Psyche, Science, and Society

Bahrain Center for Human Rights: Members of Bahraini royal family beating & torturing political prisoners

As Obama and US allies condemn the murderous regime in Syria and bomb that in Libya, they are largely silent on the horrors being perpetrated by US allies Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in repressing the majority of the population in Bahrain. These horrors include arresting, torturing, and prosecuting medical personnel for the crime of treating nonviolent protesters against this oppressive regime. The Bahrain Center for Human Rights is asking for help in response to this disturbing report.

While it isn’t clear exactly what aid they are requesting, US citizens should demand that all military and police aid to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia cease until the repression in Bahrain ends and all foreign, including Saudi, troops are withdrawn. Of course, with a large US naval base in Bahrain, and the extent of dependence on Saudi oil, US support for these brutal dictatorships will likely continue irregardless of the degree of repression. The regime surely knows this. :

Some members of the Bahraini royal family beating & torturing political prisoners

Swedish Citizen tortured by Nasser Alkhalifa, son of King Hamad

16 August 2011

The BCHR expresses grave concern and is alarmed to learn that members of the Alkhalifa family have personally been involved in beating and torturing pro-democracy protesters. After the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain the Center has been receiving reports from victims that they were subjected to severe beatings and torture by people they identified as members of the Bahraini royal family. Five members of Alkhalifa have been specifically mentioned by victims, they are: Noura Alkhalifa, Khalifa Bin Ahmed Alkhalifa, Khalifa Bin Abdulla Alkhalifa and sons of the King, Khaled Bin Hamad Alkhalifa and Nasser Bin Hamad Alkhalifa. One of the victims subjected to torture by Nasser Bin Hamad Alkhalifa is Swedish citizen, Mohammed Habeeb Al-Muqdad, currently imprisoned at Al-Gurain military prison.

Detention Centers

The first victim to speak out was poet Ms Ayat Al-Qurmuzi, who was imprisoned for reading a couple of anti-government poems during the pearl roundabout peaceful protest. Ayat was arrested by masked civilians and blindfolded, after her release she spoke of being tortured by men and women. One of the women she claims tortured her was Noura Alkhalifa. Ayat gave a detailed account of what she was subjected to on the hands of Noura. Among other things Ayat said Noura cursed her, spat on her, and slapped her many times across the face. Noura threatened Ayat that her tongue would be cut off, when Ayat refused to open her mouth, Noura hit her with a broom on her mouth. Noura also spat into Ayats mouth and used electric shocks on Ayats face. As Noura Alkhaifa tortured Ayat she repeated slurs against shias and said “the people you criticize are your masters, and they will remain in power forever, whether you like it or not”.

Another victim is doctor Fatima Hajji. On the 17th of April Noura Alkhalifa and 25 masked men attacked Dr. Fatimas flat in the village of Bani Jamra and arrested her. During interrogations Noora demanded that Fatima confess, when Fatima said she had done nothing but treat patients Noura replied “If you do not confess I will have to torture you the way I tortured Doctor Ali Al-Ekri.” She added that detainees Roula Al-Saffar and Ghassan Dhaif had already confessed.

Noura started slapping and cursing Fatima continuously for about 25 minutes. Then she used a hose to beat her on her feet. When Noura Alkhalifa looked through Dr. Fatimas blackberry and saw two emails, one to Human Rights Watch about her suspension and the other about Martyr Ahmed Shams she shouted at Dr. Fatima “How dare you ruin the image of our government”, then electrocuted her on her face.

Fatima was told to confess that she had pretended to cry in front of foreign media, and that she had stolen 100 bags of blood from the blood bank and given it out to protesters to spill on themselves and pretend to be injured. She was forced to sign a confession after being threatened with rape. Fatima was also sexually harassed by men under the supervision of Noura. She was forced to stand on one leg, make animal noises, sing and dance.

Fatima Al-Bagali who is a student at the teaching college in University of Bahrain was arrested on the 9th of May 2011. She was blindfolded and taken to West Riffa detention center. Where Khalifa Bin Ahmed Alkhalifa The center director interrogated her about a speech she had given on Pearl Square, and about antigovernment comments she had made on facebook. Khalifa beat Fatima, slapping and kicking her as he said “You shia are ungrateful to your masters the Al-Khalifa”. In addition, some of the police officers threatened to rape Fatima if she dared to speak about what she had been subjected to.

Another victim also testified that he was interrogated by Khalifa Bin Ahmed AlKhalifa, who had a picture of the victim in a peaceful protest by the Ministry of Information. The victim says he was asked repeatedly about his participation in that protest, then was blindfolded, beaten and electrocuted on his genitals.

In another case, three of the activists arrested and sentenced for attempting to overthrow the regime also reported that they had been beaten by members of the royal family. The first, Abdulla Isa Al-Mahroos, said he was beaten by Nasser Bin hamad Alkhalifa, and that Nassar forced him to open his mouth then spat in his mouth. Al-Mahroos was also beaten by Head of the Security Apparatus Khalifa Bin Abdulla Alkhalifa. Who kicked him repeatedly in the stomach and ordered the prison guards to walk over his stomach which caused internal bleeding in the abdomen. Afterwhich Al-Mahroos was transferred to the military hospital where he had two surgeries.

The second is Swedish citizen Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad, who was detained in an underground prison in the National Security Apparatus in the Fort. Al-Muqdad recalls that while being tortured suddenly everybody was silent. He heard his torturers say “your majesty” someone asked him “do you know who I am?” When Al-Muqdad said no, his blindfold was removed and the man infront of him said “I’m Prince Nasser Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa. When you protested outside our castle in Safriya, only a wall separated us”. Then Nasser asked Al-Muqdad what chants he had said that day at the protest. When Almuqdad said “Down Down Hamad” Nasser slapped Al-Muqdad who fell to the ground, then with the help of torturers beat him severely.

There is a wealth of evidence confirming that, at the very least, the government and the ruling establishment had knowledge and condoned the actions of the security forces. The most notable example of this is the actions and speeches of Nasser Al Khalifa , the son of the reigning monarch. In a public forum, on state television, Nasser Al Khalifa threatened retribution to all those involved in the protests regardless of their position in society and their profession. In a telling final statement, Nasser Al Khalifa noted that, as an island state, those involved in the protests in Bahrain had “nowhere to escape too”. If any doubt could be attributed to his unequivocal assertions, such doubt would be obliterated by the actions of the government and the personal actions of Nasser Al Khalifa. Within a few hours of this statement, the systematic targeting of athletes involved in the protests commenced. To compound this, Nasser himself became personally involved in the torture.

Mohammed Hassan Jawad (64 yrs old) was blindfolded and handcuffed when Nasser Bin Hamad asked him “do you know who I am, its Nasser with you” Then the son of the king started interrogating Mr. Jawad about the Safriya protest and accusing him of organizing the protest. To force him to confess, Nasser beat Mr. Jawad with a hose on his head until he fell to the ground. Then Nasser started kicking him mostly on his back, while swearing at shia clerics and imams.

Al-Safriya checkpoint

Different victims beaten at tha Al-Safriya checkpoint (close to the palace of the king) gave their testimonies but asked we do not share their names out of fear for their safety. The first is a bus driver who was driving high school students when he was stopped under gun point by the Bahraini army at the checkpoint. He was shocked when Nasser Bin Hamad, son of the King, came wearing a military uniform and started beating him. The victim says Nasser never used his hands but kicked him, in sensitive areas, in his head and chest, and mostly on his face until he started bleeding. When soldiers told Nasser that they would beat him, Nasser replied “No leave him to me”. After severe beating the victim was arrested for two weeks until the marks on his body faded.

The second victim was stopped at the same checkpoint, where Khaled Bin Hamad, son of King Hamad, ordered him to get out of his car and lie down on the ground. Khaled ordered that the victims car and phone get searched. When an anti government message was found on his phone, Khaled started kicking the victim. The beating continued for two hours and a half, by Khaled and other soldiers with him, until the victims nose and mouth bled. The victim was then forced to kiss Khaleds shoes. While beating the victim Khaled asked him how many times he had been to Pearl Square and swore at shia, and their leaders. This victim was detained for 2 months with no charges or trial.

In the third case at Al-Safriya checkpoint, an older man with two sons were stopped. The older man was told to put his head down in respect to the “Sheikh” (member of royal family), his sons were dragged out of the car and thrown on the ground infront of Khaled Bin Hamad Alkhalifa. Khaled was wearing a military uniform, and started beating the two boys using his gun. Khaled asked the boys about a sticker on their car which read “Sunni and Shia are brothers” he made them read it out loud then said “We are not brothers, all shia are homosexuals.” The boys said they were beaten severely by Khaled and Saudi soldiers. When a Saudi soldier called the victims “dogs”, Khaled said “These are not dogs, they’re pigs. At least our dogs are loyal”.

These are a few of the reports brought to the BCHR about torture and mistreatment by members of the royal family. Many other victims came forward but were afraid they would be targeted if they spoke out and asked us not to include their accounts in our report. Putting members of the royal family in the positions of torturers and interrogators will only lead to more mistrust and anger towards the monarchy. The BCHR also observes that most of the victims tortured or beaten by members of the royal family, were subjected to insults directed towards one sect of the population.

The BCHR demands an investigation into the crimes of the five members of the the royal family mentioned in this report and that all those responsible for mistreating and torturing prisoners be brought to justice.

 

2 comments August 19th, 2011

The British riots apparently about poverty after all

Jack Shalom calls to my attention this Guardian analysis of those arrested during the recent British riots. It demonstrates that those arrested where overwhelmingly from poor or getting poorer neighborhoods. It further shows that later riots apparently involved poor youths not destroying their communities, but going to the city centers to riot, suggesting some kind of nascent class consciousness, albeit, a consciousness not chanelled very effectively:

England rioters: young, poor and unemployed
Guardian data project reveals link between economic hardship and those taking part in last week’s riots

By Matthew Taylor, Simon Rogers and Paul Lewis

David Cameron said this week that the riots “were not about poverty”, but the Guardian’s database of court cases raises the question that there may be, at the very least, a correlation between economic hardship and those accused of taking part in last week’s violence and looting.

Based on unprecedented access to information from magistrates courts across England, the Guardian’s data project gives a new insight into the riots, shedding light on those accused of involvement, from their age and gender to the length of sentences being handed down.

The data also highlights geographical differences during last week’s unrest. In London, the evidence suggests rioters often looted shops and businesses in or near the areas where they lived. In cities such as Manchester and Birmingham, in contrast, the data appears to indicate that suspects travelled from their homes on the outskirts of the cities, or in some cases satellite towns, to riot and loot in the city centres.

One of the most striking features to emerge is the proportion of those who have appeared in court so far who come from deprived neighbourhoods.

A Liverpool University urban planning lecturer, Alex Singleton, analysed the Guardian’s preliminary data by overlaying the addresses of defendants with the poverty indicators mapped by England’s Indices of Multiple Deprivation, which breaks the country into small geographical areas.

He found that the majority of people who have appeared in court live in poor neighbourhoods, with 41% of suspects living in one of the top 10% of most deprived places in the country. The data also shows that 66% of neighbourhoods where the accused live got poorer between 2007 and 2010.

Singleton said: “Rioting is deplorable. However, if events such as this are to be mitigated in the future, the prevailing conditions and constraints affecting people living in areas must form part of the discussion. A ‘broken society’ happens somewhere, and geography matters.”

The findings are backed up by research carried out by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) published this week. The thinktank looked at the relationship between different indicators of poverty and deprivation and the boroughs where violence and looting took place.

Researchers found that in almost all of the worst-affected areas, youth unemployment and child poverty were significantly higher than the national average while education attainment was significantly lower.

“Child poverty rates in local authorities where riots flared are stubbornly high,” it stated. “While poverty is no excuse for criminality, it places additional pressure on families not only to make ends meet but also to spend time together … The political debate is likely to rage on for some time but there is also an urgent need to understand what is happening in communities where violence flared.”

The Guardian’s analysis is based on unprecedented access to court results granted by the Ministry of Justice. After a request from the Guardian it instructed all courts to provide full lists of results for all riot-related cases. These have been compiled by the individual courts and have never before been released on such a scale.

The lists give details of the inner workings of England’s lower tier courts and record each defendant’s name, age, address, charge, plea and sentence – as well as whether the case is remanded in jail or committed to the crown court for a jury trial.

The Guardian has been given detailed reports from 1,000 cases covering all the major courts dealing with riot-related offences: Westminster, Camberwell, Highbury and Croydon in London, plus Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Reports from another 14 magistrates courts around England have also been collated by reporters.

Statistics from the MoJ show that 1,297 suspects had had an initial hearing at a magistrates court up to midday on 17 August. The majority of these hearings – 65% – were in London. The Metropolitan police reported that around half of the people who have appeared in court so far in London are under the age of 18. The MoJ says that in cases where the age of the defendant is known, 17% are under 18.

The Guardian database adds further detail to these statistics and appears to confirm that the accused are overwhelmingly young, male and often unemployed.

According to the data collected so far, 66% of those who have appeared in court are aged under 25 – with 17% aged between 11 and 17. Only a very small number in our data were aged over 30. More than 90% are male.

More than two-thirds of those in the Guardian’s data set were remanded in prison, with 39% being passed to crown courts for trial or sentencing.

Less than 10% of cases collated by the Guardian were given a sentence after their first appearance and there have only been a handful of cases where bail has been granted – mainly where the accused was under 18.

Of those who have been sent to prison the average length of sentence is four months and there have only been a few fines, mainly involving a group of 18-year-olds from Liverpool who were arrested by police for wearing face masks.

The accused have been charged mainly with theft, handling stolen goods, burglary or violent disorder. No charge of riot – which is a separate offence – has yet been identified. The Guardian plans to continue refining the analysis as more data is collected.

August 19th, 2011

Ugh! Ewan MacColl’s Ballad of Stalin

I have been a fan of Ewan MacColl’s singing for decades. I knew he had been a member of the Communist Party. But it was still a shock when my son just showed me The Ballad of Stalin, written by MacColl. Equally disturbing was Peggy Seeger’s recent partial defense of mass murder Stalin:

THE BALLAD OF STALIN
(Ewan MacColl)

Joe Stalin was a mighty man, a mighty man was he,
He led the Soviet people on the road to victory.
All through the revolution he fought at Lenin’s side,
And they made a combination till the day that Lenin died.

He said, “Come all you people, we will work with brain and hand.”
And then one day the Nazis came into the Soviet land,
They plundered to the Volga, to Stalingrad, and then
Joe Stalin said, Come on, me boys!” and he kicked them out again.

Joe Stalin was a southerner, in Georgia he was born
Where the oranges grow thick and fast and fields of waving corn;
And Joe he was a farmer, his fingers they were green
And he has planted the biggest crop the world has ever seen.

One day he looked upon his map and frowned and shook his head,
“There’s too much brown and not enough green,” these are the words he said;
“We’ll have to change the weather, boys,” he said and then he smiled,
“So let’s begin by planting trees along three thousand miles.”

Joe Stalin rolled his sleeves up and he said, “Come on, let’s start!
The Volga river and the Don they are too far apart.
I think we’d better join them, so come and help me, pal,
And we’ll build a mighty waterway, the Volga-Don Canal.”

One day he went into the North and there saw rivers three
All emptying their waters into the Polar Sea;
“Now that’s not right,” Joe Stalin said, “these rivers they are ours,
We’ll turn ‘em ’round and make ‘em work to give electric power.”

There was a range of mountains that was standing in the way
So Stalin put his hand out and he smoothed them all away;
For Joe he was determined to make the land all green
And that’s the biggest project that the world has ever seen.

Joe Stalin was a mighty man and he made a mighty plan;
He harnessed nature to the plough to work for the good of man;
He’s hammered out the future, the forgeman he has been
And he’s made the workers’ state the best the world has ever seen.

The blog The Mudcat Cafe, on which this appears, has this comment:

It is a pity that the date when this song was written is not given, but the mention of the Volga-Don Canal makes 1952 the earliest probable date and assuming that Krushev’s denouncing of Stalin in 1956 has reached MacColl’s ears this year (1956) should be the last possible date (I hope).

Peggy Seeger calls the song “a sample of his early work, highly dogmatic and low on finesse”, but she still insists that “there is no doubt that Joseph Stalin was a brilliant wartime leader and that many of his reforms (notably his collectivisation programme) were correct and productive.”

How a person could be so partially blind is a mystery to me. He must have believed that just everything he could read in the bourgeois press was wrong. Peggy Seeger’s use of the word ‘productive’ also puzzles me. If she still thinks collectivisation was correct that’s fine, but ‘productive’. I thought it was now fairly well known that the productivity dropped by the collectivisation. WH

Again, it goes to show that artistic talent or moral fervor is no protection from moral blindness. Alas, we still have those who project fantasies of wonderful leadership onto Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Gadaffi or other “revolutionary” leaders. The wish for the firm, but all wise father who will bring liberation seems never to die.

UPDATE: A close friend sent this comment:

Depressing post re MacColl. I liked your comments except that I thought the shot at Chavez  — of whom I’m not a fan and who has lots of problems — was unfair, given that he, unlike Castro and Qaddafi, not to mention Uncle Joe, was elected.

I would argue that the uncritical adulation of some of the Western left toward Chavez is what I was commenting on, not necessarily Chavez’s policies.

August 19th, 2011

PBS Newshour on inequality in America

Inequality in the US is like that in many African countries, and worse than many on that continent. As a result:

The American dream is not for me. Maybe for the rich, but not for me.

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