...Or Does It Explode?

2006: Civil Rights Year in Review

This blog is now two years old, with not so much to show for it. It's sad how little has changed since the beginning of 2005. Yet there have been breakthroughs that even then would have seemed unimaginable. Anyway, last year ended with a year in review, so why not keep up the tradition? Without further ado, here once again (updated for 2006) is the good, the bad, and the just plain wacky.

BIGGEST OUTRAGE: Sudan Genocide
Some would argue the whole cartoon crisis was beyond outrageous (or the death sentence for a Muslim Afghani who dared convert to Christianity). But last year's "winning" outrage holds true again. Widespread government-sanctioned mass murder and ethnic cleansing - coupled with UN inaction and a near-deafening silence from people so quick to protest far lesser matters - sadly keeps Sudan in the pole position. But kudos to the 31 Middle Eastern NGOs who signed this statement.

FORGOTTEN OUTRAGE: Western Sahara
It's the Middle Eastern "occupation" long-forgotten by the international community, yet it features some inspiring nonviolent activists (like Aminatou Haider, the "Sahwari Ghandi" released from prison earlier this year) and begs for a robust solidarity movement, which has courageous Moroccan reformers to partner with.

MOST MUNDANE OUTRAGE: Banning Cats & Dogs in Jidda and Mecca; Breaking up Couples on Park Benches in Tehran (tie)
It will no longer be raining cats and dogs in two of Saudi's biggest cities, as these pets are a corrupting Western influence. And a Persian blogger captured a public morality inspector at work in one of Tehran's parks, separating a boyfriend and girlfriend cuddling on a bench.

DICTATOR OF THE YEAR: Qaddafi
First off, he's the "Dean of the Dictators," having served longer than any other regional despot. Second, he somehow managed to dominate the headlines (on this blog at least) by starting his own blog, promising to buy 1.2 million laptops, spewing nonsense at Columbia University, getting put in his place by Nigerian airport officials, and paying Lionel Ritchie to serenade his daughter's wedding. We're just mad we didn't get invited.

TURNING POINT: December 11
Last year had the February 21 protest in Lebanon. No equivalent seismic shift in 2006. By default, the award this year goes to the students who protested Ahmadinejad's talk earlier this month (and paid the price). Their daring act actually capped a series of protests in Iran (by Azeris, women's rights activists,  students, bus drivers, and even female soccer fans banned from stadiums). May these nonviolent protests grow in strength and number.

MOST DARING MOMENT: Workers Striking in Dubai; Anti-Homophobia Day in Beirut; Wajeha Huwaider (3-way tie) 
The UAE's disenfranchised majority - foreign workers with no legal rights whatsoever - made a show for themselves this spring, organizing taboo-breaking protests (1, 2, 3) over terrible work conditions despite the threat of immediate deportation. Speaking of tackling long-ignored issues, anti-homophobia activists in Beirut put on three days of events to mark IDAHO. And then there was Wajeha Huwaider's one-woman protest in Saudi Arabia.

MOST INFLUENTIAL AMERICAN ACTIVIST: George Clooney; the Boroumand Sisters (tie)
Clooney kept the Sudan genocide in the public spotlight all year, including leading a huge rally in DC and successfully pressuring Arnold Schwartzenegger to get California to divest from Sudan. On the other hand, Ladan and Roya Boroumand do not have celebrity status, but their piece-de-resistance was unveiled earlier this year: Omid, a massive online database of individuals murdered by the Iranian regime. (If this report of a March on Mecca were not a parody, these guys would have won hands down.)

OUTSTANDING REPORTING ON CIVIL RIGHTS: Jamal Amer
The muckracking Yemeni journalist had his life threatened by some thugs from the mukhabarat, but he hung in there and deservedly won a major international journalism award for his commitment to shining a spotlight on abuses.

BEST LOCAL BLOGGING ON CIVIL RIGHTS: Alaa Abd el-Fatah
When the dude gets arrested and then blogs from jail - and then continues to speak out after his release - he gets the award. His arrest also inspired a great grassroots response from bloggers and activists all over the world.

MOMENT OF LEVITY: Mafi Wasta
This underground workers' rights group in the UAE gets extra points for their self-depricating humor. Choice quote: "If success is to be measured on the difference we have made to the life of the average migrant worker, then we can probably make claim to have been the least successful pressure group in history."

NOTABLE PASSING: Akbar Mohammadi
One of the leaders of the July 1999 student uprising in Iran, Mohammadi died from complications due to a hunger strike he was leading in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. But his death, at least, made ABC News. And his courage and conviction will not be forgotten.

HARROWING QUOTES OF THE YEAR: These statements echo across the region

• "I want our society to move forward, and I want to be part of that change. I don't want to be 40 and still struggling with the issues we're dealing with now." -Omran in Saudi Arabia

•  Why were Japanese women allowed into the stadium for a World Cup qualifying match in 2005, she asks. Because they're Japanese, he answers. "So my problem is I was born in Iran," she retorts. -outside a Tehran soccer stadium

• "We cannot get passports. We cannot deal with banks. We cannot deal with traffic departments. We cannot put our children in schools and universities... We the Bahais are committed to the law regardless of the fact that administrative authorities reject us and force us to deny our creed." -an appeal by Egyptian Baha'is

ODD FIXATION: Techonology Will Set People Free
Last year, this award recognized a preponderance of sexuality-themed posts. We mostly cleaned up our act this year, instead sublimating that energy into weekly photo posts on Fridays. But if there was an underlying theme explored more than in the past, it has been the impact of new technology. This includes Bahrain blocking Google Earth, Tunisian activists using Google Earth to expose prison abuse, activists rallying online to free arrested bloggers, a videogame promoting nonviolent techniques, the Omid database of Iranian victims, and new-kid-on-the-block iToot.

2007 Risky Prediction: A "Jasmine Revolution" in Syria
We were WAY off last year, but maybe predicting it a second time will actually make it come true.

PHOTOS OF THE YEAR: Follow the Links

• Caught between two worlds
• Sword in hand
• Nothing to photograph here

Happy new year! Let's hope it indeed brings more happiness and greater freedom.

The Horror, The Horror

And so death has at last caught up with Saddam Hussein. The image of a frail man in black with a noose around his neck suggests the ending came with a whimper, rather than a bang.

While film of the execution has not been released, here are two clips for your consideration. The first is Cinemax Film's slightly wacky "Uncle Saddam," produced while Hussein was still in power. The cinematic tour of Saddam's bizarre world is a stark contrast to the image from earlier today. As a bonus, the film features a man otherwise lost to history: Hussam Khadori, Saddam's interior designer. What has happened to this character?

The second clip is the end of Apocalypse Now (which has several alternate endings). Inspired by Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," the film concludes with the execution of megalomaniac, whose last breaths are to whimper the words: "The horror, the horror."

Viewers are forewarned that both contain shocking imagery. The second clip is unforunately dubbed into German, the only version on YouTube. Still, the drama transcends the language barrier. Note also the irony that Martin Sheen (the executioner) has gone on to play the US president on television.

One Last Friday Photo for 2006: Jellyfish

A stunning photo taken at a beach along the Persian Gulf. Just a warning: it's beautiful but it leaves a sting. Draw your own analogy.

p.s. Eid Sa'id!

Saudi Arabia's Thurgood Marshall: an Attorney for the Repressed

Some readers may be surprised to hear it, but Saudi Arabia has a dashing young human rights attorney who is challenging many of the desert kingdom's orthodoxies and even taking on the muttawa.  Now, thanks to a recent profile in the Washington Post, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem is getting some international attention. Let's listen in on his fascinating story:

Lahem, a 35-year-old father of two, contends that the police oppress people in the name of religion and act as if the law doesn't apply to them. He wants to prove them wrong.

"If we win this case, it will have more of an impact than a dozen lectures or newspaper articles," he said. "It will send a powerful message to them, and to the public, who view men of the cloth as untouchable. It will prove that nobody is above the rule of law."

Over the past three years, Lahem has taken on the country's most controversial and sensitive cases and turned them into high-profile indictments of the justice system. He has been thrown in jail several times and banned from traveling abroad. But he continues to fight what he considers an antiquated judiciary, out of step with basic human rights...

Lahem walks a fine line between two often contradictory ideals -- Islamic law and international covenants. He said he was keenly aware that to make any headway, he must use the system, not fight outside it. Although he's a staunch feminist, he said, he chose not to tackle the issue of women's right to self-guardianship, not only because it is illegal here, but also because it is widely accepted...

Asked whether he advocates a separation of religion and state, Lahem does not answer directly. "I believe, first and foremost, in human rights and rule of law," he said. "That should be above all else."

Sharia is "not always" compatible with human rights, he finally said. "Some rulings, like lashes, violate international conventions."

But what makes him such a formidable foe in the courtroom is his own strong background in sharia...

His transformation took an even sharper turn when he enrolled in law school in Riyadh. Unlike his strict religious education, his legal studies required ordered, logical thinking, not learning by rote. Students could also argue and discuss concepts with their professors, something impossible in the rigid hierarchy of sharia school.

"From the first class, I fell in love with the law," Lahem said, extracting a Marlboro from a front pocket and lighting it. "I started learning to depend on my mind, not just on ideas I'd been spoon-fed. It was wonderful. I felt as if I had found something I'd been looking for for years."

The dude is onto something. It's a no-brainer to read the entire article, which provides details on the shocking cases al-Lahem has taken on. As it turns out, many of them are ones readers of this blog will already be familiar with: the teenage woman sentenced to lashing after being gang-raped, the high school teacher sentenced to jail and lashing for discussing Judaism and Christianity, and the couple forcibly divorced by the wife's brothers.

The shocking discovery is that there is one brave lawyer who links all these cases together. Though al-Lahem faces a daunting uphill battle, he's only 35. He appears to be Saudi Arabia's best hope for a Thurgood Marshall who will defend human dignity over entrenched bigotry and legalized repression. Let's hope he can keep his eyes on the prize.

[H/T Katie and Eteraz]

The Impact of Google Earth in Bahrain

When Bahraini authorities blocked local connections to Google Earth a few months ago, it was at first hard to understand what they were so afraid of. But now a Washington Post piece on the reform movement in Bahrain reveals the impact of Google Earth imagery on young Bahrainis:

At a polling station set up at the Jid Hafs Girls' Middle School, Sayed Mahmood, a 24-year-old telecommunications student, waited more than an hour to vote, in lines that snaked over a hundred yards. In a refrain echoed by many young men here, Mahmood said one of the biggest problems in Bahrain was the unequal distribution of land and wealth.

Mahmood, who lives in a house with his parents, four siblings and their children, said he became even more frustrated when he looked up Bahrain on Google Earth and saw vast tracts of empty land, while tens of thousands of mainly poor Shiites were squashed together in small, dense areas.

"We are 17 people crowded in one small house, like many people in the southern district," he said. "And you see on Google how many palaces there are and how the al-Khalifas have the rest of the country to themselves."

Bahraini activists have encouraged people to take a look at the country on Google Earth, and they have set up a special user group whose members have access to more than 40 images of royal palaces.

This was unimaginable only a few years ago...

Coalition Protests Continued Tunisian Crackdown on Free Speech

The Tunisia Monitoring Group, an alliance of 16 free expression organizations, is demanding an end to harassment of journalists and rights activists by the regime of President Ben Ali. The group's latest report has several examples of blatant state-sponsored repression. Here's one:

On 4 November, the CNLT [National Council on Civil Liberties in Tunisia] reported that the routine harassment which they have been facing for the past year had escalated in the past month. From 30 October to 4 November, the office was under siege by plainclothes police who blocked the entrance, and around sixty police officers surrounded the area. They prevented the families of political prisoners from entering, even arresting some of them and forcing them to sign documents promising not to return. According to the CNLT, their mail is regularly intercepted and returned, their Internet connection is cut, and their telephone and fax lines are rerouted to an unknown destination. As with the Tunisian Human Rights League (Ligue tunisienne des droits de l'Homme, LTDH), the CNLT has been prevented from holding its General Assembly since 2004.

Even the simple act of holding a meeting has become impossible... (sigh)

Merry Monday

It's a musical Monday for the Christmas holiday. And what better way to celebrate than to explore the Rai compositions of an Algerian Jew. Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy your holiday with the soundtrack of Oran-native pianist-composer Maurice El-Medioni:

El Medioni absorbed a whole range of musical idioms: Black soldiers taught El Medioni the boogie-woogie, Puerto Ricans the rhumba.         Every new style that came through the club's doors, El Medioni         would blend with his own "orientale" style. To demonstrate... a grinning El Medioni plays a standard rhumba riff, then one re-made with his Arabic touch. When he was 18, three young Arab musicians convinced him to accompany their exuberant, energetic raï music. El Medioni was hooked. He would become famous in Algeria and later in the nightclubs of Paris, as a pianist who played Arabic-influenced jazz.

Now that's some diversity! Follow the link above for sound clips.

Just in Time for Christmas: Qalubia Governor Shuts Down NGO

Ah, Egypt, where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus fled seeking shelter. But the Christmas spirit has apparently not returned, at least not to the Qalubia governor. In fact, the man appears to be a bit of a scrooge this Christmas Eve, as he just attempted to shut down a local NGO for reporting on poor civic conditions. HRInfo reports on today's raid on the Ahalina Center for Egyptian Family Support and Development:

On 24 December 2006, employees from Shubra Al-Khima Municipality accompanied by policemen stormed into Ahalina headquarter and attempted to close and seal it with red wax, upon Qalubia governor's resolution. The governor claimed that Ahalina is "inciting riots"; examples include submitting more than 11 complaints signed by the citizens of slum and deprived areas to the governor's office. In addition, Ahalina issued a press release in response to governor's false statements that the governorate has no slum or lacking-utilities areas.

Ahalina Center was founded early in 2006 with the purpose to provide tangible health, environmental, legal, educational, and other services for children, women, and men in Shubra Al-Khima city which lacks many of the basic utilities. Ahalina work is mainly based on volunteers, donors, and self efforts. However, it seems that such activities of Ahalina disturbed Qalubia governor and security forces to the extent that they decided to close it. That is particularly after the center succeeded to unmask the false statements of the governor.

May the Ghost of Christmas Future visit the governor to enable him to see the grim future that awaits Qalubia if he does not change his ways...

Geocaching in Saudi: Possibility and Peril

It's a new game for the new digital age: geocaching - "the sport where you are the search engine." Grab yourself a GPS and you can join the hunt. Here's the gist:

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

So you track down the cache, you take something from the hidden satchel, you add your own item, and you log it all in the included logbook. And just where are these caches?

A cache located on the side of a rocky cliff accessible only by rock climbing equipment may be hard to find. An underwater cache may only be accessed by scuba. Other caches may require long difficult hiking, orienteering, and special equipment to get to. Caches may be located in cities both above and below ground, inside and outside buildings. The skillful placement of a small logbook in an urban environment may be quite challenging to find even with the accuracy of a gps. That little logbook may have a hundred dollar bill in it or a map to greater treasure.

Amazingly, caches can be found all over the world. Even, for instance, in the sands of Saudi. Even in the Riyadh airport. Or the road from Jeddah to Medinah.

One word of caution, however, when pursuing this last geocache: Don't miss your exit while geocaching or - like the hapless Indian gentleman - you may find yourself on death row. One wrong turn while geocaching outside Medinah and you may become the item buried in the ground.

Photo 4 Friday: South Park in Esfahan

Hey, Ahmadinejad, who killed Kenny?