...Or Does It Explode?

Tunisian Border Guards Beat Human Rights Observers

So reports the Tunisia Monitoring Group:

...The two activists arrived from Europe in the port of La Goulette. Upon arrival, they were held by customs for six hours, during which time Bensedrine was violently attacked, leaving bruises on her body. The customs agents confiscated cell phones, documents and computer hard discs from both Bensedrine and Mestiri - copying files and passwords from their laptops.

This assault follows a recent attack on Samia Abbou and Fatma Ksila, two women activists who were assaulted by police in Sousse on 18 February.

"I find it hard to believe that just days before International Women's Day, the government of Tunisia would sanction such a vicious attack on a woman." says IFEX-TMG Chair Rohan Jayasekera, of Index on Censorship.

Syrian Civil Rights Detainees Allege Torture

It's not shocking news, but it should be:

The Syrian government has arbitrarily detained at least 12 activists who attended a meeting of opposition groups in December, Human Rights Watch said Feb 5th, and spoke of credible allegations that State Security officials beat at least eight of the activists during interrogation.

The 12, including former member of parliament Riad Seif, have been detained as part of a government crackdown against individuals who attended a December 1 meeting of the National Council of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change (NCDD), an umbrella group of opposition and pro-democracy groups.

On January 28, the third investigative judge in Damascus, Muhammad Subhi al-Sa'ur, referred 11 of the detainees to prosecutors on politically motivated charges of "weakening national sentiment," "spreading false or exaggerated news which would affect the morale of the country," "membership in an organization formed with the purpose of changing the structure of the state," "inciting sectarian strife," and "joining a secret association."

...Eight of the 11 told the investigative judge that State Security officials beat them during their interrogation and forced them to sign confessions that they planned to take money from foreign countries in order to divide the country by giving the Kurds a separate state. The detainees' lawyers told Human Rights Watch that the activists told the investigative judge in their judicial questioning how they were punched in the face, kicked, and slapped by State Security officials.

One detainee, 'Ali al-Abdallah, was transferred on January 28 to a medical examiner to check his complaint that interrogators had injured his ear. The doctor declined to issue a report, saying that he was not a specialist in ear injuries. No investigation was reportedly opened in the allegations of ill-treatment. The detainees' lawyers told Human Rights Watch that the investigative judge did not respond to their request to receive a copy of the interrogation that he conducted with the detainees...

BACKGROUND: The government crackdown began on December 9 when State Security, one of Syria's multiple security agencies, began arresting some of the 163 activists that attended the National Council of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change (NCDD). A total of 40 NCDD members have been arrested and 12 remain in detention. The 12 who remain in detention are:

1. Walid al-Bunni, 44, physician 2. Yasser al-'Eiti, 40, physician and poet 3. Feda' al-Hurani, 51, physician 4. Akram al-Bunni, 51, writer 5. Ahmad To'meh, 51, dentist 6. Jabr al-Shufi, 60, Arabic-literature teacher 7. 'Ali al-'Abdullah, 58, writer 8. Fayez Sarah, 58, writer and journalist 9. Muhammad Hajj Darwish, 48, businessman 10. Marwan al-'Ush, 52, engineer 11. Riad Seif, 61,former member of parliament 12. Talal Abu Dan, 55, artist and sculptor

Take note of the Orwellian description of the activists' alleged offenses, as well as the fear of Kurdish separatism.

Qaddafi Sued for Torture

Think the UN will take up the case?

Ashraf Alhajouj and five Bulgarian nurses were sentenced to death in Libya on charges of starting an HIV epidemic. After eight years in jail, the six were freed in July last year under a cooperation deal between Libya and the European Union.

The medics have always maintained their innocence and said they confessed under torture.

Alhajouj's Dutch lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld said the complaint was filed with the U.N. Human Rights Committee on Monday. "It is over violation of the right not to be tortured, violation of the right to a fair trial ... eight-year delay of the procedure, illegal death penalty, illegal detention," she told Reuters by telephone from the Netherlands.

Last month, Alhajouj also filed a lawsuit in France against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, accusing him of torture.

Zegveld said her client was seeking international recognition that he was innocent... "The U.N. committee will decide whether Libya has violated the international human rights treaty ... It works like an international court but in a more loose manner in a sense that it's not a binding decision," the lawyer said...

Zegveld has said Alhajouj delayed filing the complaint against Libya under political pressure from European politicians who tried to convince him not to press charges to avoid harming the EU's improving ties with Tripoli.

Beaten By Moroccan Police in El-Ayoun

Full story here.

Kareem Tortured in Jail?

Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer, currently in jail for four years over writing on his blog, has been tortured in jail, his lawyers report. It's now been over a year since Kareem's jailing, so the report is hardly a surprise. What will the next three years bring?

Video of Security Forces Beating & Arresting Young Man in Iran

Context is not entirely clear, as the video only picks up mid-arrest, but the brutality is not ambiguous:

Iranian Human Rights Head Justifies Stonings

Pathetic:

"The secretary general of Iran’s Human Rights Committee, Dr. Mohammad Javad Larijani declared: The West has had an extensive Propaganda campaign against Iran on Human rights issues; most of which are caused by political incentives.

On the writ of stoning, Dr. Larijani added: "Stoning is neither torture nor an incongruous punishment...

"If we had execution as a punishment for adultery instead of stoning, they would again complain that the crime and the punishment are not in proportion with each other-but as you know in Islamic rules, stoning is in lower level than execution because in stoning the defendant has a chance to survive. Besides, we think that the discrimination of insolence of adultery is not on Westerners but on the social norms within our country."

We are tempted to imagine Dr. Larijani (apparently not the recently resigned nuclear negotiator) as the biblical priest from the comedy Life of Brian overseeing a stoning - only to get stoned himself as he indignantly attempts to control the public ritual. Of course, that film is set 2,000 years ago, while Dr. Larijani is issuing declarations in 2007.

Chop-Chop Square in Riyadh

Where the public beheadings go down...

Remember the Victims of the Abusalim Massacre

Voice from a Sudanese "Ghost House"

If the Sudanese detention and torture chambers are known as "ghost houses," then it is because their occupants see their humanity disappear as they become living ghosts. Here's an account by one Sudanese activist who survived several visits to these haunted houses:

In 1991, Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a professor of engineering at the University of Khartoum, was arrested by security agents and detained for seven months in what the Sudanese called "the ghost house." In 1997, he was detained again for five months. From 2003 to 2004, he was imprisoned for eight months, and again for five months in 2005. The reason? "The regime knew my views were against fundamentalism."

Mr. Mudawi speaks matter-of-factly about his experiences in the dungeons of Islamist dictator Omar Bashir. "You are taken in blindfolded," he says. "You go into a cell. Sometimes it's very dark. There's nothing in it except the floor. Sometimes you are placed in a small, crowded room; sometimes in a large, empty one. It all depends on the situation they want to put you in. They keep you up all night and cuff you to the door, forcing you to stand. Beating is the normal thing."

...In April 2005, the CIA received Sudanese intelligence chief Salah Abdullah in Washington. At the time, Mr. Mudawi was being prosecuted on espionage charges, which carry the death penalty. The case was suspended thanks to an international outcry, but the charges stand.

"If you are saying you are for democracy, well then, OK," he says. "This is the most brutal person in this government and you are rewarding him for helping you on terrorism. But you are doing it at the expense of the people of Sudan."

...Mr. Mudawi's answer is an international embargo on Sudan's oil exports--the government's main source of income--enforced by the credible threat of an international boycott of next year's Olympics in Beijing if China (the principal producer and customer of that oil) persists in doing Khartoum's bidding at the U.N. Security Council. His goal isn't to moderate the behavior of the regime, but to replace it with a secular, democratic, federal state, something he believes is doable. "[The fundamentalists] don't have the support of even 10% of the people," he says. "The first free election would be the downfall of them."

Is this simply the dream of a ghost?