25 Dec 11 | Egypt
Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah (@alaa) has reportedly been released, after being detained since 30 October. Abdel Fattah’s sister, Mona Seif (@monasosh) sent a twitter message saying that Abdel Fattah will be released. While Abdel Fattah has been released, the charges against him have not been dropped, according to his father and lawyer, Seif Hamad (@seifhamad). More updates to come.
2:43 PM: Mona Seif posted a picture of Abdel Fattah’s official release, where he is holding his newborn son, Khalid.
2:45 PM: Mona Seif tweeted that the now-released Abdel Fattah is headed to Tahrir Square with supporters.
20 Dec 11 | Middle East and North Africa, Uncategorized
The fifteenth of December marked the start of #OccupyBudaiya. Bahrainis have taken to Budaiya Street in Manama, the capital city, to express discontent with the government’s actions following the reading of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report. For four days, protesters clashed with riot police and security officials. Bahraini activist Asma Darwish, 21, who has been actively protesting since the start of protests in February, told Index that the demonstrations have all been “peaceful.” According to Darwish, when she was at Budaiya Street on 15 December, police began firing tear gas at herself and a few other individuals, including the now detained activist Zainab Al-Khawaja (@angryarabiya) , and journalists Lauren Bohn and Adam Ellick. She said that they were merely “taking photos” outside of a Costa coffee shop known as a meeting point for opposition members, when police opened fire on the café, filling it with tear gas and making it “very difficult to breathe”. On the same day, protester Ali Al-Ghassab was run over during protests, and the Ministry of Interior has denied responsibility for his death. On the same day, Al-Khawaja was also arrested while peacefully protesting.
In honour of Bahrain’s National Day on 16 December, King Hamad delivered a speech, in which he spoke about the BICI report, and emphasised the government’s “commitment to implementing its recommendations”. He also said that the BICI also “generated popular satisfaction.” On the same day, many gathered for the funeral of Al-Ghassab, and to protest on Budaiya Street again. According to an eyewitness account, the protests were “peaceful,” and did not even involve road blocks, which has been a major criticism of opposition tactics in the past. While protesters peacefully gathered, security forces began breaking up the crowds through the use of force — using batons to beat protesters, and firing “tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and bird shotgun pellets” on the crowd. The brutal crackdown on protesters since the start of the latest round of demonstrations has resulted in countless injuries, and many have posted images and videos of clouds of tear gas, injuries, and protests on Twitter. Bahrain is now approaching 10 months of unrest; protests began in February of this year.
Meanwhile, Al-Khawaja, who was scheduled to stand trial today, could face up to two years in prison, according to her lawyer. The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights is reporting that Al-Khawaja is currently being held in a cell with 40 other women and one shared bathroom, and has also been “verbally harassed” and threatened by officials, who have told her that she would only be able to see her two-year-old daughter once a week. Al-Khawaja is the daughter of prominent activist Abdulhady Al-Khawaja, who was arrested in April and is currently serving a life sentence. In an open letter to the international human rights community, Darwish appealed to organisations to assist in releasing her fellow activist, and condemned the physical assault of Al-Khawaja during her arrest, and said that her ill-treatment in public was “worrisome”. Her arrest, as well as the crackdown on protesters has been met with outrage from the international community, as continued brutality and the arrest of peaceful protesters does not seem to line up with the government’s promises of a renewed future, and many organisations have called for her release, as well as that of other peaceful protesters.
The Bahraini government has called for the fast-tracking of the recommendations of the commission, but hundreds remain in prison for exercising their right to express their political views. One of the commissioners, Sir Nigel Rodley, former UN special rapporteur on torture, told Human Rights Watch that those arrested for peacefully expressed their right to “freedom of expression and assembly,” and called for the government to review convictions, commute the sentences of those merely exercising their “basic political rights,” and that commissioners intended that they be released, and their criminal records be expunged of charges.
19 Dec 11 | News and features
Technology has revolutionised reporting on North Korea. David McNeill reveals how a clandestine network is getting the word out despite restrictions 
(more…)
15 Dec 11 | China
Is China’s foreign policy shaped by national public opinion or is the government shaping public opinion to justify its foreign policy?
An interesting new analysis by the Brookings Institute has it that the government is manipulating nationalist sentiment to justify its own foreign policy decisions.
“On foreign policy issues, the Chinese public relies overwhelmingly on the official media for daily information, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the government plays a central role in determining what information will be available to the public. The Propaganda Department of the CCP is the political center for ideological control and news censorship. It has almost absolute authority over what the public will read and see through its control of the sources of information.”
On key foreign news stories, such as the Egyptian riots, media must use Xinhua wire reports. When the story is even more sensitive, such as disputes in the South China Sea even Xinhua is not to be trusted, it says. All media must use reports straight from the State Council itself.
The angle is carefully chosen to garner the desired response, according to the Institute.
“For example, Chinese media reports on the domestic turbulence in Libya and Syria in 2011 rarely focuses on the governments’ authoritarian records, human rights violations, or corruption. Instead, following China’s foreign policy principles, Chinese media spent most volume on the negative aspects of domestic instability and the danger of foreign intervention.”
The web, while having a little more leeway, is also heavily screened.
“Most discussion on the internet in China is carefully screened, and much of it is pre-approved, by the government―including inflammatory comments and nationalistic criticisms about foreign policy issues. If it wished to, therefore, the government could shape and influence the direction of the internet content and netizens’ discussions to tone down nationalistic sentiment. The fact that it does not in many cases raises the question not about its ability, but its intentions.”
As examples of how it has manipulated foreign news in the past, it picks out the Dalai Lama’s visit to the US in 2010 and American arms sales to Taiwan in the same year. The government knew about the visit and the sales months before, “yet when they were officially announced, Beijing responded in a ferocious manner. Harsh official statements were applauded and echoed by an even more agitated public, which in its more extreme examples called for sanctions on American companies and even a military confrontation with the United States.”
It could have handled the issues in a much more conciliatory way, it argues.
“The fact that it did not revealed several things,” it says. Firstly, it was enjoying its bigger role on the international stage due to its economic growth. And, “it saw public opinion as a useful tool to show Washington how angry the Chinese people are and how severe the consequences could be. Beijing might have a point when saying it had to answer to the public sentiment at home, but such a sentiment was at least in part its own creation to begin with. Public opinion was more instrumental than original in this case.”
The Chinese government appeals to nationalism as a way to “reaffirm its legitimacy in the eyes of the people,” given there are no free and fair elections in the country. It’s also a tool to bargain “concessions from foreign governments.”
Don’t jump too quickly to say Beijing is listening to its people, it warns. It’s much more likely that the people have been manipulated into saying what Beijing wants them to say.
