MONDAY, MAY 7, 2012
I N T E R N AT I O N A L
Top Iraqi politician alleges political vendetta ISTANBUL: Iraq’s vice president described a terror trial pending against him in Baghdad as part of a political vendetta that has wider repercussions for Iraqi unity and sectarian tensions across the Middle East. The trial in absentia of Tariq alHashemi, a Sunni Muslim, was postponed Thursday as his lawyers appealed to have parliament create a special court to hear the case that could deepen Iraq’s sectarian divide. Al-Hashemi has denied charges that he ran death squads that targeted government officials, security forces and Shiite pilgrims. Al-Hashemi also alleged that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, may have engineered the trial to snuff out domestic opposition in case he is threatened by a revolt in Iraq similar to that in neighboring Syria. “It could be a pre-emptive attack” stemming from concern about the
upheaval in Syria, al-Hashemi said in an interview with The Associated Press in Istanbul. “Al-Maliki apparently is very much sensitive to what’s going on in Syria. So from the sectarian angle, he tried to immunize himself in the future in addressing one of the principal political rivals,” he said, referring to his role as a frequent critic of al-Maliki. A media adviser for al-Maliki disputed claims that the vice president was being targeted for political reasons and said the government does not interfere in the judicial system. “We do understand that al-Hashemi might say anything to protect himself,” spokesman Ali al-Moussawi said. “The fugitive vice president should go to court and defend himself instead of launching accusations and allegations.” Al-Hashemi denies allegations he is a lawbreaker, opening a news conference in Istanbul with a declara-
tion that he is not a fugitive. His representatives maintain he left Iraq for diplomatic meetings with regional leaders, not to escape arrest. The case against al-Hashemi highlights rifts that haunt Iraq after decades of dictatorship, war and civil conflict, and the departure of American troops. It also follows regional revolts that have toppled or undermined authoritarian leaders in the Middle East. Most in the Syrian opposition, for example, come from the country’s Sunni majority, while President Bashar Assad’s regime relies on the minority Alawites, an offshoot from Shiism. Sunni Arab leaders in the Gulf see the Shiite-led government in Iraq as too soft on Syria, where the United Nations estimates at least 9,000 people, many of them civilians, have died in a government crackdown on dissent. Additionally, regional powers
Iran, led by a Shiite theocracy, and Turkey, which is mostly Sunni but espouses unity across sectarian lines, have supported opposing factions in Iraq. Al-Hashemi, who fled to Iraq’s self-ruled northern Kurdish region in December to avoid arrest, warned of regional spillover if Iraq’s factions cannot unite and address the mismanagement that he blamed on al-Maliki. “Iraq is the core of the geopolitical scene in the area. Whatever happens in Iraq is going to affect the neighboring countries,” he said. “We could end up in some sort of sectarian polarization in the Middle East.” Iraq’s political crisis pits the mostly Shiite leadership against Sunnis and Kurds who accuse it of consolidating power even as public services deteriorate and security remains vulnerable. Last week, Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish autonomous region, threatened to let Kurds vote to secede
from Iraq if the government crisis has not been resolved by regional elections in September. In the AP interview, al-Hashemi said he understood the frustration that led Barzani to talk about partition but said the possibility was “not on the table” in Kurdish circles, at least for now. “I sit down from time to time with Kurdish leaders and we talk freely and openly about the subject,” al-Hashemi said. “All politicians are very much interested in reaching a political solution rather than jumping into an Iraqi partition.” On his own dilemma, the vice president held out hope of a settlement. “I am ready, in fact, to show up in any court provided that I do receive a fair trial, according to the constitution, according to the international justice standard,” he said. Then he added: “The whole case is politically motivated, so it is waiting for a political solution, not a legal solution.” — AP
Bahrain arrests rights activist Nabeel Rajab Ministry says accused of crimes punishable by law
TEHRAN: In this May 20, 2010 file photo, American hikers Shane Bauer, left, Sarah Shourd, center, and Josh Fattal, sit at the Esteghlal Hotel in Tehran, Iran. Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd detained and accused of spying after hiking near the Iraq-Iran border three years ago will marry in the San Francisco Bay area.— AP
Two American hikers jailed in Iran to wed SAN FRANCISCO: Two of the three American hikers jailed in Iran after allegedly straying over the Iraq-Iran border in 2009 were to be married on Saturday in a private ceremony in California, according to a statement posted on their Facebook page. The wedding of Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd completes an engagement that began when Bauer tied a ring of thread around her finger while they were in prison in 2010. “Now that this day has come, all I can do is close my eyes and fill with gratitude, for our freedom, for the love of so many generous people around the world, and for the very soil under my feet,” Shourd said in the statement posted on the Free the Hikers Facebook page. The third hiker, Josh Fattal, was to be the best man, the statement said. The statement did not say exactly where in California the wedding was to take place, only that it was a setting “chosen for its pastoral beauty.” “Becoming engaged to Sarah while we were in captivity allowed me to dream of a future that was not only
secure, but also beautiful,” Bauer said in the statement. Bauer, Shourd and Fattal were arrested on July 2009 by Iranian border guards, who allege that the three crossed over into Iran from the Iraqi Kurdistan region. Shourd was released 14 months later on humanitarian grounds but Bauer and Fattal were convicted of illegal entry and espionage. The men spent the first three months of their detention in solitary confinement before they were put in an 8 foot by 13 foot (2.5 meter by 4 meter) cell together. They spent their time reading and testing each other on various topics and were allowed a short time in an outside room to exercise daily. During 781 days in jail, they had 15 minutes of phone calls with their families and one short visit from their mothers, Fattal said. They staged repeated hunger strikes over demands they be given letters sent by their families, he said. Fattal and Bauer were freed last September after Oman paid bail of $1 million. Shourd was released on $500,000 bail a year earlier. — Reuters
Algeria campaign wraps up amid voter indifference ALGIERS: Algeria’s parties prepared their final rallies ahead of the May 10 legislative polls yesterday, after the Arab Spring sweeping the region failed to bring new faces to the campaign and spark the electorate. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s camp defended a package of cautious reforms initiated to contain revolutionary contagion, while the main Islamist alliance hoped to benefit from their counterparts’ gains in the region. As the three-week campaign wrapped up, the North African country’s 21.6 million voters seemed underwhelmed by the choice of 44 parties. Except for billboards plastered with ripped campaign posters, there were few signs in the streets of Algiers of the imminence of a vote Bouteflika has billed as “the dawn of a new era”. The country ’s top-selling daily Echorouk carried a front-page picture of a deserted street corner littered with campaign leaflets and this headline: “Everyone was there... except the citizens.” Algeria’s leading French-language newspaper El Watan splashed a huge picture and headline on its front page... on the French election, relegating the Algerian polls to page 5. In the daily Liberte, Algeria’s top cartoonist Dilem depicted one man asking another as they walked past the campaign posters for the May 10 vote: “So, who do you support, Sarko or Hollande?” Turnout in the 2007 parliamentary polls slumped to a record low of 35 percent, according to official figures, and there was no sign Algerians would show more interest this year. The secretary general of Bouteflika’s National Liberation Front, Abdelaziz Belkhadem, told AFP this week he would be satisfied if 45 percent of voters cast a ballot, but some observers say official fig-
ures may conceal a projected turnout of less than 20 percent. The regime has tried to assuage fears of fraud by inviting some 500 foreign election observers-including from the EU-but Algeria is Africa’s largest country, four times the size of France, and few voters seem convinced. A European diplomat told AFP yesterday that the observation mission was still awaiting a copy of the voters’ roll, despite repeated requests. The National Liberation Front, formerly the lone party, is under unprecedented strain, with rebels seeking to oust Belkhadem and sights firmly on the 2014 presidential election, after which Bouteflika, now 75, is widely expected to step down. “I don’t think any party can approach a majority alone.... The seats will be scattered between the parties,” Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said last month. The national assembly is being extended from 389 to 462 seats. The FLN, which has 136 seats in the outgoing assembly, currently sits in a coalition with the National Rally for Democracy of Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia and the Movement of Society for Peace, the country’s main legal Islamist party. Speaking at a rally on Saturday, Ouyahia said Algeria’s stability needed to be preserved and criticised voices calling for an Arab Spring-style revolt. “It isn’t an Arab Spring which is sweeping the region but a plague, and there is confirmation of this every day,” he said, citing “the colonisation of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, the partition of Sudan and the weakening of Egypt.” The MSP and two allied parties hope they can cash in on the so-called “Green wave” that swept Islamists to the helm in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring revolts.—AFP
DUBAI: Bahrain has arrested a prominent human rights activist and critic of the country’s ruling family, the Interior Ministry and an activist said yesterday, as the authorities escalated a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. Bahrain, which is ruled by a Sunni Muslim monarchy and hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet, has been in turmoil since activists mainly from the majority Shi’ite community began protests in February 2011 after successful revolts in Egypt and Tunisia. Police arrested Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), on return from Beirut on Saturday evening, Sayed Yousif Almuhafda said by telephone from Manama. Prosecutors then questioned him extensively about his tweets on Twitter though he was taken to court on Sunday morning on previous charges of organising protest inside Manama in March, a member of the BCHR told Reuters. “The police arrested him near the plane’s door. They said they had an arrest warrant from the public prosecutions office... At the prosecutor’s office, it was all about tweets,” he said. It was not clear if the questioning about messages on Twitter would lead to new charges. Rajab shot to prominence last year when he became a trenchant campaigner against the crackdown. With 140,000 followers on Twitter he is one of the most well-known online activists in the Arab world. Several hundred gathered outside Rajab’s home in Bani Jamra west of Manama on Sunday evening, chanting “down with (king) Hamad” and slogans demanding his release. Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior said Rajab’s had been arrested “for committing a number of crimes punishable by law” but gave no more details. Authorities are also holding protest leader Zainab al-Khawaja after she tried to protest alone on a major highway. Prosecutors say she insulted women police officers. She became a symbol for protesters after she was dragged from a traffic roundabout in December by women riot police. Both Rajab and Khawaja, daughter of jailed uprising leader Abdulhadi al-Khawaja who is on a hunger strike, have been detained briefly on several occasions in the past year but this is the first time they were held with intent to press charges. Justin Gengler, a Qatar-based researcher on Bahrain, said arresting Rajab would please Sunni hardliners who have goaded the gov-
ernment for not crushing the protests they views as a Shi’ite attempt to destabilise the country. “After mobilising Sunnis, the state can only appease them by caving in to their demands for a harsher response to protesters and activists,” he said. The International Federation for Human Rights, in which Rajab is deputy secretary general, condemned the arrest. “The federation demands the immediate and unconditional release of Rajab and other rights defenders, while it appears that these judicial harassments aim to place blocks against human rights activities,” the Paris-based group said. Rajab and Khawaja have been a thorn in the government’s side, organising peaceful protests inside Manama without licences - in contrast to the leading opposition party Wefaq which obtains Interior Ministry approval. The marches in Manama have sometimes ended violently when police fire tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the protesters and youths throw back petrol bombs. Their acts of civil disobedience have made them heroes to many Bahraini opposition activists. Western activists, who were eventually deported, joined Rajab for protests in February that marked one year since the protest movement began. Tension has risen again since April when Bahrain’s Formula One Grand Prix became a lightning rod for protesters and visiting journalists turned their attention to an uprising that has not gone away. Analysts predicted that hardliners within the ruling family would show their teeth after the Grand Prix, when Bahrain stopped some journalists entering and deported a team from Britain’s Channel Four for entering on tourist visas. A statement on the state news agency warned clerics against incitement to violence, sectarianism, insulting the judiciary and constitutional institutions and harming the economy - comments apparently directed against leading Shi’ite clerics such as Sheikh Isa Qassim who led a mass protest in March. “The cabinet instructed ministries to take legal measures if these violations continue, affirming its total rejection of any bargaining over the nation’s security and unity,” BNA said. King Hamad enacted constitutional reforms last week that would boost the elected parliament’s powers of scrutiny over ministers and budgets. But the government has not budged on the key demand for a single chamber of parliament with full powers to legislate and form governments. — Reuters
Egypt MPs, military discuss govt crisis CAIRO: A delegation of MPs yesterday met Egypt’s military rulers in an attempt to resolve a government crisis that has seen parliamentary sessions suspended for more than a week, officials from both sides said. The meeting comes after tensions flared ahead of a key presidential election slated for later this month. Around a dozen parliamentarians including speaker Saad al-Katatni met Sami Anan, deputy chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that has ruled the country since the February 2011 fall of president Hosni Mubarak. They were to discuss ways of drawing a line under the crisis over the composition of a panel to draw up a new constitution and over anti-military clashes at the defence ministry that saw two people killed and hundreds hurt. No details were immediately available on outcome of the talks. The Abbassiya district of the capital where the defence ministry is located was calm yesterday after the second overnight curfew in a row and after the military on Saturday ordered 300 people detained after Friday’s clashes. Last Sunday, the Islamist-dominated parliament decided to suspend sessions for a week in protest at the military refusing to sack the government and name the powerful Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) to head a new one. A marathon parliamentary election which ended in January saw Egypt’s two main Islamist parties catapulted to the centre stage of politics, clinching nearly three quarters of the 498 seats in the legislature. The Brotherhood said on its website last Sunday the military had indicated there would be a cabinet reshuffle before the presidential election, but so far this has not happened and parliamentary meetings have resumed. Also on the agenda for the meeting between the members of parliament and the SCAF was the make-up of the panel charged with drafting a new constitution before the end of a transition period on June 30. The judiciary suspended the original panel formed by parliament and comprised of mostly Islamists.—Agencies
Netanyahu calls for early polls TEL AVIV: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday called for early elections, suggesting he would seek a September vote instead of waiting until the scheduled October 2013 date. “I don’t want there to be a year-anda-half of political instability accompanied by blackmail and populism. I’d prefer a short electoral campaign of four months that will ensure political stability,” he told a
meeting of his Likud party in Tel Aviv. The address, which included a laundry list of his achievements in three years of government, failed to give a definitive date for the vote, which he is expected to comfortably win. Israeli officials, including his coalition chairman Zeev Elkin, had earlier said there was consensus among most of the government on a September 4 date. Speaking to AFP after Netanyahu’s
TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech during a meeting of his Likud party in Tel Aviv yesterday. Netanyahu called for early elections, suggesting he would seek a September vote instead of waiting until the scheduled October 2013 date. —AFP
address, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz declined to say whether that date still stands. “The elections will apparently be in September. The Likud will win and the prime minister will form the next government,” he said. Netanyahu’s address nonetheless ended months of speculation about whether he would seek to bring forward the elections in a bid to bolster his position and capitalise on his popularity. Observers have long suggested he would seek to shore up his standing ahead of painful budget cuts expected later this year and the US presidential election in November. His decision also comes amid a fight within his coalition over a contentious law allowing ultra-Orthodox Jews to defer their military service. Netanyahu has pledged to replace the law, which expires this year, but is caught between the staunchly secular Yisrael Beitenu, which opposes the rule, and the ultra-Orthodox factions in his coalition. But polls show that he could hardly have picked a better time to seek re -election, with sur veys showing he easily outstrips his rivals for the office of prime minister. A poll published in the Haaretz daily on Thursday showed Netanyahu commands more support than his next three rivals put
together, with 48 percent of Israelis backing his re-election. His Likud party also looks set to increase its standing in the 120-seat Knesset and have its choice of parties with which to form a coalition. Polls, including a survey published by the Maariv daily on Friday, consistently show Likud netting around 31 seats, up from its current 27. The Maariv poll showed the Labour party taking 18 seats, up from the 13 it won in the last elections, with Yisrael Beitenu seeing its 15 seats fall to 12. The Kadima party, which won the most seats in the last election but failed to form a coalition, looks set for a crushing defeat, with its 28 seats reduced to just 11. The newly formed centrist Yesh Atid (There is a Future) is also expected to win around 11 seats. Aviad Natovitz, a Likud member from Petach Tikva near Tel Aviv, expressed the party’s prevailing confidence as he waited for Netanyahu’s speech. “Elections now or in six months or a year would give more or less the same result,” he said. “The Likud will form the next government because there is no alternative on the left.” The biggest uncertainty surrounding the vote is the shape of Netanyahu’s eventual coalition, with the premier pledging Sunday to form a broad government. —AFP