Bahrain police 'suppress protest'

     Anti-government protests took place around the country after emergency laws were lifted on Wednesday

Bahraini police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters marching
against the government near the capital Manama, witnesses say.


The crackdown on Friday came just two days after the tiny Gulf kingdom's
authorities lifted emergency rule.


The protesters in Manama were marching adjacent to the city's Pearl
Roundabout, which was the epicentre of weeks of protests against the kingdom's
Sunni rulers, with demonstrators in particular demanding more rights for the
island nation's majority Shia population.


There were no immediate reports of injuries during the protests, the
witnesses said. They spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals.


Witnesses said that police fired tear gas at a crowd of hundreds of people
who had gathered to mourn Zainab Altajer, who died on Thursday. Opposition
activists said she died as a result of exposure to tear gas, but the government
said her death was due to natural causes.

The protesters marched through the village of
Sanabis, adjacent to the Pearl roundabout.

Also on Friday, hundreds of mourners gathered at a
cemetery in Manama to bury Salman Abu Idris, a 63-year old protester who died in
hospital, earlier in the day, of injuries from a demonstration in March, a
witness told Al Jazeera.

Security forces had set up multiple checkpoints
around the cemetery in Gudaibya, where they were checking the identities of
those attempting to attend the funeral, and refused entry to "many", the witness
said.

He said that people at the funeral were "calm", and
while some in the crowd did raise slogans against the ruling al-Khalifa family
at one point, "not many people chanted with them".

He said some left after the funeral to protest at
the slums near Bab al-Bahrain, but were stopped by security forces armed with
tear gas and rubber bullets. It did not appear that security forces used these
weapons in that confrontation, however.

The witness was speaking to Al Jazeera on condition
of anonymity, for fear of reprisals from the authorities

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki has a master plan to expedite Palestinian statehood [Reuters]

With Mideast peace talks at an impasse, Palestinians have been looking for another route to statehood: the United Nations.

“We are taking our destiny in our hands,” the Palestinian’s top UN diplomat told a small group of reporters in New York on Tuesday.

Ambassador Riyad Mansour predicted millions of Palestinians would take to the streets come September, when the UN General Assembly meets, to support the cause. He drew parallels to the peaceful Arab uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

“The battle for our independence is not only the battle of the Palestinian leadership. This is the battle of millions of Palestinians,” Mansour said.

“I believe the Palestinian people are capable and I believe also that they want to engage in this last chapter of the struggle of ending occupation.”

He said work is already underway behind the scenes at the United Nations, as he lobbies countries to recognize a Palestinian state.

Palestine is already recognized by 112 countries. But 130 would give them a 2/3 majority in the UN’s General Assembly - the number necessary to become an official member.

There’s just one problem; according to the UN Charter, a country cannot become a member state without first getting the support of nine members of the Security Council. The United States has indicated it will veto a statehood request, saying the only way is through direct negotiations with Israel.

Mansour said the Palestinians have “other options” but refused to elaborate.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki has said that the Palestinians will seek an emergency session of the General Assembly known as "Uniting for Peace" to override any veto.

General Assembly President Joseph Deiss and Security Council diplomats have all said that membership is not possible without a referral by the Security Council. The legal question currently open to debate is whether or not a vote of support in the General Assembly would be anything more than symbolic.

For now, the Palestinians’ emphasis is on building international support for their statehood - and by extension putting pressure on the United States.

 “What would be the argument of President Barack Obama in trying really to disregard this wish,” Mansour said, pointing to the President's stated admiration for democratic movements in Tunisia and Egypt. “Not only of the Palestinian leadership but the entire Palestinian population?”

Fighting continues across Libya

NATO has extended its Libyan mission for a further 90 days, after Muammar Gaddafi made it clear he would not step down, dashing hopes of a negotiated end to the fighting.
Fifteen weeks since Libya's conflict began it is anyone's guess who is winning. NATO's raids are helping some rebels in their push west, but others feel they have been abandoned in the mountains.

The worry for thousands of Libyans right now is a lack of food, water and electricity. Some areas are fast running out of rations.
Al Jazeera's James Bays reports from the Zintan mountains

'Islamic Revolution model of uprisings'

                                                             Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar says the recent uprisings in the Arab world are a result of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.

“The uprising of the Muslim nations in the Middle East is indicative of Islamic awakening and it is undoubtedly one of the consequences of the Islamic Revolution,” ISNA quoted Najjar on Sunday. 

Speaking during a visit to the northern province of Gilan, the interior minister cautioned that enemies of the Islamic Revolution are making efforts to contain the recent movements in the region and “hijack” them through plots and human rights slogans. 

Najjar went on to say that enemies remain fearful that Iran's Islamic Revolution would serve as a model for other nations, since in the course of the last three decades the Revolution has made significant achievements. 

He emphasized that the Revolution in Iran was not a mere theoretical phenomenon but was a realistic event based on the foundations of Islam and the country's constitution which brought honor and triumph in areas such as space sciences, nuclear energy and stem cells. 

In the past two months, anti-government revolts have been spreading across the Arab world. 

Last month in Tunisia, nationwide outrage at the government's suppressive policies sparked a massive revolution that ousted the 23-year rule of despotic ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and forced him to flee to Saudi Arabia. 

On February 11, a millions-strong nationwide revolution in Egypt, which started on January 25, ended the three-decade rule of US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak. 

Other anti-government uprisings have taken place in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan and Oman, as more Arab countries are expected to stage similar popular revolts. 

'Deadliest day' in Syria uprising - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

At least 75 people are reported to have been killed in Syria in the bloodiest day since the uprising began, as security forces use live ammunition and tear gas to quell anti-government protests across the country, according to Amnesty International, the London-based rights group.

Syrian activists sent Al Jazeera a list naming 103 people from across the country who they said had been killed by security forces during the "Great Friday" protests.

SANA, the official news agency, said that 10 people had died in clashes between protesters and passers-by, and that security forces had only used tear gas and water cannons.

Rights groups and pro-democracy activists dispute this claim.

Fifteen of the protester's deaths took place in Izraa, near the flashpoint southern town of Daraa, according to the list released by activists, while another 21 were reported to have occured in Homs.

Deaths were also reported in Douma and Zamalka, near Damascus (see this video posted from an unknown source from Zamalka).

Other places where protesters were killed include Homs, Syria's third largest city, Moadamia and Daraa.

Demonstrators marching in peace were surprised by security forces' live ammunition, according to Hazem, a protester who spoke to Al Jazeera via phone from a Damascus suburb.

"Demonstrators were going with olive branches, it was peaceful" until they were "surprised by live ammunition from some security forces in one of the flats of the street", Hazem said.

The protesters took to the streets to mark what activists dubbed "Great Friday" - the biggest demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad's government to date.

Map of April 22 'Great Friday' protests across Syria

Al Jazeera's Rula Amin reported from Damascus, which until now had been relatively calm, that the level of tension in the city on Friday marked a new point in the uprising.

"This day is turning into a very bloody day, probably the bloodiest since the protests started," she said.

A heavy security presence prevented protests from taking off in Damascus.

"Obviously the government want[s] to make a point, the capital is a redline and they will not allow the protests to reach the capital," she said.

Several witnesses, including medical professionals, told Al Jazeera that many of the injured were either being refused access to hospitals or were too scared to seek treatment.

A spokesperson for the ministry of information told Al Jazeera on Friday that security forces would fire on protesters only if they were fired upon first.

State television, meanwhile, aired a talk show where speakers blamed foreign media, including Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and BBC Arabic, for inciting the protests.

Violence in Homs

Speaking under condition of anonymity, a witness in Homs described how about 200 protesters, moving ahead of a 3,000-strong group, came under fire as they marched down Cairo Street, close to the Clock Square that has been the city's focus for protests.

"Suddenly the security opened fire on us randomly," the activist told Al Jazeera by phone.

One of those killed in the city by government officers was a 25-year-old protester named Mohammed Bassam al-Kahil, he said.

Meanwhile, another witness in Hasakah, in Syria's mainly Kurdish northeast, told Al Jazeera that demonstrators gathering at a mosque after prayers were attacked by pro-government protesters.

Syrian activists co-ordinating the protests against al-Assad's rule have demanded the abolition of his Baath Party's monopoly on power and the establishment of a democratic political system.

In the first joint statement since protests erupted five weeks ago, the Local Co-ordination Committees, representing provinces across Syria, said "freedom and dignity slogans cannot be achieved except through peaceful democratic change".

"All prisoners of conscience must be freed. The existing security apparatus has to be dismantled and replaced by one with specific jurisdiction and which operates according to law," the joint statement said.

Contest of wills

Jordan: Revolt in The Desert

As Jordan's King Hussein discussed the prospects for Arab-Israeli peace with George Bush in Washington last week, life was decidedly less than peaceful in the monarch's desert realm. The trouble started in the southern town of Ma'an when thousands of demonstrators attacked government office buildings and burned banks to protest increases in the price of food, gasoline and other goods. The riots quickly spread to other southern towns and then to the northern city of Salt. Hussein's brother Crown Prince Hassan, whose car was pelted with stones when he visited Ma'an, blamed Islamic fundamentalists for exploiting the unrest. At least eight people had been killed, apparently all of them civilians.
The disturbances shocked many Jordanians, whose country has been remarkably stable for nearly two decades in spite of its precarious geographical location. Outwardly the protesters focused their anger on Prime Minister Zaid Rifai, chanting, "This man must resign, or we will burn the country!"
Leaving the U.S., Hussein canceled a visit to Britain and returned home. He had cause for concern. Like Hussein, most of the rioters were Bedouins and thus had been considered his most loyal subjects.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,957586,00.html#ixzz1NwoZEUi3Jordan: Revolt in The Desert

Egyptian Uprising and the Middle East

Timeline: Egypt's revolution - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Protesters gather at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo [EPA] 

Syria: Has the Regime Turned a Corner Against the Protests?

A supporter of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad holds aloft a photograph of the president at Hamidiya market in Damascus April 30, 2011.

Khaled al-Harin / Reuters

As bright spring days gradually turn hot and muggy, the consensus in Damascus is that the protest movement has been badly burnt. The activist Facebook group Syrian Revolution 2011 put out an order for a general strike across Syria on Wednesday calling for "mass protests" and the closure of all schools, universities, shops and restaurants, "not even taxis." But there was no apparent strike on Wednesday morning in central Damascus.

The mucky market was bustling with veiled women shopping for groceries and plucky boys in tattered jeans shouted out prices for their wares. Battered yellow taxis swiveled past large green buses brimming with kids in school uniform, their brows sweaty and their eyes filled with boredom. Damascus had resumed its regular life, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Syria has been the focus of the world's attention for over two months.(See photos from the protests in Syria.)

Syria's government has cracked down ferociously after demonstrators — bolstered by the ouster of both the long-ruling despots in Egypt and Tunisia — called for the end of president Bashar al Assad's regime. On Wednesday, after long prodding, the U.S. slapped sanctions on the Assad government for human rights abuses. Washington's actions may be too late — if sanctions had any chance for success at all.

The demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia were bolstered after police and army brutality increased sympathy for the protesters, inspiring thousands more to flock to the cause. It is not the same in Syria. Even as the government repression grew uglier, most sources reached by TIME report that the turnout for street protests is significantly smaller than in past weeks. The fear among anti-government sympathizers is that the violence in Syria appears to be working. In an interview with the Syrian newspaper al Watan published on Wednesday, Assad said that Syria has now "overcome the crisis." On the streets of Damascus, many say they agree.

Indeed, many activists are either in prison or too scared to assemble. Sports stadiums and government buildings are being used for improvised prisons as police arrest thousands of protesters, according to Syrian human rights organizations. A Syrian student, who said two of her classmates have gone missing, told TIME that anyone either protesting or documenting the demonstration risks arrest and torture. "You could be walking along the street and never get to where you're going," she says, chuckling slightly, as if the horror of her statement was only tolerable in jest.

Syria's ubiquitous secret service has always been effective at tapping calls, employing neighbors to spy on each other and reading emails. A Korean student who studied Arabic here says that during a long phone call he had with his parents back in Korea the line went dead and a gruff man's voice cut in. "Speak in English, please," the mysterious voice asked politely.

Observers here say the regime has fostered a culture of paranoia to deter people from further civil disobedience, contributing to Wednesday's failed strike. During the recent tumult, unprecedented numbers of people went missing — around 8,000 according to local human rights groups — and activists are petrified to communicate over the phone.

Widespread fear has made it impossible to judge the mood among Syrians. Talking politics is taboo and speaking out against the regime can lead to jail time. Many people say they fear the unrest could cause sectarian strife, such as in neighboring Lebanon and Iraq. Some middle-class Syrians say they fear losing prosperity brought by the president, who opened the country to foreign investment when he ascended to power in 2000. If the president fled, they say, the economy would be crippled by populist demands for socialist policies.

A Syrian journalist, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, said such pro-government rhetoric is mostly lies told by people to protect themselves. "Everyone hates the government, everyone. They are just too scared to say it," she said when asked why people continue to say they support the government. She believes that the anti-government movement, now battered and bruised, is weighing whether it is feasible to continue to protest when the military is willing to use live ammunition consistently against demonstrations. "I don't think the President will leave anytime soon, but nobody wants what is going on now."

For those still demonstrating, violence is guaranteed. Armed with anything from wooden batons to assault rifles, the plain-clothes secret police, or mukhabarat, have set up positions in key areas around the capital preventing many protests from even starting and augmented security measures confine people to their neighborhoods, or even their houses.

Radwan Ziadeh, Washington-based Syrian dissident and visiting scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University, says state security is much more brutal than that of Hosni Mubarak, the ousted President of Egypt. "[The Assad government] has a lot of experience with brutality," he said. Western observers in Damascus agree that the extensive use of indiscriminate violence from the start of the uprising in Syria has managed to deter many from joining the protests. Human rights groups say that between 700 and 850 people have been killed so far.

Residents from Homs, one of Syria's most restive cities, say the army is using tanks to shell parts of the city and that the police are breaking into people's homes. Similar rumors trickle out of other towns around the country, but the government's refusal to allow most foreign journalists into Syria and imposed communication blackouts make it virtually impossible to corroborate any reports. Ziadeh insists the military is now occupying every city in Syria. He told TIME that in Douma, a suburb on the outskirts of Damascus, more than 100,000 people were demonstrating a few weeks ago. "Now you don't see anybody," he said.

To justify the vicious crackdown, the Syrian government casts the recent unrest as an armed uprising by criminal gangs and "extremist terrorist groups" rather than a popular movement for extensive change against an authoritarian regime. The state news agency, SANA, regularly publishes articles naming "rioters," who have turned themselves in to the authorities in return for amnesty.

Reports of machine gun fire in Homs and shelling in the nearby town of Tel Kelakh filtered out on Wednesday, evidence at least that, despite the repression the government still had to impose order on Syrians who have not given up protesting. "There are fewer numbers," dissident Ziadeh admits, "but everyday, they continue to protest."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2072376,00.html#ixzz1Nj8lvoeR

Faith in the Arab spring

New beginning A villager in Sol looks over a Coptic church that Muslims helped rebuild after it was destroyed in May by extremists

Photograph by Yuri Kozyrev for TIME

When President Obama stepped into the State Department on May 19 to deliver his long-awaited speech on the Middle East, he did so amid fears that the Arab Spring was devolving into a Summer of Discontent. Egypt was sagging under a weakening economy and escalating crime; NATO's efforts in Libya were stuck in neutral; the Syrian government was boasting that its rebellion was over. Sectarian tensions were roiling Bahrain and Syria, and a wave of church burnings in Cairo had spawned a week of deadly violence between Muslims and Christians.

In his speech, Obama confronted these religious struggles head-on. "In a region that was the birthplace of three world religions, intolerance can lead only to suffering and stagnation," he said. "For this season of change to succeed, Coptic Christians must have the right to worship freely in Cairo, just as Shia must never have their mosques destroyed in Bahrain."
Beyond their political implications, the religious dimensions of the Middle East uprisings have always been central, particularly to the West. Ever since 9/11, the West and Islam have been locked in a chilly standoff. The relationship was captured by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington's lightning-rod phrase "the Clash of Civilizations." Huntington's thesis, which was roundly trashed when it was published as an article in 1993 but became a best seller in book form following Sept. 11, was that Islam taught Muslims to be hostile to freedom, pluralism and individualism.

At first blush, the Arab Spring seemed to render Huntington's idea deader than ever. In up to 20 Islamic countries, Muslims marched in the face of bullets, tanks and water cannons, demanding the exact human dignities that parades of commentators had assured the American public Muslims didn't want. If anything, the uprisings of 2011, coupled with the death of Osama bin Laden, raised the tantalizing possibility that the West and Islam, which came to the brink of a Holy War in the past decade, might finally be able to build a Holy Peace. Could the Clash of Civilizations be giving way at last to the Convergence of Civilizations?

In recent weeks, the news from Egypt has suggested the answer is no. The downfall of the dictator Hosni Mubarak seems to have unleashed all kinds of pent-up religious hatreds. The latest explosion of violence began in the dusty Cairo slum of Imbaba on May 7. Rumors circulated that a Christian woman who had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim man had been kidnapped and was being held captive in the St. Mina Church. Muslims, many from the ultra-conservative Salafi sect, began marching on the facility. Coptic Christians, who make up about 10% of the country, hurried to defend the church. Thousands gathered, brandishing makeshift weapons and hurling insults. Street fighting broke out, and by the time the melee ended the following morning, 15 people had been killed and more than 200 wounded, and three Coptic churches were in flames.

Episodes like this one, reported around the world, fit into a narrative of extremist Muslim aggression and intolerance that has dominated American public discourse since Sept. 11. But what this story line misses is that a powerful new narrative has emerged from the Middle East in recent months that, for the first time in a generation, poses a serious threat to the fundamentalists' appeal. And that narrative can also be told from the recent sectarian events in Egypt. It is a story of the rise of a moderate coalition and its counter-attack against extremism.

The best example of that story unfolded two hours south of Cairo in the tiny village of Sol, in Helwan governate. A place of dirt-lined streets on the border of the desert, Sol was the site of the first church burning in the days after Mubarak's fall. Rumors played a large part in this conflict too: a Christian man had been in a romantic relationship with a Muslim woman, a domestic dispute broke out within the woman's family over her actions, and two people were killed, including her father.

After the funerals, a crowd of Muslims went looking for the Christian man, who they heard had sought refuge in the church. When word spread that someone found evidence that black magic was being performed on Muslims inside the church, the crowd set the building ablaze. It was exactly the sort of violence Mubarak had warned about for years: Keep me in power or sectarian divisions will rip apart the country.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2074093,00.html#ixzz1Nj83tAo4

The Specter of Civil War Grows in Yemen as Saleh Backs Out of Peace Deal

Updated: May 23, 2011. 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Filthy water sloshed through the streets of Sana'a on Monday as a fierce rainstorm swept over the capital. But the rolling of thunder was soon competing with the booming of heavy artillery and the rat-tat-tat of machine gun-fire as security forces in the east of the capital battled with fighters from Yemen's most powerful tribe.

The prospect of civil war seemed to rear its head even more insistently as the republican guard of President Ali Abdullah Saleh used bullets and rocket propelled greandes to pound the residence of Sadeq al-Ahmar, leader of the Hashid tribe and staunch supporter of the opposition. A stray missile thudded into the nearby Yemenia Airlines headquarters setting it ablaze while hundreds of journalists scrambled for cover in the basement of the state-owned Saba News Agency office as the violence raged on into the afternoon.

The tribal-military standoff then began to spread its way throughout the city. In retaliation for the assault on their leaders abode, armed Hasid fighters began encircling and attacking government buildings. Smoke billowed from the interior minister after a horde of men apparently fired anti-aircraft missiles at it. Tribal mediators eventually managed to stem the gun fire but not before seven soldiers and two civilians had died in the fearsome clashes.

The fighting was the fiercest yet between the pro- and anti-Saleh camps and came a day after President Saleh backed away from a promise to sign a Gulf-States-brokered deal that would end his 33 years in power. The stalemate prompted regional leaders late Sunday to abandon their efforts at mediating a solution to Yemen's crisis.

Sunday was also supposed to have been a day of celebration in Yemen, marking the 21st anniversary of the unification of country's north and south. But with Saleh once again reneging on an apparent agreement and the tribal fighting, no one was in the to celebrate. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis had come out onto the dusty streets of the capital Sana'a, only for their deafening calls for the president's departure to be thwarted once more by Saleh who, for the third time in two weeks, refused to sign the deal.

Despite complaining that it was as a "mere coup operation," Saleh had promised to sign the Gulf plan, which would see him exchange power for immunity, on Sunday. But in characteristic fashion, he balked at the last moment, claiming that he wanted the opposition who had inked the deal the day before to re-sign it at a public ceremony at his palace. He also suggested that the result of the impasse could be civil war — and that if that happened, it would be the fault of the opposition parties. "The opposition coalition will be held responsible if they escalate street protests and drag the country into a civil war ... they will be held responsible for the blood that has been and may be shed during the next days," Saleh said in a speech on Sunday.

Opposition officials refused to attend the palace ceremony because they'd already signed the deal; they claimed that Saleh was intent on forcing them to sign an amended version at the last minute.

"We are ready to go to the moon if he is really serious. But it is becoming clear that he is backing away," said opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri, addressing Saleh's insistence that the opposition attend the signing.

According to the state news agency Saba, Saleh phoned the Gulf leaders Sunday night to "renew his readiness to sign the initiative." But it was too little, too late. Hours after the call, the Gulf mediators announced they were bailing on their monthlong effort to ease the President out of office, in a move many fear may be the end of the road for a diplomatic solution to Yemen's mounting political tumult.

Sunday had started ominously. Riled by the news that their President might be being forced from office, thousands of gun-toting regime loyalists — many of them tribesmen from the surrounding countryside — flooded into the capital in a convoy of flag-adorned SUVs and Toyota pickup trucks. At first they tried their hand at civil disobedience: setting up roadblocks, forcing shops to shut and scrawling pro-Saleh slogans on opposition members' houses. Then they begin hounding the diplomats involved in the negotiations. The motorcade of the Chinese ambassador and the convoy of the Gulf Cooperation Council's secretary general, Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, were both set upon by armed men flinging water bottles and chunks of paving slabs.

The climax to the loyalists' efforts came when a horde of 400 tribesmen armed with traditional daggers and rusty Kalashnikovs encircled the U.A.E. embassy. The siege lasted three hours before the diplomats inside, including al-Zayani and the U.S. and British ambassadors, were taken in military helicopters to the safety of the President's palace.(See scenes from Yemen.)

"The Gulf deal is a coup, an attempt to overthrow our democratically elected President," said Ahmed al-Sowfi, a tribal leader from the province of Amran, who stood blocking the entrance to the embassy with a Kalashnikov slung over each shoulder. "Ali Saleh has stood by this country for three decades. If he leaves, there will be chaos in Yemen."

Meanwhile, a few miles north of the embassy, an estimated half-million antigovernment protesters were staging their biggest pro-democracy rally since unrest broke out three months ago, filling a 6-mile (10 km) stretch of motorway with tents, banners and makeshift restaurants. Raising the specter of a broader conflict, they protested under the watchful eyes of soldiers and tanks sent by Major General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a former Saleh confidant who joined the opposition.

"We knew from the start [Saleh] would have to be dragged from his palace kicking and screaming. It's protests, not political negotiations, that will force him out," shouted Hasan Abutalib, a young protest leader perched on the rung of a lamppost who was filming the crowds on his mobile phone.

With the Gulf-mediated efforts for Saleh's departure all but dead, analysts say the U.S. may have to reconsider its options. Saleh's deal-dodging antics provoked a staunch reaction from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who accused the President of "turning his back on his commitments and disregarding the legitimate aspirations of the Yemeni people."

The U.S.'s relations with the embattled Yemeni ruler have grown increasingly shaky in recent months. Saleh has on numerous occasions expressed his frustration with the U.S. and its role in Yemen, and he recently accused the U.S., along with Israel, of "fomenting unrest in the Arab world."

Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert at Princeton University, suggests the U.S. should take a stronger stance on Yemen. "In terms of U.S. national-security interests, it is better that Saleh goes as soon as possible," he wrote on his blog Waq al-Waq. "The longer this dangerous stalemate goes on, the worse it is for Yemen and U.S. national security. It is time for the U.S. to get off the bench and start playing, really playing."

But demonstrators in Yemen maintain that anything more than covert assistance from the U.S. would prove catastrophic. "This is our battle. We call on America to denounce Saleh and nothing more. [Americans] have caused us enough trouble by propping up Saleh all these years as it is," said protest leader Abutalib as he tossed a Yemeni flag into the roaring crowd.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2073460,00.html#ixzz1Nj74gRvO

2011 (Feb) BAHRAIN YAMAN EGYPT UPRISING

2011, The Year of The Great Islamic Uprising

Many believe it started with Barack Obama’s popularity with the young people, was fuelled by the Iranian revolution and finally erupted during the world’s economic crisis and the austerity measures that followed.

The young people of the world heard the rallying cry when the youth of America voted in the first African American President. They watched as it all unfolded on television with the internet and social media playing a major part in Obama’s success.

During the Iranian Revolution the use of internet and social media again came into play with the street protests being organized across the social media sites, but the Iranian regime’s brutality managed to suppress their will to continue.

 

With the economic downturn in the world, the need to reduce financial deficits and the austerity measures that were imposed upon the people of many countries, times had become hard.

And in the Middle East region the people of these countries did not want to lose the growth they had seen in recent years. They had suffered the plight of being under the control of dictator regimes for too long.

Now was the time for the people of the region to raise their voices and for them to rise up and make a stand for their freedom and democracy.

It started in Tunisia with organized protests and the use of people power to oust the incumbent President and make him flee the country.

 

The people of Egypt watched closely on television the events in Tunisia unfold and were inspired by the rallying cry of the youth on the internet and social media stating that the barrier of fear had been broken.

 

Read more in Middle East

« The Situation in Egypt

In Support of Those Amazing Egyptians »

Now it was their turn to make their voices heard and many hundreds of thousands of people filled Tahrir Square in Cairo and key places across the country, even during the regime imposed curfew hours, demanding the resignation of President Mubarak and freedom for Egypt.

Soon the cry of revolt was to spread across the whole region with the people realizing that the freedom to protest and the liberty that it would bring was now within their grasp.

Street protests calling for the overthrow of the dictator regimes was now gathering pace and the people of the world, including President Obama and other world leaders would bear witness to the great Islamic uprising across the countries of the Middle East.

Algeria

 

Yemen

 

Lebanon

 

The dictators were being ousted from their self appointed positions of power with the people demanding new governments that would bring them liberty and democracy.

Syria

 

Jordan

 

Morocco

 

It will go down in history that 2011 was indeed the year of the great Islamic uprising which promoted the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood.

 read more; http://newsflavor.com/world/middle-east/2011-the-year-of-the-great-islamic-uprising/

Iranian people's uprising is doomed to fail

At first sight, what is happening in Tehran looks much like the extraordinary events of the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago.

But how deep do the similarities go? On December 2, 1978, two million Iranians filled the streets of central Tehran to demand an end to the rule of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini.

It was the most popular revolution in history. At night, people gathered on rooftops to chant "Allahu Akbar -- God is Great". In the day, mass rallies commemorated as martyrs the protesters killed by the security forces.

The methods of protest are very similar. This is not surprising because the demonstrators seeking to get rid of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hope the type of unarmed mass protest that worked against the Shah will succeed again.

Mass rally and public martyrdom are part of the Iranian revolutionary tradition, just as the barricade is part of the tradition in France. A difference between 1978-9 and today is that the Iranian government has no intention of letting history repeat itself.

Nor is it likely to do so. The Iranian revolution was carried out by a broad coalition from right to left which had religious conservatives at one end and Marxists at the other.

Danger

The Shah's regime had a unique ability to alienate simultaneously different parts of the population which had nothing in common. His cruel but poorly informed Savak security men convinced themselves that communists and revolutionary leftists were the danger to the throne, not the Shia clergy.

They were not alone in their delusion. President Jimmy Carter recalls an August 1978 CIA memo, drafted five months before the Shah took flight, firmly concluding that Iran "is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation".

Crucially, the Iranian revolution had a messianic leader in Ayatollah Khomeini who was a visible alternative to the Shah, a leader whose claims to legitimacy were compromised even before he came to the throne: his father Reza Shah, an army general who seized power in the 1920s, was deposed by British and Soviet troops in 1941. His son was forced to flee in 1953 when Mohammed Mossadeq was elected prime minister, only to be restored by a CIA-run coup for which President Barack Obama has apologised.

More astute rulers might have tried to burnish their nationalist credentials but instead the Shah indulged in historical fantasies such as abolishing the Islamic calendar and celebrating the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire at Persepolis in 1971. Foreign dignitaries and celebrities sipped drinks behind security cordons while Iranians were excluded.

Inspiration

What makes the Iranian revolution different from previous revolutions in the 19th and 20th Centuries is that it was a religious revolution in terms of its leadership and inspiration. Thirty years later, when "Islamic revolution" is seen as such a menace in the West, it is difficult to recall what a surprising development it was in the late 1970s. Revolutions were supposed to follow in the footsteps of the French, Russian or Chinese revolutions. Their tone was secular and anti-religious. Priests were the defenders of the established order.

There had been Islamic anti-colonial movements against the European empires and later against the nationalist regimes which succeeded them. But the record of these Islamic parties was one of failure. It was the Iranian revolution that made political Islam such a potent and, to its enemies, menacing force.

The Iranian revolution succeeded partly because it caught its enemies, as well as most of its supporters, by surprise. But it was not a spontaneous event. Khomeini and the clergy who supported him were committed revolutionaries. They had thought out how to take power and how to keep it. They might decry nationalism, but it was their commitment to defending the Iranian nation from foreign encroachments which was so crucial to their success.

Refuge

In 1964, Khomeini was expelled from Iran, to take refuge in Najaf, because of his opposition to extra-territorial rights for US government employees. The present Iranian leadership does not have the great weakness of the Shah, which was to be seen as the puppet of foreign powers.

By the time the Shah left Iran on January 16, 1979, he had almost no support. This again is very different from the present situation. President Ahmadinejad was re-elected with 62.6pc of the vote last week. His opponents claim the poll was rigged, although this is almost exactly the same as his vote in 2005, when he won 61.7pc. The point is that Mr Ahmadinejad is a popular politician and the Shah was not. He is very unlikely to be forced from power. Nor is he likely to surrender as the Shah did.

The weakness of the Shah was not evident when the first demonstrations began in October 1977, after the death of Khomeini's son. The first demonstrators, religious students, were killed in early 1978 after an article in a government newspaper attacked Khomeini. Their deaths were commemorated 40 days later, according to Shia religious custom, and protests spread.

These demonstrations in some ways resembled civil rights marches in the US but they had greater impact because they were wedded to religious ritual and the commemoration of martyrdom. Politically, this was a potent blend. It appealed to the most conservative cleric and the most radical student alike. Even so, the marches and demonstrations might have run out of steam over the summer of 1978 if they had not been sustained by a network of clerical supporters of Khomeini in the mosques.

Fear

The Shah, who appeared demoralised from an early stage in the crisis, used enough repression to make his regime detested but not enough to create lasting fear. His concessions conveyed confusion and weakness. Martial law was declared. On September 8, so-called Black Friday, soldiers opened fire on protesters and were accused of killing thousands (though the real figure may have been much lower). The Shah had lost his last chance of staying in power.

He made one further unforced error which had disastrous consequences for himself. Khomeini had been in exile in Najaf, Iraq, from which he could communicate with Iran but with some difficulty. But with self-destructive zeal, the Shah's emissaries persuaded the Iraqi government, in which Saddam Hussein was already the strongest figure, to expel Khomeini, who, after being refused entry to Kuwait, took up residence in Paris in October.

Press

In Paris, he had better access to the international press than the Shah and was able to communicate easily with Iran.

By the end of 1978, Iranians, even those opposed to the revolution, could see the Shah was finished. His core military support began to waver. The clergy made every effort to infiltrate and propagandise his armed forces. In any case, he did not want to fight. By mid-January, he and his wife had left Iran forever.

takeover

On February 1, 1979, Khomeini returned to be greeted by several million Iranians and swiftly completed the takeover. He marginalised his secular allies and began to radicalise the revolution, culminating in November 1979 when clerical students took over the US embassy.

The leaders of the new regime were intent on staying in power. They have not changed much today.

The spectacle, the symbols, and the language in Iran in 2009 are similar to those present in 1978-9, but the political forces at work could not be more different. The protesters then were much stronger than they looked; those of today have the odds stacked against them.

      http://www.herald.ie/world-news/why-the-iranian-peoples-uprising-is-doomed-to-fail-1780090.html