21 Feb 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces over the past few days have left at least 200 dead and many more wounded. The government has reacted strongly against demonstrators, with reports of gunfire and restricted hospital supplies. In a televised address Muammar Gaddafi’s son and heir apparent, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi termed the demonstrators “seditious elements,” warning that Libya faced a civil war. “We will take up arms, we will fight to the last bullet,” he said. Restrictions on local and international media make it difficult to build an accurate picture of the demonstrations and to independently verify casualty numbers.
21 Feb 11 | Comment, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
The revoking of arms licences to Libya and Bahrain won’t last. British firms will be back, argues John Kampfner
This piece first appeared on Comment is Free, Guardian.co.uk.
When Robin Cook tried to tighten rules on British arms sales to dodgy regimes in 1997 he was told by Tony Blair’s team to grow up. Planned changes to criteria for weapons exports were so watered down that they made no inroads into the trade. Cook’s professed “ethical dimension” to foreign policy was stillborn.
Downing Street had been heavily lobbied, but it needed no convincing. This is one area where the boardroom and the unions are in harmony, and one that does not change whatever the government. Britain is a market leader in fighter jets, electric batons, sub-machine guns and teargas. Why add to the jobless total for the sake of morals? If we don’t sell the kit someone else will.
The announcement, therefore, of a revoking of licences to Bahrain and Libya should be taken with a pinch of salt; I predict that British firms will be back at it as soon as the coast is clear.
The coalition government’s commendable, but limited improvements in civil liberties at home have not been replicated in foreign policy, which is brazenly mercantilist. Go forth and flog Britain’s wares is the message. The notorious Export Credits Guarantee Department, responsible for some of the most economically foolhardy and unethical business deals of the past 20 years, has been boosted. From arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, to oil and gas pipelines in central Asia, to mega-dams in sub-Saharan Africa, the ECGD has backed projects that have been implicated in corruption, environmental destruction and human rights abuses.
At the weekend, the UK arms industry descended on Abu Dhabi for Idex, the region’s most important weapons fare. A tenth of all the global exhibitors are from Britain. Gerald Howarth, the minister leading the delegation, declared that “we have ambitious plans”.
The most unequivocal message since the election was made by Peter Luff, the defence equipment minister, who told a defence show in June: “There will be a very, very, very heavy ministerial commitment to arms sales. There is a sense that in the past we were rather embarrassed about exporting defence products. There is no such embarrassment in this government.”
Indeed there is not. The regimes currently using brute force to put down pro-democracy protests are all longstanding partners of the UK. As the Campaign Against the Arms Trade notes on Bahrain: in 2010, equipment approved for export included teargas and crowd control ammunition, equipment for the use of aircraft cannons, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles and submachine guns. No requests for licences were refused.
Algeria, Egypt and Saudia Arabia have provided rich pickings for UK arms exporters. Of all the bilateral arrangements of recent years, perhaps the most despicable is the one with Libya. Colonel Gaddafi morphed from terrorist sympathiser to friend of the west, which then turned a blind eye to his internal repression. Libya is regarded as a priority partner, with the UK boasting the largest pavilion at the Libya’s arms fair.
CAAT figures show that in the third quarter of 2010, equipment approved for export to Libya included wall-and-door breaching projectile launchers, crowd control ammunition, small arms ammunition and teargas/irritant ammunition. No requests for licences were refused.
Earlier this month, the trade minister, Lord Green, announced that ministers will be “held accountable” if companies fail to secure deals and foreign investors favour Britain’s economic rivals. Beside him was business secretary, Vince Cable.
In opposition the Lib Dems were vocal about arms sales. In government they have grown silent. In January 2009, Nick Clegg wrote on these pages that Britain should stop supplying Israel following its bombardment of Gaza. He made a broader point: the UK should not supply weapons to countries involved in external aggression or internal repression. I have heard nothing significant from Clegg on the issue since he became deputy prime minister.
He may believe that if he spoke out, he might suffer a similar fate to Cook. There is too much riding on an industry that abets authoritarian regimes, while providing rich profits for UK firms and jobs. In the current economic climate, who would stand in their way?
17 Feb 11 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
International media has restricted access to Bahrain, journalists report. At least 95 people were injured and four people killed in a police attack on protesters in Manama’s Pearl Square on Thursday. Two people died in the protests earlier this week.
Nick Kristof, New York Times correspondent said: “Bahrain barring journalists from entry at airport. King Hamad doesn’t want witnesses to his brutality.”
Amira Al Hussaini, whose blog was blocked in the country earlier this year, is tweeting and blogging from Bahrain.
CNN cameras have been confiscated at airport and Al Jazeera’s Bilal Randeree (@bilalr) has not been allowed into the country, Al Hussaini said.
Randeree, an online journalist based in Qatar, confirmed the incident on Twitter: “I arrived@ #Manama airport this morn [Thursday] was told by immigration that no more visa on arrival for #aljazeera ppl – returnin to #Doha soon.”
ABC News reported that its correspondent Miguel Marquez had been caught in the crowd and “beaten by men with billy clubs in Bahrain’s capital, Manama.”
On Wednesday the Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern about detained and attacked journalists and restricted internet access across the Middle East, in Libya, Bahrain, Iran and Yemen.
In an open letter on Monday, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights called upon the Bahraini King to prevent the use of force against peaceful protest.
The organisation also asked for the release of more than 450 detainees, including human rights activists.
08 Nov 10 | Uncategorized
Morocco’s on-again off-again ban on the Al Jazeera satellite news channel is apparently on again. The kingdom is famously touchy about certain issues — last year it banned a magazine for publishing an opinion poll about King Mohammed II’s popularity. The poll actually showed a 91 per cent approval rating, but the palace felt it was disrespectful to even ask the question.
This time around, there doesn’t seem to be one specific incident that prompted the latest Al Jazeera ban. Communications minister Khalid Naciri, in announcing the ban, said the channel’s editorial line, “systematically tarnishes Morocco’s image,” whatever that means, and accused it of “transmitting a caricature of Moroccan reality.”
One news report quoted an anonymous Moroccan government official as saying the regime was reacting “to the way Al Jazeera handles the issues of Islamists and Western Sahara.” The 2003 Casablanca bombings prompted a sweeping crackdown on fundamentalist Muslim groups that continues to this day. Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, was annexed by Morocco in the mid-70s and remains home to a vibrant separatist movement.
Turkey has once again banned YouTube after the site refused to remove footage linked to a political sex scandal. Access to the site had already been blocked since 2008 over videos that made fun of Turkey’s venerated founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. That ban was lifted just last week, but within days a new 30-month ban was levied over a video showing the country’s main opposition leader Deniz Baykal in a romantic hotel room tryst with a female staffer. Baykal resigned in May over the scandal. Here’s a link to a (safe for work) excerpt from the video in question.
From the self-censorship file, Egypt’s most prominent modern novelist, Alaa Aswany, is working to PREVENT one of his books from being made available in Hebrew. An Israeli research center translated The Yacoubian Building (an excellent read by the way) against Aswany’s will in the interest, they said, of “expanding cultural awareness”. Aswany, like many Egyptian writers and intellectuals, wants no part of what he considers “normalisation” with Israel until there’s a fair resolution to the Palestinian issue. Aswany, by the way, recently announced he was giving up writing his regular column in the independent daily Al-Shorouk. The reason: the government, as part of its ongoing press crackdown, was raiding and shutting down unrelated businesses owned by Shorouk owner Ibrahim Al-Muallem to pressure him to tone down criticisms by Aswany and other columnists. Also worth reading is the Guardian’s always perceptive Brian Whitaker, here he points out one of the ways Egypt’s government controls information: by monopolising statistics.
In Libya, the government has shut down the weekly Oea newspaper. Coverage of the incident in a Qatari newspaper (in Arabic here) pins the ban to a recent editorial that, “claimed that the government had failed to handle the problem of corruption”. The twist: the paper is partially controlled by Said Al-Islam Qaddhafi, son of the Libya’s leader Col. Muammar Qaddhafi. The paper was already banned for six months earlier this year and only resumed normal publication in July.
Courtesy of the +972 blog, here’s a useful guide to the political line of the major Israeli newspapers, for those seeking to unravel the often bewildering complexities of Israeli politics.
In Lebanon, the country’s General Security office censored a five-minute scene from a recent play. The scene in question dealt a little too flippantly with Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The play’s Shia writers claim they meant no disrespect to Nasrallah and say they are mystified by the decision. Lebanon is known as a bastion of comparative liberalism in the Middle East, but the General Security office in the Ministry of Interior still has broad powers to ban works of art that could upset the country’s delicate political sensitivities.
