Thursday, March 29, 2018
Saudi reforms 'fooling nobody': Amnesty
Saudi Arabia's widely-lauded reforms are no more than a public relations blitz aimed at masking Riyadh's rights record and are "fooling nobody", Amnesty International said on Thursday.
Saudi Arabia, a key US ally and the world's largest oil exporter, began to ease its ultraconservative policies following the rise to power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old heir to the region's most powerful throne. "Saudi Arabia's aggressive publicity drive to rebrand its image, tarnished by a ruthless crackdown on freedom of expression and a bombing offensive in Yemen, is fooling nobody," Amnesty said in a statement.
The kingdom has launched a major image overhaul, lifting bans on entertainment, including cinemas, public music festivals and tourism, and scaling back restrictions on women.
The London-based rights group published a preview of a mock PR job advert -- slated to run in The Economist and a number of Dutch media outlets on Friday.
It features a photograph of a beheading and the blistering caption: "If this is how your country delivers justice, you need a really, really good PR agency". Riyadh leads a military alliance fighting against Yemeni rebels in a bloody war that has left nearly 10,000 dead since 2015 and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. The Saudi-led alliance was blacklisted by the UN last year for the killing and maiming of children. Amnesty singled out Prince Mohammed in its critique of Saudi Arabia's policy changes over the past nine months. "The Crown Prince has been cast as a reformer but the crackdown against dissenting voices in his country has only intensified since his appointment last June," said Samah Hadid, Director of Campaigns for Amnesty International in the Middle East.
"The best PR machine in the world cannot gloss over Saudi Arabia's dismal human rights record". Amnesty International has also said the human rights situation has "deteriorated markedly" since Mohammed bin Salman took over as crown prince. Authorities in the kingdom have long drawn harsh criticism from rights group over the targeting of human rights activists and political dissidents. Dozens of Saudi citizens have been convicted on charges linked to dissent and under the country's sweeping cyber crime law, particularly linked to posts on Twitter.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/2018/03/saudi-politics-rights.html#ixzz5BBv53AMV
#YEMEN WAR: FOUR YEARS ON
The Saudi-led Arab military coalition’s war on Yemen has entered its fourth year. Since 27 March 2015, the capital Sanaa and a set of other Yemeni cities have been targets for the daily bombardment of the Saudi fighter jets. After three years, the war has made no achievement for the people but huge human tolls and displacement and reducing to rubble the nation’s infrastructure.
Why did Riyadh wage the war?
Yemen crisis is the oldest and most active domestic trouble in West Asia region, having its roots deep into the ethno-sectarian disputes which are a legacy of the past. However, there is a consensus that the Saudi military intervention in the crisis-hit country under the ruse of bringing back to the office the resigned President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi marked an entry into a new critical stage.
The Saudi rulers stressed that their bombing and later ground campaign, codenamed Operation Decisive Storm, was meant to restore to power in Sanaa President Hadi who shortly before the war resigned willfully and then fled the country to neighboring Saudi Arabia. But the fact is that drives for the brutal military action transcended the will to reinstall Hadi as the head of state. Rather, the intervention was prompted by regional developments and Yemen’s position in the regional equations.
Saudi Arabia’s pessimistic view of the Shiites, especially the Ismailiyah and Zaydiah sects who are residing in parts of Yemen bordering the southern Saudi territories, has always fuelled Riyadh rulers’ sharp antipathy and concern about their power gaining in the country. The oil-wealthy kingdom has offered a set of supports to the takfiri groups in Yemen such as the al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) as well as the opposite Sunni movement the Muslim Brotherhood in a bid to hold the Shiites in check. Though it should be taken into the account that not all of Yemen’s Sunni factions support Riyadh. On the contrary, some, such as the socialists and nationalists, back Ansarullah revolutionary movement, the party Saudi Arabia finds an archenemy.
Yemen is located close to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The country overlooks the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a feature giving the Arab nation specific geopolitical weight. The strait is linked to Yemen from two sides: The northwest and northeast. The international water gate’s significance is doubled as it plays the role of a sea energy trade crossing. The strait comes fourth in the facilitation of global energy transit after Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Malacca, and Suez Canal. Figures show that within 2013, about 3.8 million oil barrels per day passed through Gulf of Aden and Bab-el-Mandeb. Any disruption of operation of the strait will cause a serious energy shock globally, especially for Europe which in the past few years developed a deep reliance on the Saudi oil as a result of sanctions on Iran, another major regional oil producer.
Another factor should be taken into account as the prompter of the Yemen significance in the eyes of the Saudis: The disputes inside the body of the Saudi governing structure. After the death of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the absolutely-governed Arab monarchy became a theater for an unfolding succession crisis whose blazes touched the highest levels of the rule. Vigorous power struggle on the one hand and the resultant instability on the other hand have pushed the country to the brink of a real crisis. A set of recent happenings, from the crackdown on the royals and businessmen to the reshuffle of the key military and political posts mainly masterminded by the ambitious young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, bear all hallmarks of a home crisis. Finding the domestic power encounter raging, the Al Saudi family members sought to distract the public attention from internal discords to an outer threat to cover up the infighting. This was desperately needed at least to occupy the popular minds at least in the short run. The Yemen crisis allowed the Saudis to focus on the war instead of the home power fight.
Yemen war causes humanitarian crisis
Reports hold that since the military action began, tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians lost their lives. the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights released a statement on Sunday, saying the Saudi-led coalition have claimed the lives of more than 38,500 people
The large casualty numbers are only the direct outcome of the war. Indirect effects of the war, like cutting access to basic medical and healthcare services, famine, starvation, malnutrition, and other shocking infrastructural losses, are massive.
The statement further noted that the Saudi military aggression has also indirectly caused the death of 296,834 people.
More than 247,000 children have lost their lives due to severe malnutrition, and 17,608 civilians have died because of inability to travel abroad to seek medical treatment.
The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that about 3 million Yemenis have been displaced. Of this huge number, about 280,000 crossed the sea into such African states as Djibouti and even Somalia in the quest for immunity against the coalition’s daily bombings.
Moreover, those not displaced are grappling with difficulty accessing medical services. The World Health Organization in its latest report announced that of 27 million Yemeni population, 18.8 million are in urgent food aid needs. And 14.8 million urgently require medical and health services.
And growing poor help conditions, the airstrikes, and blockade imposed on a major part of Yemen compound the situation for the aid agencies operating there.
Saudi Arabia-UAE disputes resurface as the war unfolds
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the Arab parties participating in the Saudi-led alliance. But the small Arab state at the beginning had no interest in joining the anti-Yemeni campaign.
Reports suggest that despite the fact that the UAE is the second largest participant in the war with its 30 fighter jets and a large number of ground troops, it does not want Riyadh to come out as a winner. David Hearst, a West Asia-based British correspondent, in his article published by the Middle East Eye news portal highlighted the Riyadh-Abu Dhabi differences, asserting that the two’s rivalry was majorly over who should lead the Sunni Arab world.
Hearst continued that the Emirati leaders want to set up roadblocks ahead of Saudi-sponsored power transition in Yemen. The major focus, he added, was to see the government of Hadi, which includes ministers from the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Al-Islah party, collapsing in a bid to replace the Saudi-recognized president with Ahmad Ali Saleh, the son of the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh who once led the Presidential Guard and served also as Yemen ambassador to Abu Dhabi.
Reports say that the UAE leaders before the war notified the former president and his son of when the Operation Decisive Storm will be launched. Sources also hold that Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of the UAE, in advance informed Ali Abdullah Saleh of an attack details, a move that helped him relocate to survive the air raids that were to strike his house.
http://www.shiitenews.org/index.php/articles/item/33726-yemen-war-four-years-on
SEVEN SHIA MOTHERS IN SAUDI ARABIA DEMANDING TO HALT SWORD OF DEATH FROM CHILDREN
Mothers of seven Shia children that imminent execution risk in Saudi Arabia issued a statement on the occasion of Mother’s Day in the Arab region on 21 March 2018.
The seven mothers are Nasra Abdullah Al Ahmad, the mother of Ali Al Nimr, Amna Mohammed Al Safar, the mother of Dawood Al Marhoun, Fatima Hassan Al Ghazawi, the mother of Abdullah Al Zaher, Amal Taqi Al Mustafa, the mother of Abdul Karim Al Hawaj and Jalilah Ibrahim Al Awami, the mother of Mujtaba Al Suwaiket, Ali Hassan al-Mutlaq, mother of Salman al-Quraish and Fatima Ahmed al-Sakafi, the mother of Said al-Sakafi. They said that for last six years they have celebrated the Mother’s Day without their children.
The statement said that their children were detained from street, tortured in prisons and subjected to the constant threat of death just because they exercised their legitimate rights.
The mothers’ statement reflects their continuous concern about the fate of their children and that they are waiting for a call from their children to make sure they are still alive.
The statement also urges all people of conscience in the world to protect their children from death because of charges endorsed to them when they were children and based on confessions extracted under torture. Also, the mothers confirmed that their children neither killed nor harmed anyone.
The mothers concluded the statement by demanding to halt the sword of death from their children.
The European Saudi organisation for Human notes that the Saudi government has ignored a number of statements, recommendations and UN messages that calling for the protection of children sentenced to execution penalty. In 2016, UN Special Rapporteurs submitted letters to the Saudi regime demanding it to stop the death sentences of four children, but that demands were ignored by the Saudi regime.
In October 2016, the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) urged the Saudi regime “to immediately cease the execution of individuals who were under the age of 18 when they committed the alleged offences, including Ali al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher, Salman al-Quraish, Mujtaba al-Suwaiket, Abdul-Karim al-Hawaj, Dawood Al Marhoun “.
In addition, in May 2016, the Committee against Torture demanded for the retrial of individuals who confirmed that confessions were extracted from them under torture, including children, but the Saudi regime had not yet shown any response.
http://www.shiitenews.org/index.php/saudi-arab/item/33716-sven-shia-mothers-in-saudi-arabia-demanding-to-halt-sword-of-death-from-children
The CBS Interview With Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman Was a Crime Against Journalism
Mehdi Hasan
“AT JUST 32, Mohammed bin Salman seems fearless and determined. He has quickly become the most dominant Arab leader in a generation.”
That’s how “60 Minutes” began its interview with, and profile of, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, Sunday evening, ahead of his visit to the White House on Tuesday.
Launched on CBS in 1968, “60 Minutes” has been described as “one of the most esteemed news magazines on American television” and has wonmore Emmy awards than any other primetime U.S. TV show. It claims to offer “hard-hitting investigative reports, interviews, feature segments and profiles of people in the news.”
Got that? Award-winning. “Esteemed.” “Hard-hitting.”
So why did the segment on MBS resemble more of an infomercial for the Saudi regime than a serious or hard-hitting interview? “His reforms inside Saudi Arabia have been revolutionary,” intoned correspondent Norah O’Donnell prior to the start of her exclusive sit-down with the crown prince in Riyadh. “He is emancipating women, introducing music and cinema, and cracking down on corruption.”
Move over Tom Friedman and David Ignatius — in O’Donnell, the Saudis seem to have found a new cheerleader within the U.S. press corps. Forget the Saudi bombardment and siege of Yemen, described by United Nations agencies as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” which received a mere two minutes of coverage over the course of a 30-minute segment. Forget the horrific Saudi record of beheadings and stonings, which received zero coverage from the “60 Minutes” team in Riyadh. Instead, we were treated to O’Donnell oohing and aahing over the crown prince’s youthfulness, workaholism, and — lest we forget — support for women drivers.
The interview itself consisted of one softball question after another. (Example: “What’s been the big challenge?” Another example: “What did you learn from your father?”)
So, in a spirit of constructive criticism, and in an attempt to try and push back against the U.S. media’s bizarre love affair with MBS ahead of his D.C. visit …
Here are 10 much tougher, more relevant questions that “60 Minutes“could and should have asked
1) You helped launch the war in Yemen in 2015 and continue to accuse Houthi rebels of causing all the violence and suffering there, yet the United Nations has blamed airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition for the majority of Yemeni civilian deaths while Amnesty International has documented“34 air strikes … by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition that appear to have violated international humanitarian law” including “attacks that appear to have deliberately targeted civilians and civilian objects such as hospitals, schools, markets and mosques.” How do you square “reform” at home with war crimes abroad?
2) You have said in this interview that the Houthi rebels in Yemen “block humanitarian aid in order to create famine and a humanitarian crisis,” but what about your own role in causing that crisis? A U.N. panel of experts “found that Saudi Arabia is purposefully obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid into Yemen.” Is it not a moral outrage for one of the richest countries in the Middle East to be starving the poorest country in the Middle East?
3) Congratulations on lifting the Saudi ban on women drivers, but when will you be abolishing the death penalty for blasphemy, sorcery, adultery, and homosexuality? Isn’t it true that more people have been beheaded by your government than by the Islamic State?
4) You have compared Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s unelected and self-styled “supreme leader,” to Adolf Hitler, but what about your own autocratic style of rule? You have cracked down on dissent by rounding up clerics, intellectuals, and activists and have detained and allegedly tortured your fellow princes — is it any wonder that the prominent Saudi journalist and former adviser to the royal family, Jamal Khashoggi, has compared you to Vladimir Putin and called you Saudi Arabia’s very own “supreme leader”?
5) You say these princes had to be arrested as part of an anti-corruption drive, but how are Saudi citizens supposed to know whether or not you’re corrupt, too? After all, you’re the prince who spotted a Russian-owned luxury yacht while on holiday in the south of France and then bought it on the spot for $550 million — where did that money come from?
6) Shouldn’t you also be wary of invoking Hitler given Saudi Arabia’s history of brazen anti-Semitism? In fact, as part of your “reform” efforts, would you be willing to apologize for the Saudi-based Arab Radio and Television Network’s production of a TV series based on the notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”; or for the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca calling Jews “rats of the world” and “the scum of the earth”; or for your own father, King Salman, attributing the 9/11 attacks to a Mossad “plot”?
7) You have suggested in this interview that Iran is working with Al Qaeda. Yet Bob Graham, the former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said that 28 declassified pages of the 2002 Congressional Joint Inquiry suggest “a strong linkage between [the 9/11] terrorists and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Saudi charities, and other Saudi stakeholders.” Isn’t it time the government of Saudi Arabia admitted to its extensive and long-standing role in funding, arming, and inciting “jihadi” terrorism?
8) Isn’t it the case that the Saudi education system fans the flames of intolerance and extremism? How else do you explain the fact that when ISIS “needed textbooks to distribute to schoolchildren in Raqqa, it printed out copies of Saudi state textbooks found online”?
9) You have said in this interview that the Iranians “want to expand” in the region. But was it the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under your leadership, that detained not one, but two, elected heads of Arab governments — the president of Yemen and the prime minister of Lebanon — against their will?
10) You and your ministers have dubbed your changes and reforms a “revolution.” So why not stand for election yourself and allow the citizens of Saudi Arabia to choose their own leader? After all, how can it be called a “revolution” if the absolute monarch is still in absolute control of the country at the end of it?
IT WAS MOHAMMED bin Salman’s “first interview with an American television network,” bragged O’Donnell at the beginning of the show. Yet she and her award-winning “60 Minutes” team of producers and researchers threw away a unique, on-camera opportunity to hold an unelected dictator to account. Shamefully, O’Donnell did not mention the words “democracy” or “elections” even once. Rather, in the final moments of the interview, the CBS correspondent seemed to be positively giddy at the prospect of MBS ruling over Saudi Arabia for the rest of his life.
“You’re 32 years old. You could rule this country for the next 50 years,” she exclaimed, adding: “Can anything stop you?”
CBS might like to call this “hard-hitting” reporting. I prefer to call it a crime against journalism.
PPP is the only political party which addresses the people’s problems: Bilawal Bhutto
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Thursday advised the Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to withdraw his remarks about Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani. Addressing the inauguration ceremony of the Thatta Carriageway Project in Thatta, Bilawal said he believed the prime minister was a responsible person.
“I will only advise the prime minister to withdraw his remarks against the Senate chairman.”
Discussing his party’s contribution to the development of Sindh, the PPP chairman said his party-led provincial government doesn’t believe in showing off its hard work. He added that his party was the only one, among its peers, that could the problems of the nation.
Lashing out at political rival Shehbaz Sharif, the incumbent chief minister of Punjab, Bilawal said that in the past ten years of his governance of Punjab, the minister had only managed to inaugurate a single, incomplete hospital.
http://www.thesindhtimes.com/blog/2018/03/29/ppp-political-party-addresses-peoples-problems-bilawal-bhutto/
‘It’s like dream come true’: Malala in tears on emotional return to Pakistan
Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai returned to Pakistan Thursday, saying tearfully that it was "a dream" to come home for the first time since she was airlifted to Britain after being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman more than five years ago.
The 20-year-old was overcome with emotion as she made a televised speech from the Prime Minister´s House in Islamabad, wiping away tears as she spoke of the beauty of her native Swat valley.
"Always it has been my dream that I should go to Pakistan and there, in peace and without any fear, I can move on streets, I can meet people, I can talk to people.
"And I think that it´s my old home again ... so it is actually happening, and I am grateful to all of you."
Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi welcomed her and assured her that the government will provide all possible assistance during her stay here. "Welcome home," PM Abbasi told Yousafzai. "When she went away, she was a child of 12. She has returned as the most prominent citizen of Pakistan."
Yousafzai spoke of the importance of education and about the efforts of her charitable foundation to help girls, often switching between English and the Pashto and Urdu languages.
In pm office offered @Malala the chance to expand her gulmakai advocacy thru BISP beneficiary committees who reach out n ensure children get education. 64,000 Crete’s 1.6 mm women all yours
The 20-year-old´s unannounced arrival with her parents under tight security at Islamabad´s international airport overnight has been met with a tsunami of social media reaction, with many Pakistanis hailing her bravery but others accusing her of a conspiracy to foment dissent.
Malala is widely respected internationally for her activism, but opinion is divided in Pakistan where some conservatives view her as a Western agent on a mission to shame her country.
She met with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi earlier today along with her family. Minister for Information Technology Anusha Rehman, Chairperson of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) Marvi Memon and Adviser to the PM Musaddiq Malik were also present on the ocassion.
"She will be meeting several people here but her itinerary is not being disclosed due to security reasons," foreign office spokesman Muhammad Faisal told AFP.
"We welcome Malala.... She is back home. It is a positive development," he said, calling her "one of our young and brilliant daughters" and adding that Pakistanis should respect her.
Residents of Malala´s native Swat valley, where she lived until the shooting, said they were happy to see her return.
"I had not imagined that she would ever come (back)," Rida Siyal, a student who said she had been a "good friend" of Malala´s before the shooting, told AFP.
"(She) defeated the dark force of fear. We are delighted to see her back," she said.
Ahmad Shah, who said he was a friend of Malala´s father, called her a "symbol of courage", adding: "She should have returned home much earlier".
Malala became a global symbol for human rights after a gunman boarded her school bus in Swat on October 9, 2012, asked "Who is Malala?" and shot her.
She was treated for her injuries in the British city of Birmingham, where she also completed her schooling.
The youngest ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, she has continued to be a vocal advocate for girls´ education while pursuing her studies at Oxford University.
"I welcome #MalalaYousafzai the brave and resilient daughter of Pakistan back to her country," politician Syed Ali Raza Abidi wrote on Twitter, one of many Pakistanis expressing joy at her return, despite ongoing security fears.
But pockets of intense criticism also emerged among some Pakistanis who view her negatively, including religious extremists as well as members of the conservative middle class who support education for girls but object to airing the country´s problems abroad.
- ´Malala is not your enemy´ -
One leading Pakistani journalist, Hamid Mir, issued a plea for opposition politicians and commentators to exercise restraint when talking about the visit.
"International media is highly focused on her return and this (bad language) will damage Pakistan´s image," he said.
Other Pakistanis echoed his concerns on social media.
"Dear Pakistanis! Malala is not your enemy. Your enemies were those monsters who shot her point blank on her way to school," wrote Twitter user Shahira Lashari.
Malala began her campaign aged just 11, when she started writing a blog -- under a pseudonym -- for the BBC´s Urdu service in 2009 about life under the Taliban in Swat, where they were banning girls´ education.
In 2007 the militants had taken over the area, which Malala affectionately called "My Swat", and imposed a brutal, bloody rule.
Opponents were murdered, people were publicly flogged for supposed breaches of sharia law, women were banned from going to market, and girls were stopped from going to school.
But it was only after the shooting, and a subsequent near-miraculous recovery, that she became a truly global figure.
She opened a Twitter account on her last day of school in July 2017 and now has more than a million followers.
"I know that millions of girls around the world are out of school and may never get the opportunity to complete their education," Malala wrote at the time.
During a recent appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the feminist campaigner urged women to "change the world" without waiting for the help of men.
"We won´t ask men to change the world, we´re going to do it ourselves," Malala said.
"We´re going to stand up for ourselves, we´re going to raise our voices and we´re going to change the world."
https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/297846-malalas-arrival-in-pakistan-likely-tonight-sources
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