Libya and neighboring countries: to facilitate the safe departure of those who wish to leave Libya.
Prof. Samer Shehata, professor of Middle Eastern politics at Georgetown University, told The Public Record, “I agree fully with the idea of an asset freeze, arms embargo and the possibility of pursuing charges against those in Libya (including Qadhafi) of using military force against an unarmed civilian population. Using helicopter gunships, artillery and the report of military aircraft (and the reported ordering of Libyan naval ships to fire on Benghazi) constitute crimes against humanity.”
Shehata continued: “Qadhafi is a depraved, megalomaniacal dictator and he has been a disaster for Libya, the Arab world and Africa. He runs one of the most autocratic regimes in the world -- as a family concern -- and the sooner the Libyan people can be rid of him, the better off they will be.”
He added: “I would also hope that the Arab League and the African Union
will also pursue all possible measures against colonel Qadhafi and his criminal regime.”
Asked by The Public Record about a post-Qadhafi Libya, Shehata, who has recently returned from the Middle East, said Libya “is likely to be significantly more difficult than post-Mubarak Egypt and post Ben Ali Tunisia.”
He gave these reasons: “Unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, Qadhafi has systematically wiped out what existed of Libyan civil and political society; the Qadhafi regime did not allow any independent institutions to develop and he has been in power/in control much longer ... since 1969. Unlike in Tunisia and Egypt there are no known, established political parties, independent civil society groups, labor unions, syndicates, etc.”
He said Job One after Gadhafi will be to “establish order and security and agree on the basic rules of the game.”
“It's not a question of amending the constitution in Libya or bringing in a new cabinet. It's a question of writing a new constitution, creating new
institutions and forging a new form of politics,” he said.
Similar sentiments were voiced by Neil Hicks, International Policy Adviser for Human Rights First. He told The Public Record, “We do believe that the UN should have gone further than just condemnation and concern, and we hope that it will. We support the imposition of a no-fly zone, an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against Gadhafi and other implicated leaders.”
He added, “We fear that Libya, as a result of Gadhafi’s suffocating rule and divide and rule methods, faces a very messy post Gadhafi era, should one emerge.”
“Libya will require massive foreign assistance in terms of expertise and technical support – it has funds, of course. Ideally this should not be led by the West alone, but should involve the Arab League -- perhaps especially Egypt and Tunisia -- with strong backing from the EU and the US.”
He concluded: “It’s a daunting task, but the alternative -- Gadhafi hanging on grimly -- is even worse.
Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch told ThePublic Record, “If there is a post-Gadhafi Libya, it will be a huge mess."
He explained: "Libya has no constitution, no political parties, no free media, no civil society. It has been guided by the Green Book for forty years. This will require a radical olitical restructuring from scratch."
He said, "There are many options, and Libyans must decide for themselves. I could imagine that they would want to form a caretaker government with technocrats and also a constitutional commission to start drafting. These should pave the way for elections. All this will not be easy. And it’s also down the road, not clear what will happen in Tripoli."
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement, “Anyone, including Muammar Gadhafi, ordering or carrying out atrocities should know they will be held individually accountable for their actions, including unlawful killings of protesters.”
She said, “We fear the death toll will rise much higher unless Gadhafi ends his bloody attempts to suppress dissent. He should call his forces including mercenaries off immediately.”
Major human rights groups and Middle East experts unanimously agreed today that the United Nations was not nearly tough enough in its condemnation of Libyan dictator Moammar El-Gadhafi, who is currently trying desperately to hang on to power by mobilizing his army, air force, and mercenary militias to attack Libyan citizens demanding an end to the strongman’s iron-fisted rule of 41 years.
Amnesty International (AI, Human Rights Watch (HRW)and Human Rights First (HRF) are among rights groups voicing strong opinions today. The Public Record has also talked with one of the nation’s most respected Middle East scholars, Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab Politics at George Univerisity.
Amnesty accused the international community of failing the people of Libya in their hour of greatest need as violence spirals and Colonel al-Gadhafi threatens to “cleanse Libya house by house”.
The organization said the response to the Libya crisis by the U.N. Security Council fell “shamefully below what was needed to stop the spiraling violence, and called for concrete action, including an immediate arms embargo and assets freeze.
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday issued a statement calling for an end to the violence and urging Libya to act with restraint and respect human rights, but took no substantive measures.
AI also criticized the African Union, which has not convened its Peace and Security Council to address the human rights crisis in Libya.
“Colonel al-Gadhafi has publicly made clear his readiness to kill those who oppose him in order to stay in power,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary-General.
“This is unacceptable. Colonel al-Gadhafi and all those reporting to him need to know that they will be held personally accountable under international law for the crimes they commit.”
“His threats make the half-hearted response from the international community even more shocking. What Libyans need now is not mere words of concern but immediate, concrete action,” he said, adding:
“As a bare minimum, the Security Council must impose an immediate arms embargo against Libya and an asset freeze against al-Gadhafi and his key security and military advisers.”
AI’s call came as Colonel al-Gadhafi gave a speech in which he called protesters “cockroaches” and “rats,” and compared the situation to China, saying that national unity had been “more important than the people of Tiananmen Square."
AI also criticized the response of the African Union to the unfolding crisis, which has seen hundreds killed and persistent reports of mercenaries being brought in from African countries by the Libyan leader to violently suppress the protests against him.
“It is outrageous that the African Union Peace and Security Council has not even met to discuss the emergency taking place in one of its own member states,” said AI’s Shetty.
Amnesty called on the African Union to ensure that its member states, particularly those bordering Libya, are not complicit in human rights abuses in Libya.
The organization also urged the Arab League, which yesterday banned Libya from participation in its meetings, to act at once on its public commitments, in particular by launching an independent Arab investigative committee into the crisis in Libya.
In full, Amnesty International called on:
· The United Nations Security Council: to immediately impose an arms embargo on Libya preventing transfer of equipment and personnel, implement an asset freeze against Colonel al-Gadhafi and his senior military and security advisers and state unequivocally that crimes under international law in Libya will be investigated and punished.
· The African Union and its member states: to immediately investigate reports that armed elements are being transported from African countries to Libya, acting to secure the land borders into Libya and monitor suspicious flights.
· The U.N. General Assembly: to immediately suspend Libya from the 47-member UN Human Rights Council.
· The UN Human Rights Council: to deploy a fact-finding mission to Libya to make rapid recommendations on human rights abuses and whether a referral to the International Criminal Court is warranted.
· Libya and neighboring countries: to facilitate the safe departure of those who wish to leave Libya.
Prof. Samer Shehata, professor of Middle Eastern politics at Georgetown University, told The Public Record, “I agree fully with the idea of an asset freeze, arms embargo and the possibility of pursuing charges against those in Libya (including Qadhafi) of using military force against an unarmed civilian population. Using helicopter gunships, artillery and the report of military aircraft (and the reported ordering of Libyan naval ships to fire on Benghazi) constitute crimes against humanity.”
Shehata continued: “Qadhafi is a depraved, megalomaniacal dictator and he has been a disaster for Libya, the Arab world and Africa. He runs one of the most autocratic regimes in the world -- as a family concern -- and the sooner the Libyan people can be rid of him, the better off they will be.”
He added: “I would also hope that the Arab League and the African Union
will also pursue all possible measures against colonel Qadhafi and his criminal regime.”
Asked by The Public Record about a post-Qadhafi Libya, Shehata, who has recently returned from the Middle East, said Libya “is likely to be significantly more difficult than post-Mubarak Egypt and post Ben Ali Tunisia.”
He gave these reasons: “Unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, Qadhafi has systematically wiped out what existed of Libyan civil and political society; the Qadhafi regime did not allow any independent institutions to develop and he has been in power/in control much longer ... since 1969. Unlike in Tunisia and Egypt there are no known, established political parties, independent civil society groups, labor unions, syndicates, etc.”
He said Job One after Gadhafi will be to “establish order and security and agree on the basic rules of the game.”
“It's not a question of amending the constitution in Libya or bringing in a new cabinet. It's a question of writing a new constitution, creating new
institutions and forging a new form of politics,” he said.
Similar sentiments were voiced by Neil Hicks, International Policy Adviser for Human Rights First. He told The Public Record, “We do believe that the UN should have gone further than just condemnation and concern, and we hope that it will. We support the imposition of a no-fly zone, an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against Gadhafi and other implicated leaders.”
He added, “We fear that Libya, as a result of Gadhafi’s suffocating rule and divide and rule methods, faces a very messy post Gadhafi era, should one emerge.”
“Libya will require massive foreign assistance in terms of expertise and technical support – it has funds, of course. Ideally this should not be led by the West alone, but should involve the Arab League -- perhaps especially Egypt and Tunisia -- with strong backing from the EU and the US.”
He concluded: “It’s a daunting task, but the alternative -- Gadhafi hanging on grimly -- is even worse.
Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch told ThePublic Record, “If there is a post-Gadhafi Libya, it will be a huge mess."
He explained: "Libya has no constitution, no political parties, no free media, no civil society. It has been guided by the Green Book for forty years. This will require a radical olitical restructuring from scratch."
He said, "There are many options, and Libyans must decide for themselves. I could imagine that they would want to form a caretaker government with technocrats and also a constitutional commission to start drafting. These should pave the way for elections. All this will not be easy. And it’s also down the road, not clear what will happen in Tripoli."
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement, “Anyone, including Muammar Gadhafi, ordering or carrying out atrocities should know they will be held individually accountable for their actions, including unlawful killings of protesters.”
She said, “We fear the death toll will rise much higher unless Gadhafi ends his bloody attempts to suppress dissent. He should call his forces including mercenaries off immediately.”
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