Human Rights

During his brief period as Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi sought to suppress criticism by prosecuting citizens for the "crime" of "insulting the president." In fact he prosecuted more cases than all his predecessors back to King Farouk had done, something I blogged about here critically last January. Bahrain is now trying the same maneuver. On November 18, the Shura Council set a minimum sentence of one year and a maximum of seven, plus fines. A new report from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights entitled "Limited Freedom Of Expression In Bahrain:Arrested For Insulting The King" says that there were thirty prosecutions in 2013 for this "crime." There are three problems with this statute. First, it is ambiguous: the law only says “A prison sentence shall be the penalty for any person who offends the emir of the country...." But what is an insult to the King? Does a speech criticizing his handling of public affairs "offend" him? A speech condemning him for human rights abuses? A speech criticizing him for failing to fire his uncle the prime minister? Slogans at a demonstration? It is unfair to imprison people when the bounds of acceptable criticism are in fact unknown. Second, the statute violates free speech rights that Bahrain has agreed to protect under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The King himself handled it this way in an interview in Der Spiegel in 2012: SPIEGEL: Your Majesty, what would happen if we were to shout: "Down with the King?" Hamad: They do shout it on the streets. As I emphasized in my speech last year, this is not a reason to imprison someone. It’s just a case of manners. But when they shout: "Down with the king and up with Khomeini," that’s a problem for national unity. By that standard the King should be protesting the abuse of the statute to imprison people who "offend" him so long as they do not then shout their loyalty to Iran. In the thirty cases from 2013, there is no evidence (as I understand the cases) that people added statements about Iran to their criticism of the King. The third problem with the statute is practical: it won’t work. Bahrain is in a political crisis that can only be ended by negotiations between political groups representing the populace, which is majority Shia, and the royal family (which is Sunni) and the broader Sunni community. It won’t be ended by fiat, by imprisoning critics, or by passing laws that jail people for "offending the emir." In fact that sort of action by the government only exacerbates divisions and tensions, which indeed have been getting worse in Bahrain. Respect for the King will not be created by new laws demanding respect for the King, but by actions he takes to solve Bahrain’s crisis and respect the rights of all citizens. I am fully aware that there is a deep fear of Iranian subversion in Bahrain, and that some acts of protest can cross the line into actual criminal behavior--in Bahrain as everywhere. But if the government of Bahrain cannot distinguish between genuine protest and foreign subversion, and responds to criticism with jail sentences, one can only expect that 2014 will be even worse than 2013 for human rights and domestic stability.

Post by Elliott Abrams December 30, 2013 Pressure Points

Middle East and North Africa

Mohamad Chatah, R.I.P.

Mohamad Chatah was killed by terrorists in Beirut today. Chatah was a former ambassador to the United States and minister of finance, and chief adviser to Fouad Siniora when Siniora was prime minister. For many years he was a key adviser to the Hariri family. I had numerous chances to meet with Chatah when he was a Lebanese official and I worked at the NSC, and most recently he visited me in Washington this past July. Mohamad was unfailingly courteous, sensible, thoughtful, with a wonderful sense of humor. He was killed because he opposed Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria--the same reason so many Lebanese patriots who are Christian or Sunni have been murdered over the past decade. Saad Hariri said after the murder that his killers "are the ones who assassinated Rafiq Hariri" and that is surely right: who else had the motivation but the Syrians and Hezbollah? In fact Mohamad was killed just a few blocks from the site of Hariri’s assassination in 2005. That Hezbollah/Assad alliance continues to plague Lebanon and to take the lives of political leaders and journalists who resist their control. Mohamad Chatah bravely criticized the Assad regime and Hezbollah, even tweeting what proved to be his last critique on the day of his death: "Hezbollah is pressing hard to be granted similar powers in security & foreign policy matters that Syria exercised in Lebanon for 15 yrs." Surely he knew the risks he was taking, which makes his courage and patriotism remarkable. R.I.P.

Post by Elliott Abrams December 27, 2013 Pressure Points

Palestinian Territories

Arafat and al-Jazeera: Manufacturing Trouble

This week Russian experts added their voices to those of French experts who had examined Yasser Arafat’s remains to determine if he was poisoned. "French experts have ruled out a theory that Yasser Arafat was killed by poisoning," AFP reported several weeks ago. Now BBC reports that "Announcing its conclusions on Thursday, the head of Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA), Vladimir Uiba, said ’Yasser Arafat died not from the effects of radiation but of natural causes.’" But the third team, the Swiss, came to a different conclusion--that Arafat might have been poisoned. The striking thing about the Swiss "investigation" is that it was inspired and financed by al-Jazeera. The report itself is on al-Jazeera stationery, and the opening lines reveal that the entire thing was invented by al-Jazeera. At al-Jazeera’s web site, here, huge amounts of attention are devoted to proving that Arafat was poisoned. There are an amazing 41 "news" stories and documents listed under the headline "Al Jazeera Investigates: Killing Arafat." The other teams were not bought and paid for by al-Jazeera and they reached the opposite conclusion. In fact this recent hullabaloo about how Arafat died represents not new science or new evidence, but an effort by al-Jazeera to create trouble. It is yet another proof that al-Jazeera continued to operate in 2013 without the restraints of a normal news medium and should not be regarded as one. The government of Qatar --which owns al-Jazeera-- changed during this year; there is a new emir and some speculation that he will rein in Qatari foreign policy. Thus far he has not reined in al-Jazeera, and its pretensions to be a Middle Eastern version of CNN or BBC should be rejected. This entire Arafat/poisoning affair shows us that al-Jazeera continues to pursue political goals and to manufacture what it hopes to persuade us is "news."

Post by Elliott Abrams December 26, 2013 Pressure Points

Egypt

Egypt Ends the Year With Prison Sentences

On December 18, Egyptian security forces raided the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), a leading think tank. The timing is extraordinary, because foreign diplomats and human rights activists were still in town after the December 16-17 meeting of the "Forum for the Future." The Forum was a G-8 Initiative established during the Bush years to promote closer cooperation between governments and civil society organizations in the Middle East, and thereby help promote human rights and democracy. The full story is told by Michele Dunne and Amy Hawthorne here. In Cairo, Ahmed Maher, Mohamed Adel, and Ahmed Douma were given three year sentences. As Egypt Independent put it, The defendants were demonstrating against the instatement of the new protest law, which requires prior authorization from the Interior Ministry to hold demonstrations. The arrest of these prominent political activists worries human rights groups that the new political establishment is falling further backwards towards the old police state of the Mubarak era, or perhaps worse. Maher and Adel were founders of the April 6 Youth Movement that led the protests against the Mubarak regime. So their jailing is a clear message to protesters that continuing activity will land you a stiff prison term--and a message to us that Egypt is simply becoming a military dictatorship once again. As The New York Times explained last May when Maher was arrested by the previous government, "Mr. Maher founded the April 6 Youth Movement in 2008 to organize young people and express solidarity with striking textile workers in the Nile delta town of Mahalla, north of Cairo. It began on Facebook, where the first April 6 group page attracted 60,000 members and the attention of the security forces, who arrested, tortured and threatened to rape Mr. Maher in 2008." He was released then, but is now back behind bars. In November, Secretary of State Kerry visited Cairo and said he thought they were on track toward democracy: "The road map is being carried out to the best of our perception, there are questions we have here or there about one thing or another, but foreign minister [Nabil] Fahmy has re-emphasized to me again and again that they have every intent, and they are determined, to fulfill that particular decision and that track." Questions here or there, one thing or another, but the message was clear: "Kerry visits Egypt, hails signs of democracy after military ouster," said NBC; "Egyptians Following Right Path, Kerry Says," was how The New York Times reported it. The jailing of Ahmed Maher for a three year term is a mockery of those remarks. Members of Congress who still believe there should be no interruption in U.S. military aid to the Egyptian military regime should think again. What exactly will we be paying for? Does anyone believe that jailing peaceful and popular protest leaders will create a stable Egypt?

Post by Elliott Abrams December 24, 2013 Pressure Points

Middle East and North Africa

The Killings in Aleppo

The city of Aleppo in Syria is under air attack by Bashar al-Assad’s air force. As al-Arabiya reported, The Syrian air force on Sunday bombed a neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo killing at least 91 people, the Syrian Revolution General Commission reported. Hundreds of people have been killed during the past week in Aleppo as Syrian aircraft have dropped crude barrel bombs on the country’s onetime commercial hub, now largely reduced to rubble. In nine days these air attacks have killed hundreds. The crude bombs kill indiscriminately and are instruments of terror. The target is the people of Aleppo, and these attacks are war crimes. They help explain why the Assad regime has now killed what is most likely 200,000 people and made millions homeless. What is the reaction of the Obama administration? Read it in full: ----------- THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 23, 2013 Statement by Press Secretary Jay Carney on the Ongoing Air Assaults by the Syrian Government The United States condemns the ongoing air assault by Syrian government forces on civilians, including the indiscriminate use of SCUD missiles and barrel bombs in and around Aleppo over the last week. The attacks over the weekend killed more than 300 people, many of them children. The Syrian government must respect its obligations under international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population. The Syrian government must fulfill its November commitment to do more to facilitate the safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance, so that millions of Syrian men, women, and children have access to urgently needed services. To bring the suffering of the Syrian people to an end, it is imperative that Syrians reach a comprehensive and durable political solution to end the crisis in Syria. The United States remains committed to advancing a political settlement to help end the bloodshed in Syria. ----------- So, the Syrian government "must" do this and do that, it seems. It is "imperative," you see. And what will President Obama do about this continuing slaughter? Nothing--that is clear. His deal with Russia is about chemical weapons, and has no bearing whatsoever on the war crimes that are killing thousands of unarmed civilians who have the poor judgment to be eliminated by conventional weapons. What does the world look like when there are no rules, and the United States provides no leadership? Like what we see today: mass killing occurs, and from the White House comes the wringing of hands. We are "committed to advancing a political settlement," but what if Assad is not? What if he is committed to advancing a military victory, to destroying his enemies? The coming conference on Syria in Geneva seems increasingly obscene against this backdrop of mass killing. And such statements from the White House are worse than silence, for they express impotence and lack of will. Once upon a time President Obama used to say Assad must go. Now it seems Assad may well last longer in office than Obama, whose apparent indifference to the deaths in Syria will stain his record in office.

Post by Elliott Abrams December 23, 2013 Pressure Points