Dilip Simeon's blog

To German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the UN Secretary-General and all global leaders attending COP27 in Egypt: As citizens from across the world horrified by Egypt's human rights violations, including the unlawful imprisonment of Alaa Abd el-Fattah and thousands of other political prisoners, we call on you to use all your diplomatic and financial means to bring about the immediate and unequivocal release of Alaa, to ensure Egypt releases its political prisoners ahead of the UN Climate Summit COP27 and reopens its civic space in a meaningful way. You have the power to push for human rights in Egypt – we count on you to use it. https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/free_alaa_global_2/?kiQPaab Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a vital voice of the Arab spring, is one of  at least 60,000 people jailed by Egypt’s regime on political grounds . For over 100 days, he has been on hunger strike, surviving on a daily spoon of hon...

Turkey should face charges in front of the international court of justice for being complicit in acts of genocide against the Yazidi people, while Syria and Iraq failed in their duty to prevent the killings, an investigation endorsed by British human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy has said. The groundbreaking report, compiled by a group of prominent human rights lawyers , is seeking to highlight the binding responsibility states have to prevent genocide on their territories, even if they are carried out by a third party such as Islamic State (IS). The lawyers, grouped under the title of the Yazidi Justice Committee (YJC), said there was accountability under international law for states to prevent the crime of genocide under the Genocide Convention. Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, chair of the YJC, described the genocide of the Yazidi people as “madness heaped on evil”. “Mechanisms in place could have saved the Yazidis from what is now part of their past, and part of their past partial d...

Waging Nonviolence  - From the brutal war in Ukraine to the devastating school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, aggression and mass atrocities seem to define today’s world. Yet, even as we navigate this trauma and tragedy, there are glimmers of hope to be found in the lesser-known stories of collective action, as people come together in the face of these terrible events. Now more than ever, the world can learn how to challenge violence from those who are organizing for peace. There is perhaps no better example than the mobilization to end the war in Yemen — a country with a rich history and vibrant culture, but one most Americans would struggle to find on a map. For years, a small, close-knit network of organizers led primarily by Yemeni-American women has been driving a major mobilization for peace. Working on shoestring budgets and without much fanfare, they organize rallies, meet with policymakers and lead community events. Many balance their activism with full-time jobs or schoo...

Even as the pace of modernization in the Arab world shows some signs of acceleration, we all must recognize that deep-rooted cultural norms around women’s roles and rights are slow to evolve. Guess who is going to change that? The women of Generation Z. I was an Arab Muslim girl in an American school in Bahrain from elementary through high school. I grew up between two cultures. Of course, my Arab Muslim side dominated, but I was struck by the beauty, independence and inspiration from my American experience. I wove those threads of independence into my own professional life, taking on roles as a CEO, activist, and an advocate for change. In researching my book, Hear Us Speak: Letter from Arab Women, I met with Gen Z Arab women in their late teens and early 20s. They’ve grown up exposed to the outside world through social media, and they’re emboldened! These women are determined to live life on their own terms and they believe that, in the foreseeable future, Arab women will be treate...

The Kurdish people have sacrificed 13,000 lives in the fight against ISIS. Progressives should support their effort to build a secure base for direct democracy, feminism, and pluralism.    In the night of Thursday, January 20, ISIS mounted a  fierce attack  to free its prisoners, several thousand of whom were being held in Sina’a prison in Hasaka, a city in the autonomous, majority-Kurdish area of Syria often called Rojava. As a car bomb ripped into the prison gates, fighters from ISIS sleeper cells attacked with gunfire and a coordinated riot began inside the jail.  In the battle that followed, prisoners took human shields and ISIS snipers occupied nearby buildings while the Rojava militia—the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF)—brought in as many as 10,000 soldiers, with air and ground support from the United States. After prematurely declaring the battle over on Wednesday, the SDF discovered 90 more ISIS fighters hidden in a basement, while sniper and suicide attacks...

The escalation of tensions between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) prompted humanitarian organisations on the ground to sound the alarm, as the United Nations forecasts January will “almost certainly” be a record-shattering month for civilian casualties in the country. Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) warned the  recent air raids  launched by the Saudi-led coalition following  drone and missile attacks  on the Emirati capital mark a dramatic escalation in violence… https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/27/yemeni-civilians-bear-the-brunt-of-houthi-uae-escalating-conflict?utm_source=pocket_mylist Posts about  Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia ’s role as a counter-revolutionary force in the Middle East is widely understood and thoroughly documented. Historian Rosie Bsheer calls the Saudi kingdom “a counter-revolutionary state par excellence,” indeed one that was “consolidated as such.” The Saudi monarchy has gone into counter-revolutionary overdrive since the onset of the Arab uprisings, scrambling to thwart popular movements and keep the region’s dictators in power — from Egypt and Bahrain to Yemen and Sudan (and beyond). Iran Human Rights Documentation Center What is less understood is the counter-revolutionary role that Iran plays in the region’s politics. This is poorly understood and under-examined because it flies in the face of the dominant narrative, that of Iran as a “revolutionary” state in the vanguard of a regional “Axis of Resistance” to US imperialism and its allies… https://newpol.org/the-other-regional-counter-revolution-irans-role-in-the-shifting-political-landscape-of-the-middle-east/#_ednref...

In April 20, the State Department  renewed multimillion-dollar bounties  on three senior leaders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK): Cemil Bayık, Duran Kalkan, and Murat Karayılan. Bayık and Karayılan are founding members of the PKK and Kalkan is a senior commander.  The Kurdish freedom movement sees these men as  instrumental in the defeat of ISIS , but to some this is no recommendation. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would rather hit the Kurds than the Islamic State.  In renewing the bounties, the State Department has given him tacit permission to attack Kurdish democratic movements in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, since according to Erdogan they are all really PKK.  The bounty renewals are part of a long history of the United States bribing or rewarding Turkey by facilitating its attacks on Kurds. The bounties were originally part of an apparent deal in 2018 to get Pastor Andrew Brunson, a  Christian evangelical preacher , released from a Turk...

Middle East Monitor  – Violence has become a permanent feature of Ramadan for the people of occupied Palestine. The first day of the fasting month this year began with the Israeli army breaking locks and cutting the wires to the loudspeakers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to silence the evening calls to prayer. In yet another provocative move, Israel allowed only 10,000 Palestinians to enter Jerusalem from the West Bank. On the first Friday in the month, only 70,000 Muslims were able to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque; on one Friday in 2019, there were  200,000  worshippers in the Noble Sanctuary. That was not unusual. Adding fuel to the fire, Israeli soldiers imposed further restrictions by erecting metal barriers to seal off the Damascus Gate into the Old City of Jerusalem. It is one of the main routes through the occupied city to the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa. A peaceful protest was arranged; unsurprisingly, the Israeli army responded — without warning, said eyewitnesses — b...

British officials authorised the export of almost £1.4bn of weapons to  Saudi Arabia  in the quarter after the UK resumed sales of weapons that could be used in the war in Yemen. Campaigners accused ministers of “putting profit before Yemeni lives” and said the figures highlighted the discrepancy between the UK and the US, which under President Joe Biden  halted similar arms sales  to Riyadh last week. Britain had resumed unrestricted arms sales early in July, after concluding there were only “isolated incidents” of civilian casualties from bombing raids conducted by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels. Official figures released on Tuesday showed that in the period following the restart – the quarter between July and September – the UK authorised £1.39bn worth of arms exports, of which £1.36bn were in the category that includes missiles and bombs. Campaign Against Arms Trade said the deluge of exports demonstrated how far UK arms sales to Riyadh were d...

The Biden administration on Friday declassified and released a  CIA assessment  that Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman bears responsibility for the murder of  Washington Post  columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 3, 2018.  President Biden will not, however, impose sanctions on Bin Salman. Apparently the only punishment will be that Biden won’t talk to the crown prince, only to his father, King Salman. CBC: “U.S. intelligence report blames Saudi crown prince for murder of Jamal Khashoggi” But in fact, secretary of defense Lloyd Austin just spoke with Bin Salman earlier this week, because the latter holds the portfolio of minister of defense, and so is the proper counterpart for military relations.  On Feb. 19, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of the Central Command that covers the Middle East, said that the US was seeking more “back up bases” in Saudi Arabia in case of hostilities with Iran… https://www.juancole.com...

NB : The fact that this activist has been forbidden to talk about her experience in jail, where she was molested and beaten shows that the Saudi Arabia is one of the most viciously misogynistic regimes in the world. We should never forget the brutal murder of the journalist Jamal  Khashoggi .  DS The prominent Saudi dissident and women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul has been released from prison after 1,001 days in custody. Following a concerted campaign by her relatives and global rights groups, Hathloul was granted probation by a judge in Riyadh and released to her family on Wednesday afternoon. Her sister Lina  published a photo of a smiling Loujain on Twitter  early evening Riyadh time – the first image of the most celebrated political prisoner in the Kingdom since she was detained almost three years ago. “Loujain is at home !!!!!!”, the accompanying message said. Saudi Arabia: Can America’s Favorite Police State ever Change? It is understood that the t...

Parvin Mohammadi needs support from labor activists and feminist activists around the world. During all these years of struggle, she has never separated the labor struggle from women’s struggles for their rights.  On December 21, 2020, the Iranian government sentenced Parvin Mohammadi, in absentia, to a year in prison on charges of “sedition.” She has refused to go to prison, continues to challenge the authorities, and has now gone into hiding. Parvin Mohammadi was born in 1961 in a working class family. After graduating from high school, she was not able to attend university because she needed to work to support her family. This was the period shortly after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. She was hired as a worker by the Melli Shoe Company which had been expropriated by the Islamic Republic’s Mostazefan Foundation (a parastatal entity). In the Winter of 1981, when workers at the Melli Shoe Company went on strike, she became a strike leader. After some workers were arrested and othe...

Prosecutors in Italy have charged four members of Egypt’s national security agency over the kidnapping and murder   of the Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni in Cairo. Tariq Saber, Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, Capt Uhsam Helmi and Maj Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif are accused of kidnapping the young student in 2016, and Sharif is also accused of grievous bodily harm and murder.  Photo- Amnesty International The prosecutors said charges had been dropped against a fifth security official, Mahmoud Najem, who was previously named as a suspect in Regeni’s disappearance. Not just Giulio Regeni': hundreds have died in Egyptian custody, says report Regeni’s body was found on the side of a highway on the outskirts of Cairo in February 2016, bearing signs of torture believed to be the work of Egypt’s security forces. For years Egyptian officials have stonewalled Italy’s efforts to investigate, dragging their feet when asked to provide evidence to the Italian prosecutors and claimi...

Likely, the operation, whether by Israel or Saudi Arabia or both, was intended to spike tensions in US-Iranian relations so as to make it more difficult for Joe Biden to start back up the 2015 nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Israel does not acknowledge its covert operations, but it seems the most likely culprit…. The Iranian newspaper Ettela’at reports that on Friday, what it called “armed terrorist elements” mounted an assault on the automobile carrying Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was badly wounded in the midst of the clash between his security team and the assailants and was transported to hospital, where he died of his injuries. Fakhrizadeh, an eminent nuclear scientist, was the head of the Research and Innovation Organization within the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.  Iran’s chief justice, Ayatollah Sayyed Ibrahim Ra’isi, characterized the attack as by “foreigners and international Zionism,” with, he said, “the sinister objec...

A groundbreaking Arabic satirical news site that skewers the Middle East’s politicians and pieties – dodging the ire of hostile governments and their online supporters – has launched an English language edition. Al-Hudood (the Limits), with deadpan headlines reminiscent of the US publication the Onion, has rankled authorities in the Arab world since  launching  in 2013.  It gives new audiences a taste of groundbreaking humour that ranges from dry ( Students at local school memorise lesson in independent thinking ) to dark ( Intelligence service corrects beliefs of man who thought he only feared God )  to pitch-black ( Syrian dies of natural causes ). “People have gone numb to all the horrors that are around us, and we are trying to get them to look at things from a new angle,” said Isam Uraiqat, the website’s London-based editor-in-chief…. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/20/onion-style-arabic-satirical-news-website-launches-english-edition-al-hudood God re...