Saturday, March 7, 2015
Thousands Gather in Tel Aviv, Demand New Leadership in Israel
More than 40,000 demonstrators participated in a rally organized by a non-profit organization One Million Hands, demanding replacement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Over 40,000 demonstrators have gathered in the central Tel Aviv’s Rabin square, demanding replacement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at March 17 elections, The Times of Israel reported.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/africa/20150308/1019210833.html#ixzz3Tlabjnsw
Over 40,000 demonstrators have gathered in the central Tel Aviv’s Rabin square, demanding replacement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at March 17 elections, The Times of Israel reported.
“We have a leader who fights only one campaign — the campaign for his own political survival,” former Mossad chief Meir Dagan told the crowd as quoted by The Times of Israel.
The rally was organized by a non-profit organization One Million Hands, which wants Israel to change its priorities and focus on health, education and housing.
On March 17, Israel will hold the 20th parliamentary elections. In December 2014, Netanyahu declared that he wanted the Parliament to be dissolved and to hold an early elections in March, two years before the fixed date.
Netanyahu's ruling center-right party Likud’s main opponent in the upcoming elections is the center-left Zionist Union, which is a single-ballot merger between the Labor party and the dismissed justice minister Tzipi Livni's Hatnuah party.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/africa/20150308/1019210833.html#ixzz3Tlabjnsw
Breedlove's Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine
US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel's efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin's approach. And NATO's top commander in Europe hasn't been helping either.
It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding.
On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery" having been sent to the Donbass. "What is clear," Breedlove said, "is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day."
German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.
The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove's comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.
The 'Super Hawk'
But Breedlove hasn't been the only source of friction. Europeans have also begun to see others as hindrances in their search for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. First and foremost among them is Victoria Nuland, head of European affairs at the US State Department. She and others would like to see Washington deliver arms to Ukraine and are supported by Congressional Republicans as well as many powerful Democrats.
Indeed, US President Barack Obama seems almost isolated. He has thrown his support behind Merkel's diplomatic efforts for the time being, but he has also done little to quiet those who would seek to increase tensions with Russia and deliver weapons to Ukraine. Sources in Washington say that Breedlove's bellicose comments are first cleared with the White House and the Pentagon. The general, they say, has the role of the "super hawk," whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America's more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.
A mixture of political argumentation and military propaganda is necessary. But for months now, many in the Chancellery simply shake their heads each time NATO, under Breedlove's leadership, goes public with striking announcements about Russian troop or tank movements. To be sure, neither Berlin's Russia experts nor BND intelligence analysts doubt that Moscow is supporting the pro-Russian separatists. The BND even has proof of such support.
But it is the tone of Breedlove's announcements that makes Berlin uneasy. False claims and exaggerated accounts, warned a top German official during a recent meeting on Ukraine, have put NATO -- and by extension, the entire West -- in danger of losing its credibility.
There are plenty of examples. Just over three weeks ago, during the cease-fire talks in Minsk, the Ukrainian military warned that the Russians -- even as the diplomatic marathon was ongoing -- had moved 50 tanks and dozens of rockets across the border into Luhansk. Just one day earlier, US Lieutenant General Ben Hodges had announced "direct Russian military intervention."
Senior officials in Berlin immediately asked the BND for an assessment, but the intelligence agency's satellite images showed just a few armored vehicles. Even those American intelligence officials who supply the BND with daily situation reports were much more reserved about the incident than Hodges was in his public statements. One intelligence agent says it "remains a riddle until today" how the general reached his conclusions.
Much More Cautious
"The German intelligence services generally appraise the threat level much more cautiously than the Americans do," an international military expert in Kiev confirmed.
At the beginning of the crisis, General Breedlove announced that the Russians had assembled 40,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and warned that an invasion could take place at any moment. The situation, he said, was "incredibly concerning." But intelligence officials from NATO member states had already excluded the possibility of a Russian invasion. They believed that neither the composition nor the equipment of the troops was consistent with an imminent invasion.
The experts contradicted Breedlove's view in almost every respect. There weren't 40,000 soldiers on the border, they believed, rather there were much less than 30,000 and perhaps even fewer than 20,000. Furthermore, most of the military equipment had not been brought to the border for a possible invasion, but had already been there prior to the beginning of the conflict. Furthermore, there was no evidence of logistical preparation for an invasion, such as a field headquarters.
Breedlove, though, repeatedly made inexact, contradictory or even flat-out inaccurate statements. On Nov. 18, 2014, he told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that there were "regular Russian army units in eastern Ukraine." One day later, he told the website of the German newsmagazine Stern that they weren't fighting units, but "mostly trainers and advisors."
He initially said there were "between 250 and 300" of them, and then "between 300 and 500." For a time, NATO was even saying there were 1,000 of them.
The fact that NATO has no intelligence agency of its own plays into Breedlove's hands. The alliance relies on intelligence gathered by agents from the US, Britain, Germany and other member states. As such, SACEUR has a wide range of information to choose from.
Influencing Breedlove
On Nov. 12, during a visit to Sofia, Bulgaria, Breedlove reported that "we have seen columns of Russian equipment -- primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops -- entering into Ukraine." It was, he noted, "the same thing that OSCE is reporting." But the OSCE had only observed military convoys within eastern Ukraine. OSCE observers had said nothing about troops marching in from Russia.
Breedlove sees no reason to revise his approach. "I stand by all the public statements I have made during the Ukraine crisis," he wrote to SPIEGEL in response to a request for a statement accompanied by a list of his controversial claims. He wrote that it was to be expected that assessments of NATO's intelligence center, which receives information from all 33 alliance members in addition to partner states, doesn't always match assessments made by individual nations. "It is normal that not everyone agrees with the assessments that I provide," he wrote.
He says that NATO's strategy is to "release clear, accurate and timely information regarding ongoing events." He also wrote that: "As an alliance based on the fundamental values of freedom and democracy, our response to propaganda cannot be more propaganda. It can only be the truth."
The German government, meanwhile, is doing what it can to influence Breedlove. Sources in Berlin say that conversations to this end have taken place in recent weeks. But there are many at NATO headquarters in Brussels who are likewise concerned about Breedlove's statements. On Tuesday of last week, Breedlove's public appearances were an official item on the agenda of the North Atlantic Council's weekly lunch meeting. Several ambassadors present criticized Breedlove and expressed their incredulity at some of the commander's statements.
The government in Berlin is concerned that Breedlove's statements could harm the West's credibility. The West can't counter Russian propaganda with its own propaganda, "rather it must use arguments that are worthy of a constitutional state." Berlin sources also say that it has become conspicuous that Breedlove's controversial statements are often made just as a step forward has been made in the difficult negotiations aimed at a political resolution. Berlin sources say that Germany should be able to depend on its allies to support its efforts at peace.
Pressure on Obama
German foreign policy experts are united in their view of Breedlove as a hawk. "I would prefer that Breedlove's comments on political questions be intelligent and reserved," says Social Democrat parliamentarian Niels Annen, for example. "Instead, NATO in the past has always announced a new Russian offensive just as, from our point of view, the time had come for cautious optimism." Annen, who has long specialized in foreign policy, has also been frequently dissatisfied with the information provided by NATO headquarters. "We parliamentarians were often confused by information regarding alleged troop movements that were inconsistent with the information we had," he says.
The pressure on Obama from the Republicans, but also from his own political camp, is intense. Should the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine not hold, it will likely be difficult to continue refusing Kiev's requests for shipments of so-called "defensive weapons." And that would represent a dramatic escalation of the crisis. Moscow has already begun issuing threats in anticipation of such deliveries. "Any weapons deliveries to Kiev will escalate the tensions and would unhinge European security," Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's national security council, told the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on Wednesday.
Although President Obama has decided for the time being to give European diplomacy a chance, hawks like Breedlove or Victoria Nuland are doing what they can to pave the way for weapons deliveries. "We can fight against the Europeans, fight against them rhetorically," Nuland said during a private meeting of American officials on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference at the beginning of February.
In reporting on the meeting later, the German tabloid Bild reported that Nuland referred to the chancellor's early February trip to Moscow for talks with Putin as "Merkel's Moscow stuff." No wonder, then, that people in Berlin have the impression that important power brokers in Washington are working against the Europeans. Berlin officials have noticed that, following the visit of American politicians or military leaders in Kiev, Ukrainian officials are much more bellicose and optimistic about the Ukrainian military's ability to win the conflict on the battlefield. "We then have to laboriously bring the Ukrainians back onto the course of negotiations," said one Berlin official.
Nuland Diplomacy
Nuland, who is seen as a possible secretary of state should the Republicans win back the White House in next year's presidential election, is an important voice in US policy concerning Ukraine and Russia. She has never sought to hide her emotional bond to Russia, even saying "I love Russia." Her grandparents immigrated to the US from Bessarabia, which belonged to the Russian empire at the time. Nuland speaks Russian fluently.
She is also very direct. She can be very keen and entertaining, but has been known to take on an undiplomatic tone -- and has not always been wrong to do so. Mykola Asarov, who was prime minister under toppled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, recalls that Nuland basically blackmailed Yanukovych in order to prevent greater bloodshed in Kiev during the Maidan protests. "No violence against the protesters or you'll fall," Nuland told him according to Asarov. She also, he said, threatened tough economic and political sanctions against both Ukraine and the country's leaders. According to Asarov, Nuland said that, were violence used against the protesters on Maidan Square, information about the money he and his cronies had taken out of the country would be made public.
Nuland has also been open -- at least internally -- about her contempt for European weakness and is famous for having said "Fuck the EU" during the initial days of the Ukraine crisis in February of 2014. Her husband, the neo-conservative Robert Kagan, is, after all, the originator of the idea that Americans are from Mars and Europeans, unwilling as they are to realize that true security depends on military power, are from Venus.
When it comes to the goal of delivering weapons to Ukraine, Nuland and Breedlove work hand-in-hand. On the first day of the Munich Security Conference, the two gathered the US delegation behind closed doors to discuss their strategy for breaking Europe's resistance to arming Ukraine.
On the seventh floor of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the heart of Munich, it was Nuland who began coaching. "While talking to the Europeans this weekend, you need to make the case that Russia is putting in more and more offensive stuff while we want to help the Ukrainians defend against these systems," Nuland said. "It is defensive in nature although some of it has lethality."
Training Troops?
Breedlove complemented that with the military details, saying that moderate weapons aid was inevitable -- otherwise neither sanctions nor diplomatic pressure would have any effect. "If we can increase the cost for Russia on the battlefield, the other tools will become more effective," he said. "That's what we should do here."
In Berlin, top politicians have always considered a common position vis-a-vis Russia as a necessary prerequisite for success in peace efforts. For the time being, that common front is still holding, but the dispute is a fundamental one -- and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action. Additionally, the trans-Atlantic partners also have differing goals. Whereas the aim of the Franco-German initiative is to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, it is Russia that concerns hawks within the US administration. They want to drive back Moscow's influence in the region and destabilize Putin's power. For them, the dream outcome would be regime change in Moscow.
A massive troop training range is located in Yavoriv in western Ukraine near the Polish border. During Soviet times, it served as the westernmost military district in the Soviet Union. Since 1998, though, it has been used for joint exercises by Ukrainian forces together with the United States and NATO. Yavoriv is also the site where US soldiers want to train members of the Ukrainian National Guard for their future battle against the separatists. According to the Pentagon's plans, American officers would train the Ukrainians on how to use American artillery-locating radar devices. At least that's what US Army in Europe commander Lt. Gen. Hodges announced in January.
The training was actually supposed to start at the beginning of March. Before it began, however, President Obama temporarily put it on hold in order to give the ceasefire agreement reached in Minsk a chance. Still, the hawks remain confident that they will soon come a step closer to their goal. On Tuesday, Hodges said during an appearance in Berlin that he expects the training will still begin at some point this month.
By Matthias Gebauer, Christiane Hoffmann, Marc Hujer, Gordon Repinski, Matthias Schepp, Christoph Schult, Holger Stark and Klaus Wiegrefe
Turkey - Women geared up for March 8 protests but anxious
Turkey's women's movement once again will mark March 8, International Women's Day, with protests and calls on the government to stop violence against women, but while doing it, they hope to be protected from the violence of the state, because they say that whenever they have been on the streets to call for women's rights, they have been subjected to violence from the police.
“We have been calling everybody onto the streets on March 8, but we are also uneasy about it. Our calls are innocent, but we are worried how the government will take it. We are worried that they can use the provisions of the new security package on us,” said Canan Güllü, president of the Federation of Turkey's Women's Associations (TKDF).
Güllü was referring to the highly controversial “security package,” a bill currently being pushed through Parliament by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government. Many civil society groups have expressed concern that they have not been included in the process of preparing the bill, which will be a severe blow to democracy and human rights.
“However, we will be on the streets to call for an end to violence against women, against men's murders of women and against the state's violence against people,” she said.
Activists have indicated that if the bill is passed in Parliament, it will pose a threat to everyone in society, but especially to more vulnerable groups: women, children and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals.
One of the bill's provisions is “preventive detention,” allowing police to detain people even before a crime occurs, and police can search any person, his or her car, and home without a search warrant.
The bill also places flammable and vaporized gases in the category of firearms. İlknur Üstün, founding member of the Women's Coalition based in Ankara, explained why it will hurt women most: “As you know, many women carry pepper spray in their handbags to protect themselves from violence. What if they are caught with pepper spray? They might face detention and imprisonment.
"Government spokespersons defend the bill by asking why anybody would carry pepper spray while at a demonstration. And we say that no one is beamed up to a demonstration; you leave home and you have to walk and use public transportation. Who guarantees your protection while you are on the street? You might be just a passerby during a demonstration and have a pepper spray in your handbag, too!”
"Government spokespersons defend the bill by asking why anybody would carry pepper spray while at a demonstration. And we say that no one is beamed up to a demonstration; you leave home and you have to walk and use public transportation. Who guarantees your protection while you are on the street? You might be just a passerby during a demonstration and have a pepper spray in your handbag, too!”
‘Men who murder women deserve life sentences'
For the past five years, on March 8 the women's movement in Turkey has been demonstrating against either violence against women or the murders of women.
This year, without official figures, they rely on their own tallies, either by monitoring the media or looking at the court records. Between 2002 and 2009, murders of women in Turkey increased by 1,400 percent, according to figures released at that time by the Ministry of Justice. Since 2009, the AK Party government has not provided the public with official figures on how many women have been killed by men.
We Will Stop Women Homicides Platform (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu) notes that 16 women were murdered last month and almost 300 women were murdered in 2014.
“Femicide and violence against women, again, are at the top of our agenda. And the recent, brutal murder of Özgecan reminded all that we need to repeat our call to go onto the streets [on March 8],” said Gülsüm Kav from the platform.
The woman she referred to was Özgecan Aslan, a 20-year-old student who was brutally murdered while returning home from college in the southern province of Mersin. The minibus driver was accused of taking her into the woods, trying to rape her, and when she resisted, he allegedly beat her with an iron bar and stabbed her. When her body was found, she was burned and her hands were cut off, apparently to eliminate the DNA evidence.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back for activists. Outraged, they held rallies across Turkey to protest violence against women; people wore black to mourn her death; and a group of men in İstanbul donned miniskirts to support women. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to ensure that the killers receive “the heaviest penalty.”
That's what women's organizations have been calling for -- for years: the heaviest penalties for men who murder women.
“We demand that the practice of reduced sentences for men who murder women come to an end. We have long been demanding that Parliament pass a bill requiring life sentences for men who kill women,” Kav said.
Another one of their demands is that the government adequately enforce a law passed in March 2012 (No. 6284) in accordance with the İstanbul Declaration, a Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, also known as the İstanbul Convention, which Turkey was the first country to sign in 2011.
Last year, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report titled "Violence Monitoring and Indicators Guide" revealed statistics on violence faced by women and children in Turkey.
The report stated that 37 percent of female victims of male violence are under the age of 18 and 39 percent of violence committed by men against women occurs at the hands of husbands of the victims.
“Courts are on the side of men when handling domestic violence against women, and this attitude has encouraged further violence. Authorities have been minimizing the importance of complaints of violence against women. There are even cases that women have been pushed for retraction of their complaints,” Kav added.
‘Top officials intimidate women by their words'
Besides violence and homicide, there are many other problems that women face -- from access to health services to education and low percentages of participation in politics.
Berrin Sönmez, former president and current member of the Capital Women's Platform (Başkent Kadın Platformu), said violence is indeed both a problem and a result of women's many other problems.
“In our society, women have been perceived through traditional religious references. Although Islam gives women a lot of power and equality, it has not been practiced. We have a patriarchal culture that is against women's freedom,” she said.
She also said that sexist remarks by some Islamic clerics have an influence in the society. One of the most recent examples was when Nurettin Yıldız, president of the Social Fabric Foundation (Sosyal Doku Vakfı) said publicly that “6-year-old girls can be married.” His words did not receive harsh public criticism by the government.
Besides the fact that some men claim they know how to interpret Islam when it comes to women, even top-level politicians have used discriminatory language against women.
One example concerns Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, who expressed remarks against women laughing loudly and disapproved of women talking on mobile phones.
“With this statement he intimidated women and gave men the right to meddle into women's lives,” said lawyer and activist Hülya Gülbahar.
Sönmez pointed out that the İstanbul Declaration has clear statements about the issue, saying that it is the obligation of the state to fully address violence against women in all its forms and to take measures to prevent violence against women, protect its victims and prosecute the perpetrators.
“Failure to do so would make it the responsibility of the state,” she said, adding that sexual crimes occur all over the world, but the difference occurs when it comes to how women are treated when a legal process starts -- if it really starts.
“In societies where gender equality has been achieved, perpetrators have been harshly punished. In Turkey, women have been victimized again and again, and perpetrators get away with reduced sentences,” she said.
Rights defenders say there are many ways to reduce violence against women: lift women out of poverty; empower them to be full and equal members of society; have girls stay in school longer; have decent job opportunities available to them after they graduate; and break the cycle of early marriage and childbirth.
Although there are no official figures released by the government regarding how many murders of women occurred in 2009-2014, a preliminary report of the government based on research from Hacettepe University indicates that the rate of marriages for women under 18 years old has been 28 percent.
‘Gov't statements influence attitudes of health professionals'
Gender equality has a number of components, and reproduction is one of the key issues. One issue of particular importance is allowing women to decide if, when and how often they become pregnant. Not allowing women to decide on the issue leads to more deaths in childbirth, more deaths of women during abortions in unhealthy conditions and more infant deaths.
Hospitals are authorized in Turkey to perform abortions until the 10th week of pregnancies. The procedure is free of charge in state hospitals. Women's rights activists say that even though abortion is legal, women's right to abortion has been prevented in practice, especially in recent years.
According to activists, this is largely due to the fact that former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has compared abortion to murder, advised new couples to have at least three children and warned that Turkey's population faces a threat of decline.
Moreover, his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) proposed a draft law in 2012 to introduce the right for doctors to refuse to perform an abortion on the grounds of their “conscience” and a mandatory “consideration time” for women requesting a termination. The bill was dropped, but the attitude of health professionals has changed.
“Women cannot get information from state hospitals on abortions and they are not given appointments; because doctors are state appointed public servants, they are afraid of getting some form of penalty by the government if they approve abortions,” said activist and lawyer Yasemin Öz.
Mor Çatı (Purple Roof Women's Shelter Foundation) made a press statement last month following its investigation in 37 state hospitals. They were not able to reach the obstetrics and gynecology departments of two hospitals at all, and three hospitals told them that they cannot give information on the phone regarding whether or not they can perform abortions.
Mor Çatı's research also found that 17 hospitals offered abortions only for cases of medical emergency; 12 hospitals do not perform abortions; and three hospitals said they do perform abortions on demand.
When asked by Mor Çatı why they cannot perform abortions except in medical emergencies, officials from two hospitals said abortions are “banned” because the “state” said so.
Mystery Saudi tweeter claims 'pressure' closed his account
Known as @Mujtahidd, the anonymous account had over 1.7 million followers and become famous for exposing the secrets of Saudi elites
A widely followed "whistleblower" who tweeted about the Saudi royal family accused Twitter on Friday of bowing to pressure by suspending his account.
The user, whose account '@mujtahidd' had over 1.7 million followers, told Middle East Eye that Twitter cited the posting of a photocopy of a "private document" belonging to a Saudi princess as the reason for his suspension.
"Regardless of whether I broke the rules or not, why would this alleged contravention only be noticed 10 months after the tweet?" he told MEE.
"I explained to Twitter administrators my high profile as a credible whistleblower from within the circles of power in Saudi Arabia," he said, replying from the email address that was listed with his suspended account.
He did not identify himself, but said he had been leaking information from "within the ruling family" since December 2011.
"I informed Twitter that merely accepting these complaints regarding historical tweets constitutes giving in to pressure," his email said.
Mujtahidd also said he believed Saudi authorities had appointed a team to dig through his tweets and find anything which might be interpreted as breaking Twitter rules.
"Saudi authorities knew they cannot just ask Twitter administration to terminate my account and therefore sought to do so according to Twitter policies."
Some of the information Mujtahidd leaked was false but at other times it proved to be accurate, such as his report of King Abdullah's death hours before the royal court made an official statement on 23 January.
Abdullah was replaced by his half-brother Salman who named his son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as defence chief, head of the royal court and special adviser.
Princess Maha scandal
The tweet the account was suspended over, according to Mujtahidd, included a photocopy of the passport of Maha Al Sudairi, a wife of former Crown Prince, Nayef bin Abdel Aziz.
It was one of several tweets he posted that detailed an embarrassing dispute between the Saudi royal family and a French hotel company who claimed Princess Maha owed them millions of dollars.
One tweet included a letter written by a French lawyer pleading with the Saudi ambassador in France to persuade King Abdullah to pay a bill of more than 3 million euros acrued by the princess after a 2012 trip to Paris.
Another includes a hotel invoice addressed to the princess for €2,252,522.
Twitter use is widespread in Saudi Arabia, where even King Salman has an account. Official media are tightly controlled, however.
Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based watchdog, last year named Saudi Arabia as one of 19 countries where government agencies are "enemies of the internet" for their censorship and surveillance.
Twitter users had their own theories about what happened to @mujtahidd.
"Closing of mujtahidd's account is not because of his tweets. And for sure if the country knows who he is and who is feeding him the information ... if it wanted it could have stopped mujtahidd from day one," a user wrote.
A copy of an invoice for Saudi Princess Maha Al-Soudairi included in an April 2014 tweet by @Mujtahidd
IGNORANT SAUDI BEDOUIN - Saudi woman to get 200 lashes after being raped
A woman who was violently gang raped in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail after being found guilty of indecency and talk to the media.
The 19-year-old was in a car with a student friend when two men got into the vehicle and drove them to a secluded area. She says she was raped by seven men, three of whom also attacked her friend.
The Shia Muslim woman had initially been sentenced to 90 lashes after being convicted of violating the Kingdom's religious diktats on segregation of the sexes.
After the sentences were handed down following the rape in 2006, the woman was sentenced to 90 lashes; however her lawyer appealed to the Saudi General Court. It then doubled her sentence. At the same time, they also doubled the prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping her, according to Saudi news outlets.
Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, who defended the woman, reached out to the media after the sentences were handed down. The court has since banned him from further defending the woman, confiscating his license and summoning him to a disciplinary hearing later this month.
Saudi Arabia defended the controversial decision to punish the victim, saying that she was at fault for being out without a male family member, something which was met with international outcry.
"The Ministry of Justice welcomes constructive criticism, away from emotions," it said in a statement.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/17365-saudi-woman-to-get-200-lashes-after-being-raped
Islamic State terrorists erasing history and culture in the Middle East
The Islamic State group’s destruction of the ancient city of Nimrud in northern Iraq is part of a systematic campaign to destroy archaeological sites it says promote apostasy.
Some of the world’s most precious cultural treasures, including ancient sites in the cradle of civilization, are in areas controlled by the group and at the mercy of extremists bent on wiping out all non-Islamic culture and history.
The rampage, targeting priceless cultural artifacts often spanning thousands of years, has sparked global outrage and accusations of war crimes. The militants are also believed to be selling ancient artifacts on the black market in order to finance their bloody campaign across the region.
Here’s a look at some of the major sites destroyed by IS in Iraq and Syria, and others under their control:
IRAQ
The region under IS control in Iraq has nearly 1,800 of Iraq’s 12,000 registered archaeological sites. Among the most important sites under the militants’ control are four ancient cities — Ninevah, Nimrud, Dur Sharrukin and Ashur — which were at different times the capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire.
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NIMRUD: In the 9th century B.C., Nimrud, also known as Kalhu, became the second capital of Assyria, an ancient kingdom that came to rule much of present-day Iraq and the Levant and became a great regional power. The city, which was destroyed in 612 B.C., is located on the Tigris River just south of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, which was captured by the IS group in June. The late 1980s discovery of treasures in Nimrud’s royal tombs was one of the 20th century’s most significant archaeological finds. The government said militants destroyed the site this week using heavy military vehicles, but has not elaborated on the extent of the damage.
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MOSUL MUSEUM: On Feb. 26, a video emerged on militant websites showing Islamic State militants with sledgehammers destroying ancient artifacts at the museum in Mosul which they referred to as idols. They also destroyed Nirgal Gate, one of several gates to Ninevah, the onetime capital of the Assyrian Empire.
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MOSUL LIBRARIES: In January, Islamic State militants ransacked the Central Library of Mosul, smashing the locks and taking around 2,000 books — leaving only Islamic texts. Days later, militants broke into the University of Mosul’s library. They made a bonfire out of hundreds of books on science and culture, destroying them in front of students.
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SHRINES: Last year, militants destroyed the centuries-old Mosque of the Prophet Younis — believed to be the burial place of the Prophet Jonah — and the Mosque of the Prophet Jirjis, two revered ancient shrines in Mosul. They also threatened to destroy Mosul’s 850-year old Crooked Minaret, but residents surrounded the structure to protect it.
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HATRA: The militants control the 2,300-year-old city of Hatra, a well preserved complex of temples south of Mosul and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Experts say large statues from Hatra have been destroyed or defaced.
SYRIA
The Islamic State group has overrun most of the east and large parts of the north, putting a string of major archaeological sites in their hands. The militants have pillaged sites, excavated others and have destroyed several relics and Assyrian-era statues as part of their purge of paganism. The destruction they have wreaked adds to the wider, extensive damage done to ancient sites including Palmyra, as well as mosques and churches across the country in the chaos of the civil war.
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DURA EUROPOS: The 2,300-year-old city overlooking the Euphrates River is a remarkably well-preserved cultural crossroads, a city first founded by Alexander the Great’s successors and later ruled by the Romans and various Persian empires. It boasts pagan temples, churches and one of the earliest known Jewish synagogues. Satellite imagery taken last year show the site pockmarked with holes from pillaging and illegal digs. It also showed hundreds of people conducting illegal excavations.
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MARI: An ancient city located on the site of Tell Hariri on the western bank of the Euphrates River in Deir el-Zour province. It is believed to have been inhabited since the 5th millennium B.C. and was discovered in the early 1930s. It has also been severely looted by IS.
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TEL AJAJI AND TELL BRAK: Prehistoric settlement mounds in Syria’s far eastern Hassakeh province. Experts say both have been looted and destroyed, Artifacts have been removed from both sites, and ancient statues — some dating back to the Assyrian period — have been smashed.
President Obama, First Family Lead The Way In Historic March Across Edmund Pettus Bridge In Selma
President Barack Obama and the First Family led the way across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on Saturday as they reenacted the iconic march that took place at the same location fifty years ago.
A large delegation marched behind in an act commemorating the historic civil rights moment by following in the same footsteps as those who risked their lives to march just decades before in what came to be known as "Blood Sunday."
"We gather here to honor the courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billy clubs and the chastening rod, tear gas and the trampling hoof; men and women who despite the gush of blood and splintered bone would stay true to their North Star and keep marching toward justice," Obama said in his speech.
The march took place just moments after Obama delivered a soaring, and well-received, speech on race and civil rights in America. A massive crowd, gathered at the foot of the bridge, applauded Obama's remarks honoring the landmark civil rights moment and praised him on social media for his "powerful and poignant" words.
Obama was also joined by Representative John Lewis who welcomed him to the stage but not without taking a few moments to recall his own experiences in Selma that day.
"We come to Selma to be renewed. We come to be inspired. We come to be reminded that we must do the work that justice and equality calls us to do," he said.
Lewis also shared some of his powerful memories and photos from the march on Twitter, which resonated strongly with readers who celebrate him as one of the few living marchers who witnessed the iconic moment in history.
"There's still work left to be done," he said in his speech. "Get out there and push and pull until we redeem the soul of America."
