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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Jordan police fire tear gas on protesters

Fri Dec 23, 2011

Jordanian anti- and pro-government protesters have clashed in the northern city of Mafraq, forcing police to use tear gas to end the violence.

Witnesses say dozens from both sides, including police, were injured after thousands of members of the Bani Hassan tribe clashed with around 300 anti-government demonstrators demanding reforms in Mafraq on Friday.

Several shops were also destroyed during the clashes, AFP reported.

The demonstrators have reportedly sought refuge in a mosque and according to witnesses the situation is still tense in the city.

Bani Hassan, one of Jordan's largest tribes, which supports the government, on Thursday warned against holding anti-government demonstration in Mafraq.

Similar anti-government rallies were held in the capital, Amman, and several other cities following the Friday Prayers.

Jordanians have been holding street protests demanding political reform, including the election of the prime minister by popular vote, and an end to corruption since January. There have been no calls for the king to be removed.

Since the beginning of protest rallies, Jordanian ruler, King Abdullah II, has sacked two prime ministers in a bid to avoid more protests. Awn al-Khasawneh, a judge at International Court of Justice, is Jordan's third premier this year.

The king has also amended 42 articles in the 60-year-old constitution, giving parliament a stronger role in decision-making.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/217313.html.

Bloody Kazakhstan's regime killed or wounded almost 1,000 protesters and increases terror against Muslims

22 December 2011

An amateur video clip has been posted on YouTube. It was shot in Zhanaozen on December 16, the day of the popular uprising. The video was made by a local resident from a window of a house in the town center, reports the Kazakh Section of the US Congress radio RFE-RL, Azattyk.

The Nazarbayev's regime claims that 14 people were killed and more than 80 others wounded during the dictator's slaughter in Zhanaozen on December 16. According to unofficial data, the number of victims was much higher. Independent sources report about 70 peaceful oil workers killed and 800 wounded.

The state of emergency was proclaimed in Zhanaozen until January 5, 2012.

The ringleader of Kazakh puppets Nazarbayev said at a gathering of his "security council" in the capital of Astana that his puppet security services "were putting things in order" in Zhanaozen, and acted "within their authority under the law".

Thus, according to Nazarbayev's law, about 1,000 peaceful oil workers were killed or wounded.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Watch called the beastly dictator Nazarbayev to stop violence against the Kazakh Muslims.in an official statement, posted on its website,

The organization reports about tortures of captured oil workers in Zhanaozen.

***

In a strange Democratic way of thinking, the HRW human rights activists call the Nazarbayev's regime for an investigation into the crimes of Nazarbayev's regime which committed these crimes.

The Human Rights Watch indicates that in order to conceal their atrocities, the Nazarbayev's puppets disconnected telephone line and closed all access to Zhanaozen.

The human rights activists talked to people who knew the detainees. All of them told about beatings and tortures. Journalists who visited Zhanaozen said that many residents could not find their relatives, kidnapped by the puppets. People are scared.

A correspondent, Elena Kostyuchenko, told the Human Rights Watch that she talked to a man in Zhanaozen whom the puppets tortured for 24 hours, during the detention in the prison cell and the interrogation room.

Kostyuchenko said that the man had his nose and ribs broken, two bruises in the kidney area, and that he had been coughing blood for two days and had blood in his urine.

According to the man who survived the Nazarbayev's tortures, the puppets broke legs and arms of many inmates the cell. He said he saw prisoners whom the dictator's police forced to lie face down on the ground and put their feet in heavy police boots on the back of their heads, apparently breaking the noses.

Mrs. Kostyuchenko said that two young men had been beaten so hard by the dictator's police that an ambulance had to be called for them.

Another prisoner said that he had been detained by Nazarbayev's puppets on December 19 and released later that day. He said that he was beaten in a police truck on the way to a police station and inside the station, where riot police held his arms behind him while other agents punched him in the stomach.

It is to be recalled that earlier, a correspondent of a Russian newspaper Kommersant reported about traces of blood on the walls and floor of police departments in Zhanaozen.

When asked about the blood on the walls, a member of Nazarbayev's police with a Slavic face lied: "We killed a sheep. There was a holiday, you know".

Meanwhile, the death toll in Zhanaozen is still unknown. Townspeople say that 70 people were killed by dictator's police last Friday.

Perhaps, the death toll is much higher, but it is impossible to find out the exact numbers. The morgue and the city hospital in Zhanaozen are guarded by Nazarbayev's special gangs as if they were important sensitive government agencies. All entrances and exits to local health facilities are staffed by dozens of puppets in full armor.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2011/12/22/15530.shtml.

Hungarian opposition lawmakers chain themselves to parliament gates

Dec 23, 2011

Budapest - Opposition lawmakers chained themselves across the gates to Hungary's parliament building Friday in a protest against the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The liberal-green opposition party Politics Can Be Different was protesting what it said was the government's steady dismantling of the institutions of democracy.

The demonstration came as parliament was expected to vote on several issues, among them electoral reform and a central bank bill that critics - among them the European Commission - fear could limit the independence of the Hungarian National Bank.

With its lawmakers filling two-thirds of seats in the national assembly, Orban's Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance has been able to push through wide-ranging reforms and even a new constitution without cross-party consensus during its 18 months in power.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1682487.php/Hungarian-opposition-lawmakers-chain-themselves-to-parliament-gates.

Myanmar opposition leader registers party to contest polls

Dec 23, 2011

Yangon - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday registered her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to contest by-elections next year, officially rejoining the political fray.

She also visited parliament and met with Shwe Mann, the lower chamber's speaker.

Suu Kyi, released from her latest, seven-year term of house detention in November 2010, traveled the 350 kilometers from Yangon north to the capital, Naypyitaw, with NLD co-leader Tin Oo to register the party at the Union Election Commission, commission officials said.

The event was part of a softening by Myanmar's government, long a pariah of the West for its poor human rights record, including its 15 years of detention of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate after the NLD won 1990 elections that the then-ruling junta annulled.

Suu Kyi, 66, has vowed to contest by-elections for 48 parliamentary seats expected to be held in March or April.

Should she win a seat, Suu Kyi was expected to become Myanmar's official opposition leader in parliament.

Myanmar was under military rule from 1962 until this year when November 2010 elections, the first in 20 years, brought to power a pro-military government under President Thein Sein, a former general.

Despite his military background, Thein Sein has proved an unexpected catalyst of change in the politically stunted country.

In mid-August, he initiated a political dialogue with Suu Kyi, inviting her to Naypyitaw for private talks. Since then, Thein Sein has paved the way for Suu Kyi to re-enter Myanmar politics.

The NLD was dissolved as a legal entity last year after it refused to contest the general election on the grounds that the junta then ruling the country had issued party registration laws that would have forced them to drop Suu Kyi as a member of the party to participate.

Myanmar's parliament in November amended the party registration regulations, paving the way for the NLD to reregister.

The government also granted an amnesty to more than 200 political prisoners and was expected to free more next month.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1682505.php/LEAD-Myanmar-opposition-leader-registers-party-to-contest-polls.

Yemenis throng in Sana'a to celebrate protesters' march

Dec 23, 2011

Sana'a - Thousands of Yemeni protesters were gathering Friday to support protesters marching from the southern city of Taiz to the capital Sana'a, demanding the prosecution of outgoing president Ali Abdullah Saleh and members of his regime.

The march, which started on Wednesday and passed northwards through the provinces of Ibb and Dhamar, was expected in Sana'a on Saturday. It aims to condemn the immunity granted to Saleh under a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal.

Some 3,000 people were taking part in the march - a new development in the anti-government protests which started against Saleh in February.

'The world should see us walking a distance of 255 kilometers to continue the uprising which would bring us justice, freedom and the decent life which the regime deprived us from for decades,' said Natheer al-Asbahi, one of the marchers.

While the political parties are implementing the deal - signed in Riyadh in November - as scheduled, protesters remain dissatisfied with it, as members of Saleh's regime will still be active on the political scene.

'I do not think it is possible to build our country with the people who impoverished our land during the regime of Saleh,' said Abdullah Sallam, 29, from Sana'a.

However the new minister of information Ali al-Amrani stressed Thursday that the coalition government remained committed to the Gulf deal and the steps it prescribed to reach the sought-after change.

'Our priority is to remove tension, stop violence and implement a development program to regain the economic stability,' al-Amrani said on Thursday.

Yemen has been shaken by al-Qaeda operatives in the south and tribal and radical conflicts in the north, in the absence of the viable rule of law to maintain stability in the country.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1682480.php/Yemenis-throng-in-Sana-a-to-celebrate-protesters-march.

Erdogan: France massacred 15% of Algerian population

2011-12-23

ISTANBUL (Turkey) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday accused France of committing "genocide" in Algeria after French lawmakers voted a bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian genocide.

"France massacred an estimated 15 percent of the Algerian population starting from 1945. This is genocide," Erdogan told a news conference after the French move on the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman-era forces.

The Turkish premier accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of "fanning hatred of Muslims and Turks for electoral gains."

France is home to around 500,000 citizens of Armenian descent and they are seen as a key source of support for Sarkozy and his UMP ahead of presidential and legislative elections in April and June next year.

On Thursday, France's National Assembly voted the first step towards passing a law that would impose a jail term and a 45,000 euro fine on anyone in France who denies that the 1915 massacre of Armenians constitutes genocide.

During World War I hundreds of thousands of Armenians died at the hands of Ottoman Turk forces. Armenia says 1.5 million died in a genocide, Turkey says around 500,000 died in fighting after they sided with a Russian invasion.

France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe called on Turkey not to "overreact" to a bill that he insisted was a parliamentary initiative, and not a project of Sarkozy's government.

France has a 500,000-strong community of Armenian descent, many of whose forebears fled the killings a century ago, and French politicians assiduously court their votes every five years ahead of elections.

Turkey and many of Sarkozy's domestic opponents accuse him of jeopardizing relations with a key NATO ally and trading partner to win Armenian votes.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49633.

Libya's Megrahi vows to clear his name: 'I am innocent'

2011-12-22

LONDON - The only person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people died used his "final interview" to vow he would clear his name, British newspapers reported Thursday.

A Scottish court in 2001 convicted Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi of the 1988 attack on Pan Am flight 103, but he was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after doctors said he had only three months to live.

Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, told investigator and friend George Thomson on Sunday "I am an innocent man" in an interview published in several British newspapers, including The Times and the Daily Mail.

"I am about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family," he said.

During the interview, which will be broadcast on television in February, the Libyan revealed he had helped investigative journalist John Ashton with a new book that will contain "dramatic" new evidence.

"I will not be giving any more interviews, and no more cameras will be allowed into my home," he explained. "I am an innocent man, and the book will clear my name."

Megrahi claimed that he had "never seen" a Maltese shopkeeper whose testimony and identification proved central to the original guilty verdict.

"I never bought clothes from him," he added. "He dealt with me very wrongly. I have never seen him in my life before he came to court."

According to Megrahi, US agencies "led the way" in securing his conviction.

A top aide to US President Barack Obama on Wednesday marked the 23rd anniversary of the bombing, which took place over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, vowing that Washington would pursue justice in a newly-free Libya for the attack.

Obama's top anti-terror adviser John Brennan joined relatives of the victims at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49618.