HRW cites multiple reports of torture that emerged during the Formula 1 grand prix held in Bahrain in April. They include accounts of activists and women subjected to electric shocks and forced into signing confessions.In addition, the organization harks back to the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry report, issued in November 2011 that stated five activists had died in custody of torture since uprisings began against the Sunni ruling class.“If the latest allegations are brushed aside it will be yet more evidence suggesting that Bahrain’s justice system is a haven for torturers,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Bahrain’s allies should apply serious pressure on Bahrain to investigate and hold accountable anyone responsible for brutally torturing activists.”Bahrain has blocked the entry of the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, from coming to probe police abuses of power. His visit, which was scheduled to begin on May 8, was indefinitely postponed by the Bahraini authorities.“This is the second time that my visit has been postponed, at very short notice. It is, effectively, a cancellation as no alternative dates were proposed, nor is there a future road map to discuss,” said Mendez, expressing his “disappointment” over the announcement.Protests against the Bahrain’s oppressive Sunni royal family have become commonplace. The country’s 70 per cent Shia claim they are discriminated against and call for a transfer to a democratic system of government.This comes as six tweeters were jailed on Wednesday for insulting King Hamad and ‘misusing the right to free expression.’ According to prosecutors, they posted comments on their Twitter feeds that undermined “the values and traditions of Bahrain’s society towards the king.”The Bahraini capital, Manama, was hit by mass protests during the grand prix. Activists branded the event “a race for blood” and claimed it was a ploy by the Bahraini authorities to “whitewash” the country’s poor human rights reputation.One of the highest-profile cases of human rights abuses to come out of Bahrain is that of activist Nabeel Rajab, who openly attacked the country’s government following an interview on RT for Julian Assange’s show The World Tomorrow. Nabeel was sentenced to three years in jail for ‘participation in an illegal assembly’ and ‘calling for a march without prior notification.’Since the beginning of the uprisings against the Bahraini monarchy in 2011, Human Rights Watch has calculated that at least 80 people have been killed and thousands arrested. … Read More
Russian Labor Day: Rallies, ridicule and revelry as tens of thousands take part
Various events to celebrate the Day of Spring and Labor – a Russian public holiday – have been held in over 1,000 towns and cities across the country.In Moscow, around 90,000 people took part in a demonstration organized by the ruling United Russia party and trade unions.“Many joined the event to express their support for the initiatives put forward by the country’s President Vladimir Putin and the head of the government Dmitry Medvedev,” said Sergey Neverov, the party’s general council’s secretary, cited by RIA news agency.A rally held by the Communist party – the second largest in Russia – had some 4,500 people in attendance- according to police. The party’s official website claims though that over 50,000 joined the KPRF gathering, led by the party’s long-time leader Gennady Zyuganov.Waving red banners with the Communist symbol – the hammer and sickle – and portraits of the Bolshevik revolution leader Vladimir Lenin – KPRF supporters marched through Moscow downtown to Teatralnaya Square next to the Kremlin. After the Soviet anthem was played, Zyuganov addressed the crowd, traditionally criticizing the ruling party’s policies, including Russia’s recent entry in the WTO and unemployment in the country.“We have a team, we have our history, and we have solidarity in the fight for the interests of workers, for a strong, fair, socialist power, for the revival of our great union state,” the KPRF leader stated. “Viva Solidarity! Viva May! Viva Labor! Viva our Victory!” he concluded.On Wednesday two Moscow parks took note of London’s Hyde-park opening in Russia’s capital on the premise of allowing public events to take place without special permission from the city’s administration.However, there were political slogans already seen present on the first day of such practice in Moscow. In the morning, supporters of the promotion of European electronic music gathered in the “speaker’s corner” in Gorky park. It was followed by a protest against boorishness, joined by only a small bunch of people.The most anticipated event – Single Girls’ Meeting – turned out to be a disappointment for the gapers and reporters who were waiting to see 300 (as it had been announced) lonely ladies. The media has jokingly labeled the event a meeting of single journalists as only about 10 single girls were brave enough to turn up for the meeting. They held small placards with slogans like “Girls don’t want to meet a prince, they want to eat everything and never get fat!” or “I don’t want to decide anything, I want a new dress!” Meanwhile, in Russia’s northern capital St Petersburg, up to 150,000 took part in the sanctioned Labor Day demonstration in the city center. The same as in Moscow, the largest column of participants was that backed by United Russia and the local federation of trade unions. They were followed by Communist marchers, and other leftist organizations as well as National-Bolsheviks, anarchists, anti-fascists and nationalists.The Labor Day march passed through central Nevsky Prospekt down to Palace Square, where United Russia and trade unions held a meeting. According to news agencies, the festive gathering was slightly marred by a brawl between anarchists and nationalists as a result of which 20 people were detained. No other major incidents were reported. Liberals and LGBT organizations held their meeting at a different spot in the city center. Monstration, or Forward to Dark Past!Youth in several Russian cities celebrated the Labor Day by holding a parody rally, or “Monstration.”The largest such gathering was held in Novosibirsk, where around 2,000 people joined the absurd extravaganza which is a fun mixture of a carnival, a demonstration and a march. This year marked 10 years since first Monstration was held in the Siberian capital. The rally’s main slogan was “Forward to Dark Past!” – apparently as an opposite to Soviet-era’s “Forward to Bright Future!”The loud crowd – with some participants wearing costumes of monsters or aliens – carried placards with all sorts of humorous, funny, absurd or satirical slogans. One of the girls, for instance, hid her face behind a poster that read “If you’re not paranoid, become it!” A placard carried by the guy dressed in a white robe with artificial blood stains stated that he stands for kindness, while another participant’s – simply announced that he’s got foam plastic. Other “monstrators” demanded “clear slogans” or to “Stop uploading food in Instragram.”In general, the event had no political context. However, participants called for jailed punk rock group Pussy Riot to be freed, a slogan being placed on a truck driving along with the Monstration march.So-called monstrations were also held in other Russian cities, including Yaroslavl, Krasnoyarsk and Omsk. … Read More
UK expenses on Ecuadorian embassy surveillance ‘utterly absurd’ – Assange
Assange believes his being trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy is the result of the UK’s unwillingness to offend the US. And that sentiment is unlikely to disappear even if the ruling party is switched in Britain following the country’s 2015 election. The Australian government taskforce against WikiLeaks is also a bow to the United States, according to the organization’s founder, who stresses there’s no single reason for persecuting the organization in a country it never leaked anything about. Australian officials meanwhile publicly announced they are looking for ways to cancel the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief’s passport – something extremely rare – last done to the Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett in the 1970s. Assange believes this approach is “symptomatic of corruption in Canberra”, which he describes as corruption of purpose, when politicians do not represent the people, but other interests instead. He offers his newborn political party as an alternative. In an interview with RT Assange says that as long as the WikiLeaks party has candidates running for the Senate, other participants of the election race have to “shift ground” to remain competitive, even though breaking into Australian politics from an Ecuadorian embassy in London is quite a challenging task.RT: You are making a bid for the Australian Senate. Why?Julian Assange: In order to promote our values within Australia. We face a very interesting situation, as an organization and me personally, with the Australian government, in response to pressure by the United States, starting to investigate our organization. It formed what it called a whole of government task force against WikiLeaks. Whole of government involved in the internal security service ASIO, the external security service ASIS, the department of defense, the Australian federal police equivalent of the FBI and the attorney general’s office. Publically announced that the Australian government would try and work out how to cancel my passport. It is an extremely rare procedure, last done to an Australian journalist in the ’60s-’70s – Wilfred Burchett. What was WikiLeaks’ connection to Australia? Was WikiLeaks publishing Australian secrets? No. Was WikiLeaks having its publishing service in Australia? No!The connection to Australia is simply that I’m an Australian. And we also have one of our many non-profit registrations in Australia, and that’s all. And that alone and the US pressure was enough to cause the Australian government to roll over. That’s symptomatic of corruption in Canberra in general, which is a corruption not just in a regular financial sense, it’s a corruption of purpose. That when a government says that it’s going to represent the people, it’s not representing the people, it’s rather representing other interests.RT: How easy is it to try and break into politics from inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London?JA: It’s a fascinating situation that the Australian electoral code permits an imprisoned Australian overseas to run for the Australian Senate. That’s something quite interesting that when we first proposed that, the critics in the Australian establishment media said “Oh, that would be impossible.” But actually it is possible and the Australian Electoral Commission has recognized that. There’s been a variety of polls done in Australia that show that I have somewhere between 27 and 15 per cent support of the Australian population. Fourteen per cent is needed to be directly elected to the Senate without preferences. The WikiLeaks party itself is growing from strength to strength. We have potential candidates now in most Australian states.RT: And on a practical level you can campaign remotely online?JA: I don’t want to underestimate the difficulties of being in this situation. But WikiLeaks has certain abilities in using the internet, certain understanding on how to project the information on the internet. So we’ll see whether that works. I don’t know how much difficulty that’s going to be, how forgiving the Australian population will be of that difficulty. But I’m certain that the values that I have fought for 20 years, that the organization has fought for six or seven years, can be projected into the Australian debate of this election and that we will influence the policy positions of the other parties. They must shift ground if they are to be competitive with us for the Senate.RT: How long do you anticipate staying here?JA: As long as it takes.RT: Do you think your personal circumstances might change if Labour comes to power?JA: The Labor Party is in power, and that’s one of the problems. The Labor Party is the most infiltrated and economically corrupt major party in the Australian politics. We see this from the US embassy cables. For example the current Foreign Minister Bob Carr was a US embassy informant even back in the 1970s, even when he was a senior member of the New South Wales Australian Union, a union leader constantly going into the American embassy. Why was a union leader constantly going to the US embassy, informing on the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, white-anting Gough Whitlam? Similarly, Mark Arbib now kicked out of the Cabinet partially as a result of being exposed as a US embassy informant. And the current Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who rolled the sitting Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Why did that happen? And how did that happen? It happened in part because she sent her invoice to the US embassy and spoke to the security staff. There was a constant back and forth in this year-long sort of preparation where she was ingratiating herself with Rudd’s place.RT: What about the British politics? If there’s a change of power here, do you think there could be some sort of deal struck between Ecuadorians and the Labour Party in the UK? JA: A lot has been said about the British Foreign Minister William Hague that there does not exist a diplomatic situation that William Hague cannot make worse. We’ll see whether that statement is true. So far that has proven to be true, but really for the United Kingdom they’ve been handed a poisoned chalice.The United Kingdom so far admits to spending over $4.5 million just on the police surveillance around this embassy alone in the past 10 months. Utterly absurd. That money could be spent on the British population. Why is the United Kingdom doing it? It’s pushed between a number of different forces. So you have the United States on the one hand, the UK feels that it cannot offend in any manner whatsoever. On the other hand you have its interrelationships in Europe that it wants to be seen to be part of. The United Kingdom actually wants to ship the problem away as fast as possible. But now, of course, it overstepped. The result of it overstepping is that another state has intervened, Ecuador and another way of seeing the world, another population group, another region, Latin America has intervened and said “this is not right” and we want to project our values in showing that it is not right. And so there is a clash now of cultures, rule of law and geopolitics.2015 is the British election. I don’t think it will make any difference. The United Kingdom is a nation geopolitically of institutions. So its Foreign Commonwealth Office and MI-5, and MI-6, and the Central Bank – this is what controls the behavior of the United Kingdom, and the media a little bit. And elected representatives, they simply represent the forces that are underneath these institutions.The present government is possibly even the best for someone in my sort of situation, which is where you have a conservative government, on the other hand you have the Liberal Democrats creating some restraint forces on the conservative government. You also have the Labour Party, which hasn’t yet worked out being the opposition they can. But perhaps overtime they’ll work out again how to be an opposition.What opposition is meant to do is hold government to account. When you see parliamentary debates here, you see extraordinary things to me. For example, debates about extraditions to United States, how corrupting that is. In fact, the parliament voted that there must be urgent reform about what has been done with the extraditions to Europe and to the United States back in December 2011. My case was being used as an example of one of the reasons of why there should be urgent reform. And who was speaking against that? The most aggressive voices against us, that we must ship people over to the United States directly as soon as possible [were from] Labour. … Read More
Serbia to approve Kosovo reconciliation deal
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia’s ruling parties say they will support a potentially landmark agreement to normalize relations with breakaway Kosovo that could end years of tensions and put both states on a path to European Union membership.The prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo reached a tentative EU-mediated deal Friday that would give Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership authority over rebel Kosovo Serbs. In return, the minority Serbs would get wide autonomy within Kosovo.The deal still has to be approved by Serbia and Kosovo. Leaders of the two main ruling parties in Serbia said Sunday they will support the deal at a government session scheduled for Monday.The agreement has triggered outrage among Serb nationalists.Continue Reading… … Read More
Opposition fears amid Malaysia campaigning
http://www.youtube.com/v/44_upIwJLl0?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Source - Opposition fears amid Malaysia campaigning
Venezuela’s Capriles refuses to accept Maduro win
http://www.youtube.com/v/Wpm3Nr_LsCs?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Read More: Venezuela’s Capriles refuses to accept Maduro win
Nicolas Maduro, Hugo Chavez Successor, Elected President of Venezuela With 50.7 Percent of the Vote, Challenge from Opposition Likely
Despite hope that the
mood in the country was starting to change, Hugo Chavez’s
hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro was elected president ; of
Venezuela by a razor-thin margin,
according to the national electoral authority. He received just
300,000 more votes than Henry Capriles, who last year lost by just
11 points to Hugo Chavez, Chavez’s closest electoral victory.
;In the wake of Chavez’s death, the ruling party mobilized the
state apparatus to secure victory for his successor, with the
defense ministry
pledging the support of the army for Maduro’s election
campaign.
The victory is far from certain; earlier today the Carpiles
campaign was sure
it had won and further inspection of the tally could well
reveal electoral fraud. ;
Follow updates on the situation throughout the week at Reason 24/7. … Read More
