‘Day of Rage’ Protest Fails to Materialize in Syria. Settlers torch, vandalize Nablus school. NABLUS (Ma'an) -- A group of Israeli settlers broke into an all girls' school in the Nablus districton Wednesday, setting fire to its storehouse containing furniture and unused sports equipment, the headmistress said. Maysoon Sawalha said the cleaning woman at the school in As-Sawiya village arrived to find the lock on the main door broken as well as that of the storehouse, and all its contents were torched. The fire did not spread to the rest of school because the water main is located in the storehouse, she said, adding that "otherwise the whole school would have been set on fire. " Settlers wrote racist slogans on the school's walls, including "regards from the hilltops," she added. "This is not the first attack on the school.
Many attacks were carried out previously, the last of which was last year when settlers intercepted one of the classrooms and fired rounds of ammunition and gas canisters," Sawalha said. Israeli police, she added, are investigating the incident. Iraqi Christians 'It's genocide, essentially' Joe Stork, from Human Rights Watch, comments on the human rights situation in Bahrain Oct 2010. Bahrain on the edge. The politics of a small Persian Gulf kingdom do not usually reverberate far beyond its borders. But an accumulation of social tensions and rights violations in Bahrain gives its coming election a rare international importance, say Christopher M Davidson & Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen.
The rulers of Bahrain are having to become used to greater scrutiny of the way they govern their tiny Persian Gulf kingdom. The approach of a parliamentary election on 23 October 2010 is one reason for a flurry of reports and articles about the country’s political life. But what this closer look has uncovered - including hundreds of dissenters behind bars, and widespread accounts of torture - should be of interest to far more than political analysts. The Al-Khalifa monarchs, whose fiefdom the island state of Bahrain is, present themselves as the guardians of a nascent democracy. This is strictly a facade. There are indeed serious tensions between Bahrain’s Shi’a and the ruling Sunni minority. A new phase. Arresting and Torturing Activists due to Transmitting Photos & Info about the Incidents in Bahrain to News Channels & Agencies.
17 October 2010 The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses its deep concern for the Bahraini government continuing to criminalize activists due to them practicing their rights, and especially their right to freedom of opinion, expression and publishing, and for it practicing the crime of torture and cruel treatment to extract confessions, and this was lately represented in arresting and torturing two detainees on the charge of sending out photos about Bahrain’s reality to the international news channels and agencies. On 7th October, the first court sessions of the detainees Hussein Al-Dirazi and Mohammed Mushaimea[1] was initiated, where the Prosecution charged them with “transmitting photos that would bring harm to Bahrain abroad”, while it accused Mohammed Mushaimea with collaborating with the latter in receiving the photos during his stay in London and transmitting them to the officials in one of the foreign channels and who in turn published them later.
La peine de mort plane sur le "père" des blogueurs iraniens. In Bahrain, a Vital Moment for Liberal Arab Grassroots - Max Fisher - International. Human rights groups across the Arab world are rallying to the defense of Ali Abdulemam, an influential online journalist who has been imprisoned by the government of his native Bahrain, a tiny oil-rich nation on the Arabian peninsula. His arrest for spreading "false information" is widely seen as retaliation for his criticism of the government and part of a broader move in Bahrain to crack down on dissent.
Middle Eastern journalists and advocacy groups, the informal leaders of the Arab liberal grassroots movement that has struggled to make itself heard in a region known for autocratic rulers and religious conservatism, now face the latest in a series of tests of their influence. The conflict is escalating quickly, with the government responding to the pressure from activist groups by clamping down even harder.
The Bahrain Human Rights Society reports that the government has seized the group and replaced its chief with a friendly "administrator. " Human rights group details Iraq prisoner abuse. By Rebecca Santana, Associated Press BAGHDAD — Detainees in Iraqi prisons and jails often go years without trial, face widespread torture and abuse, and have little access to their families or legal help, an international human rights group said Monday. The report by the London-based Amnesty International raises disturbing questions about the future of Iraqi justice at a critical juncture — after the U.S. military has handed over almost all prison responsibilities to Iraq's government.
About 30,000 detainees are currently in Iraqi custody, although the exact number has not been released, the report stated. Prisoners are often housed in crowded conditions, leading to health problems, and they sometimes go years without seeing the inside of a courtroom, Amnesty said. "Iraq's security forces have been responsible for systematically violating detainees' rights," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Syria: Release Student Blogger Held Incommunicado. (New York) - The Syrian government should immediately release Tal al-Mallohi, a 19-year-old high school student and blogger held incommunicado without charge for nine months, Human Rights Watch said today. She has been held by Syria's security services since being detained on December 27, 2009. State Security (Branch 279), one of Syria's multiple state security agencies, summoned al-Mallohi to Damascus for interrogation in December and immediately detained her.
Two days later, members of State Security went to al-Mallohi's house and confiscated her computer, some CDs, books, and other personal belongings. Since the arrest, the security services have not allowed her family to communicate with her and have not offered any explanation for the arrest. "Detaining a high school student for nine months without charge is typical of the cruel, arbitrary behavior of Syria's security services," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.