Political Violence Grips Egypt From All Sides

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Since the two-year anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, Egypt has seen numerous clashes between anti-government demonstrators and security forces.Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

Adam Morrow, Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Feb 17 (IPS) – Since the second anniversary of the uprising that ended the Mubarak regime, Egypt has witnessed a spate of political violence. Egypt’s opposition led by the high-profile National Salvation Front (NSF) blames President Mohamed Morsi for the bloodshed, but many blame the NSF and its leaders."The NSF’s slowness in condemning recent violence has made it appear to the public as if it were condoning – even inciting – acts of violence and sabotage," Amr Hashim Rabie, senior analyst at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS.

Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition, he added, "may pay the price for this perception in upcoming parliamentary elections."

The second anniversary of Egypt’s Jan. 25 Revolution and its aftermath have been accompanied by outbreaks of violence across the country. NSF-led rallies and marches have led to numerous clashes between anti-government protesters and police that have so far left more than 50 dead, including security personnel.

Monday Feb. 11, the second anniversary of Mubarak’s ouster, saw renewed skirmishes between aggressive protesters and police outside the presidential palace in Cairo. In what has become a new means of expressing political dissent, anti-government protesters also cut Cairo’s metro line and blocked the capital’s busy 6 October Bridge.

In recent months, the NSF – a loose coalition of opposition parties and groups headed by Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabbahi (both of whom lost to Morsi in presidential polls last summer) and Mohamed ElBaradei – has taken the lead in articulating the demands of Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition. These demands include amendment of Egypt’s new constitution, the appointment of a new government, and the dismissal of a Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general.

Opposition spokesmen have been quick to blame President Morsi for the recent bloodshed, along with the Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails. But according to Rabie, most of the public – weary after months of political turmoil – holds the NSF-led opposition directly responsible for much of the ongoing violence and mayhem.

"Recent opinion polls show that most Egyptians blame the NSF for sowing chaos and inciting bloodshed, damaging property both public and private, and hurting the economy by damaging Egypt’s already-reeling tourism industry," he said.

Rabie attributed this perception to failures by the NSF to speedily condemn recent acts of violence and sabotage. "The NSF has been woefully slow in distancing itself from violent acts because it hasn’t wanted to alienate the non-peaceful activists who answered its calls for anti-government rallies."

Conversations with several average Egyptians appeared to support Rabie’s assertions.

"I had been planning to vote against the Brotherhood in upcoming parliamentary polls, but given the opposition’s recent aggressive behaviour, I’m going to give my vote to the Brotherhood candidate," said Karim, a 39-year-old Cairo physician who preferred not to give his last name.

Ahmed Kamel, spokesman for Amr Moussa (head of the liberal Conference Party and leading NSF member), rejected the notion that the public blamed the NSF for bloodshed.

Describing recent opinion polls to this effect as "unscientific," Kamel told IPS: "The NSF did not call for or incite any of the recent violence, at the presidential palace or elsewhere. The NSF simply voices the people’s demands."

But if the NSF wants to speak for people, "it should focus on electoral campaigning with a view to winning a majority in parliament," said Azab Mustafa, prominent member of both the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). "Until then, it can’t claim to speak on behalf of ‘the people’."

Mustafa added: "The NSF should be trying to win over voters instead of calling for endless, potentially-violent demonstrations, which only serve to hurt the economy and give western critics a chance to say Egypt ‘isn’t ready for democracy’."

Kamel, for his part, responded by saying that the NSF was "more than ready" to contest elections as long as the polling was subject to "complete judicial and international oversight" and the Brotherhood "reveals all the sources of its campaign funding."

Recent political violence has also featured attacks on Brotherhood/FJP offices and on those of Brotherhood-affiliated government officials, garnering for the group and its party a measure of public sympathy. NSF-led rallies and marches, meanwhile, have frequently targeted the presidential palace, which during one recent demonstration was struck with a petrol bomb.

"Protesters have the right to demonstrate peacefully in public areas," said the Brotherhood’s Mustafa. "But most of the recent NSF-led marches in Cairo have specifically targeted the presidential palace, which Egyptian security forces are duty-bound to protect, and all these have inevitably ended in violence."

According to Rabie, the months-long conflict between the NSF-led opposition and the presidency has seen three major battles for public opinion.

The first over Morsi’s controversial November decree overriding the judiciary, and the second over December’s contentious constitutional referendu. These were, said Rabie, "both won by the opposition, with which much of the public sympathised."

But, he added, the presidency and the Brotherhood appear to have won the third round. "The NSF has succeeded in mobilising mass anti-Morsi rallies and marches, but the Brotherhood has won in terms of broad public sympathy, which could translate into electoral gains."

According to official statements, parliamentary elections are likely to be held in April or May.

Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls in late 2011 were swept by Islamist parties, chief among them the Brotherhood. The assembly was dissolved last summer on orders of the ruling military then, after Egypt’s High Constitutional Court ruled it illegitimate on a technicality.

This time around, Rabie expects Islamist parties to capture a smaller share than they did in 2011, when together they won almost three-quarters of parliament’s lower house. "But due to its superior organisation and electoral experience, especially in the case of the Brotherhood, the Islamist camp will likely maintain a parliamentary majority," he said.

"And if the NSF-led opposition maintains its current strategy of staging rallies that lead to clashes with police and impeding public transportation," Rabie added, "it will pay a heavy price at the ballot box."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Climate Rally Draws "Line in the Sand" on Canadian Pipeline

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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The tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Credit: howlmonteal/cc by 2.0

Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 16 (IPS) – The largest climate rally in U.S. history is expected Sunday in Washington DC with the aim of pressuring President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.Activists are calling Keystone "the line in the sand" regarding dangerous climate change, prompting the Sierra Club to suspended its 120-year ban on civil disobedience. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune was arrested in front of the White House during a small protest against Keystone on Wednesday.

"The Keystone XL pipeline is part of the carbon infrastructure that will take us to dangerous levels of climate change," said Simon Donner, a climate scientist at the University of British Columbia.[pullquote]3[/pullquote]

"By itself, Keystone won’t have much of an impact on the climate, but it is not happening on its own," Donner told IPS.

Carbon emissions are increasing elsewhere, and the International Energy Agency recently warned humanity is on a dangerous path to four degrees C of warming before the end of this century. Children born today will experience this. Preventing that dire future is inconsistent with expanding tar sands production, Donner said.

A new study released this week revealed that the volume of Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly. Ice volume has fallen 80 percent since 1980, according to the latest data from European Space Agency satellite, CryoSat-2. Summers with a sea ice-free Arctic are only a few years away, scientists now agree. This will have significant and permanent impacts on weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere.

"Keystone XL is the key to opening up the expansion of the tar sands industry," said Jim Murphy, senior counsel with the National Wildlife Federation.

"By rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, we can keep this toxic oil in the ground," Murphy said in a statement.

Keystone XL is intended to bring 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of a heavy, tar-like oil from the northern Alberta tar sands 2,400 kilometres south to the refineries on the Gulf Coast. Nearly all the resulting fuels are destined for export.

Since the seven-billion-dollar Keystone XL crosses national borders, it is up to President Obama to issue a permit declaring the pipeline serves the "national interest" in order for it to be approved.

"The only way Keystone XL could be considered in the national interest is if you equate that with profits for the oil industry," Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International previously told IPS. Oil Change is an NGO that researches the links between oil, gas, coal corporations and governments.

"It couldn’t be simpler: Either we leave at least two-thirds of the known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, or we destroy our planet as we know it," wrote Sierra Club’s Michael Brune in explaining the decision to engage in civil disobedience.

"That means rejecting the dangerous tar sands pipeline that would transport some of the dirtiest oil on the planet," said Brune.

Tar sands carbon emissions on a "well-to-tank" basis (i.e., production) result in emissions that are on average 72 to 111 percent higher than other U.S. transportation fuels, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Canada’s tar sands aren’t really a "carbon bomb" from a scientific perspective, says Donner. The world’s coal deposits contain many times more carbon. However, the tar sands and Keystone have symbolic importance.

"Climate change is a complicated problem. Lots of things need to be done to address it. We’re at a point where changes need to happen soon," he says.

Writing in the Daily Kos Saturday, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of the environmental justice group Green For All, writes, "Hurricane Katrina taught us a lesson – and Superstorm Sandy reinforced it. People living in neighborhoods with the fewest resources have a harder time escaping, surviving, and recovering from disasters.

"And they’re more vulnerable to the extreme weather climate change will bring. For example, African-Americans living in Los Angeles are more than twice as likely to die during a heat wave than other residents of the city," she says in a piece titled "Why People of Color Should Care about the Keystone Pipeline".

"To permit the pipeline would represent a heartbreaking acquiescence to climate change on the part of President Obama and our national leaders. It would be throwing our hands up helplessly in the face of one of the biggest threats our country has ever faced. That’s not the kind of leadership we voted for.

"There are certain points in history, like the Civil Rights Movement, when the consequences of inaction are so great that we have to make bold choices," Ellis-Lamkins says. "This is one of those times."

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Execution Sparks Unrest in Kashmir

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Athar Parvaiz

SRINAGAR, Feb 11 (IPS) – “Give us his body; we want to give him a respectable burial…” this is the overwhelming demand across Kashmir following the hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guru who was convicted for his role in the attack on the Indian parliament on Dec. 13. 2001. Nine people died in the attack.Guru was convicted by a trial court in 2002. Two years later, the Indian Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s order.

A mercy petition from his family was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee on Feb. 3. He was executed on Feb. 9 in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail. The body was buried in the jail premises.

His family and many others have objected strongly to the burial. “We will not sit silent until the body of our beloved brother is returned to us,” Afzal’s elder brother Aijaz Guru told IPS in a broken voice over phone from his house in Doabgah-Sopore, 65 km north of Kashmir state capital Srinagar. “We want to give him a decent burial.”

He added: “We are well aware that our brother became a victim of vote bank politics. Now his body should be returned to us. It is our right.”

The demand for Guru’s body is the second such from Kashmiris. There is already a demand for return of the mortal remains of Maqbool Bhat, a Kashmiri separatist leader who was hanged and buried in Tihar Jail on Feb. 11, 1984 after being convicted on the charge of killing an Indian official. Kashmiris have kept an empty grave for Bhat’s mortal remains in Srinagar’s ‘Martyrs’ Graveyard’.

The execution of Afzal Guru has evoked strong reactions from civil society and political parties in Kashmir across the board. With elections in India due next year, many say Guru was hanged for ‘petty’ political reasons and that he was not given fair trial.

“This is part of India’s election drama and a proposition motivated by electoral considerations in which Kashmiris are being made sacrificial lambs,” separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told IPS over phone from New Delhi where he was detained briefly after the hanging of Guru.

“Yes, there was politics involved at every stage and it was indeed a political trial rather than a judicial trial,” Prof. Anuradha Chenoy from the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi told IPS on phone.

According to Chenoy, there are many loopholes in the Indian judicial system. “The Indian lower courts and judiciary as a whole look at some cases in a typical fashion: if they treat somebody as an enemy, they look at his case with that perspective only; and not on merit,” she said. “It is well known that Guru did not get a fair trial.”

Expressing her distress about Afzal’s last wish to see his family not being fulfilled, she said: “Every person’s last wish before death is to see his family. But it is quite unfortunate that he did not get an opportunity to see his wife and son before he was hanged.”

Guru’s friends say he had “given up militancy” in the late 1990s and had set up a pharmaceuticals business.

Delhi University lecturer Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, who was earlier acquitted in the same case, said that Afzal Guru’s family was not informed by the government about his execution. “His wife had absolutely no clue. Under the law, she had every right to meet him before the execution,” he told IPS.

“I woke her up early on that morning (Feb. 9) and informed her about rumours of Afzal’s hanging. It was so shocking for her as she was completely unaware. She told me that she had received no communication at all.”

India’s Home Secretary R. K. Singh has said the family was sent a letter through speed post.

That led Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to say: "If we are going to inform someone by post that his family member is going to be hanged, there is something seriously wrong with the system."

Omar Abdullah said this kind of execution is “unheard of.” In an interview to Indian news channel NDTV, he said: “There are enough voices already in the rest of the country who believe that the evidence was flawed.”

According to Abdullah, there could be long-term political implications. “We can deal with the short-term implications as we have taken enough security measures for that, but what we are worried about are the long-term political implications of this execution,” he said.

Mehbooba Mufti, president of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – the largest opposition party in the legislative assembly – said that while “the hanging should not have been carried out, the return of Afzal’s body was the least the government could do to show concern for humanity.”

The Kashmir government has imposed curfew all over the state. At least three people have been killed and scores injured in clashes between police and people who defied curfew restrictions.

Internet services have been blocked in order to curb protests on social media. News channels have also been blocked.

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Davos Puts Protests Behind

February 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Ray Smith

DAVOS, Feb 05 (IPS) – Barbed wire and safety fences are dismantled, the police and army are withdrawn and freedom of movement is restored. The 43rd annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) ended last month with negligible protests against the ‘global leaders’.Every year in late January, the Swiss mountain town Davos is temporarily turned into a fortress. On the streets, policemen, soldiers and bodyguards outnumber unarmed citizens by far.

More than 2,500 ‘global leaders’ met in Davos this year “to improve the state of the world.” as the WEF claims. It’s difficult to make much sense of this year’s motto ‘Resilient Dynamism’. Nevertheless, a lot was discussed, much optimism spread but no decisions taken; at least in front of the cameras.

Even though temperatures were frosty, sunshine reigned at this year’s annual meeting. At least from the business perspective, the global economic crisis is receding. “The worst is behind us. The optimism for recovery is there,” Axel Weber, chairman of the board of directors of the scandal-ridden bank UBS proclaimed.

Meanwhile Davos mayor Tarzisius Caviezel couldn’t stop raving about the WEF’s economic importance for Europe’s highest city: “The pictures broadcast throughout the world are invaluable advertising for Davos.”

Indeed, visual publicity was much worse a decade ago – trashed fast food restaurants, broken windows, a martial police presence, clouds of tear gas, peaceful protesters beaten and showered by water cannons.

This year, barbed wire was cleverly covered by large white canvas. The security personnel’s only challenge was to guide the countless SUVs and limousines through the town’s narrow streets.

A decade ago, thousands of protesters challenged the ‘global leaders’, threatening to shut down the World Economic Forum. It wasn’t just about expressing alternative opinions in Davos, but about chasing the rich and powerful out of town. “Wipe out WEF” was their slogan.

In past years the police did everything possible to keep protesters away from Davos, and put up with riots in other Swiss cities. Whoever tried to travel to Davos was stopped; trains and coaches were blocked in the lowlands.

About 50 people joined a rally in Davos. Rolf Marugg, secretary of the local Green Party was pleased, though he had expected more. “It’s important that we as locals protest against the meeting, the order of the globalised economy and the often dirty doings of the WEF participants,” Marugg said.

Pointing at the WEF’s rather vague motto, the Green politician said that the world doesn’t need dynamism and resilience but a slowdown and change. “The current crisis proves that those self-appointed global leaders’ only ability is to drive economy, society and the environment against the wall. ‘Resilient Dynamism’ therefore only means to keep up the current crisis system by any means possible.”

Over the last few years, small demonstrations are tolerated in Davos; they no longer constitute a threat. The rally went almost unnoticed. Additionally, Greenpeace temporarily shut down a Shell gas station, criticising the company for planning to drill for oil in the Arctic. In another token protest, three activists approached the congress centre with smoke flares to protest against the exploitation of women in the global economy.

A decade ago going up to Davos in late January was on every left-wing activist’s agenda. David Böhner, now in his forties, was a leading figure in Switzerland’s anti-globalisation movement. “Our protest was fundamentally anti-capitalist and directed against the increasingly powerful multinational corporations,” he said.

“Any social movement needs some kind of point of reference. In our case, the World Economic Forum provided a suitable projection screen.” At that time, no meeting of the G8, the European Union or the WTO was safe from resistance protests.

Böhner didn’t travel to Davos this year. “The demonstrations against the WEF don’t interest me any more.” The political capacity to ignite has long gone, he said, and a ritualised form of protest carries little potential.

It was in the early 2000s that opposition was loudest and most radical. Even though the authorities were quick to deflect from political content by nurturing a debate on violence at the protests, it was then when the activists’ arguments were most heard.

“Another major reason for the decline of the anti-WEF movement surely was the police repression,” David Böhner added. The turning point was in 2004, when 1,082 demonstrators were held in the freezing cold in the town Landquart, 40 kilometres from Davos, after violently being pulled out of a train by the police.

The authorities succeeded, because disputes flared up within the movement. Mobilising for demonstrations in Davos became senseless, unwise and unattractive. In the following years, increasingly smaller rallies were held in other Swiss cities.

Meanwhile, the WEF facilitated media access and invited ‘civil society leaders’ to their debates to counter critique. The Open Forum to run parallel to the WEF was invented.

But despite its polished image, the World Economic Forum remains a dubious platform for politicians and business leaders to consult behind closed doors, far from any accountability. The official programme is just one side of the coin.

On behalf of the World Economic Forum, Nicholas Davis argues that if every meeting was made public, nothing would get decided. “Some conversations – over delicate or sensitive issues – frankly have to be held behind closed doors. Our aim is to be as open as possible without jeopardising our mission to improve the state of the world.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Analysis, Diplomacy, Economic Crisis, Economic Policy Tagged With: ,

Pakistan Tribes Turn Against Army

February 3, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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A protest in Peshawar against the killing of civilians by the army. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 02 (IPS) – –“We demand an immediate end to the military operation in Khyber Agency because it has not brought any results during the past three years,” says Iqbal Afridi from the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf party. “The military operations are killing the local population while the militants remained unharmed.”Afridi from the Khyber Agency unit of the party led by former cricketer Imran Khan spoke with IPS near the Governor’s House in Peshawar, the northern Pakistani city adjacent to the Khyber Agency region in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Party members had brought bodies of 18 local people reported killed by security forces in nearby Alamgudar village.

Thousands of local tribal people, including students, civil society members and leaders of political parties joined the bereaved families in the protest against the army.

“The military operations have brought lives of the eight million population in FATA to a standstill,” Afridi said. “The seven tribal agencies have remained under curfew and the population has become completely idle.”

Juma Khan Afridi from the family of some of those killed told IPS what happened. “We were asleep when security forces scaled the walls of our home. They asked the women to get aside,” Khan Afridi, a student of the same family told IPS. He said he survived because he put on a veil and stood with women.

This is not the first time the army has killed innocent people in Khyber Agency, he said. “It is because of the growing anger that bereaved families brought the coffins of their dead relatives to protest.”

Wazir Muhammad, political analyst at the University of Peshawar, said people of FATA had been bearing the brunt of the U.S.-led war on terror for the past four years, but had remained silent due to fear of reprisals by army.

The protest by Hazara communities in Quetta in Balochistan over their dead had given strength to local tribal people in FATA, he said. More than 100 people, including 83 Shias were killed in two bomb explosions in Quetta Jan. 11. The relatives there had refuse to bury their dead immediately in protest.

Only after braving three nights in Quetta’s freezing temperatures next to their slain loved ones did the families of the bombing victims end their protest and bury the bodies amid strict security measures in a Hazara graveyard. They did so after the government imposed governor’s rule in Balochistan.

“Anger is growing over the acts of terrorism everywhere in the country. The people are rightly protesting over the army’s killing of the innocent,” Muhammad said.

The Khyber Agency incident has opened a new chapter of protests against the army. “It is for the first time that people have chanted slogans against law enforcement agencies for their failure to provide protection. It will continue in the future if the army doesn’t mend its ways,” Umar Farooq, whose younger brother was among the dead, told IPS.

“It was not just the brutal killing – the army took away the slain bodies from the site of the protests and buried them on their own. Being Muslims, we wanted to give bath and have funerals before lowering them to the graves.”

The killings come after a dubious army record. In 2009 the Pakistan army, he said, was shown in a video to be shooting from close range at seven boys in Swat. The army had argued that they were Taliban but they looked innocent and juvenile, he said.

“The incident caused international outrage and the U.S. – the main sponsor of the Swat Operation – briefly withheld aid,” Farooq said.

In October 2010 the U.S. sanctioned six units of the Pakistani military operating in the Swat valley under the Leahy Law – which requires the U.S. State Department to certify that no military unit receiving U.S. aid is involved in gross human rights abuses. The law requires that when such abuses are found, they must be thoroughly investigated.

Despite pledges, Pakistan did not take any action to hold the perpetrators accountable as required under the law.

In several instances in Swat, Balochistan and the tribal areas, U.S. aid to Pakistan has continued in apparent contravention of the Leahy Law.

Human Right Watch said in its 2012 report that conditions had deteriorated markedly in the mineral-rich Balochistan, with disappearances of civilians, and an upsurge in killings of suspected Baloch militants and opposition activists by the military, intelligence agencies and the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

“The government appeared powerless to rein in the military’s abuses,” it said. Human Rights Watch recorded the killing of at least 200 Baloch nationalist activists in 2012.

In April 2010, the Pakistan army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, apologised for the deaths of dozens of civilians during air raids near the Afghan border. The civilians were members of a pro-government tribe which had resisted Taliban influence.

On Jan. 17, shortly after the last killings, the army was severely criticised in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly. Lawmaker Saqibullah Khan said such incidents were bound to create anger against the army among the people, and should immediately be stopped.

“The federal government should immediately stop military operations against militants as these have failed to establish peace. They have become the main source of creating problems for the civilians.”

Member of the National Assembly from the Awami National Party Bushra Gohar told IPS that the military campaigns have displaced 1.2 million people in FATA and had adversely affected the lives of tribal people. “Since 2005, we have started military operations in most of the seven tribal agencies of FATA, but militants are gaining strength while the poor people are suffering.

“We demand an end to the military operation in FATA,” she said.

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Alexis Tsipras: ‘We are the great hope for change’

December 27, 2012 by



Greece’s young leftist firebrand held the future of his country in his hands for a few days in June. He may do again in 2013

“He came from Greece‘s political wilderness – yet for a few days in June Alexis Tsipras held the future of the euro in his hands. Six months on, the fast-talking firebrand who took the world by storm in the runup to the Greek elections may no longer be in the spotlight, but he has not faded into history. “We may have narrowly lost the battle,” Tsipras says of the failure of his radical left Syriza party to clinch power. “But we have not lost the war.”"


See on www.guardian.co.uk


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Can Facebook Become Substitute for Live Azeri Opposition Protests?

November 21, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

EurasiaNet Correspondents

BAKU, Nov 19 (EurasiaNet) – They’ve battled police in the streets and they’ve challenged authority the courts. Now, faced with staggering increases in fines for unauthorised demonstrations, Azerbaijani opposition activists are turning to Facebook to get their messages out.A Nov. 10 amendment to the Law on Freedom of Assembly hiked penalties for participation in unsanctioned protests nearly 80-fold from a mere seven to 13 manats (nine to sixteen dollars) to a hefty 500 to 1,000 manats (637-1,275 dollars).

Those charged with organising such protests would incur far larger fines: depending on the extent of the individual’s alleged role, the punishment would range from 1,500 to 30,000 manats (1,900 to 38,265 dollars). The average monthly salary in Azerbaijan is currently about 388 manats (494 dollars). The penalties for organisers represent up to a six-fold increase over earlier fines.

Opposition activists predict that the changes will have a chilling effect on civic debate, and may well curb unsanctioned street protests. The new fine framework will go into effect on Jan. 1.

Officials explain that the changes are designed to ensure public order. Critics, pointing to the fast-approaching presidential election in February, note that authorities have an added incentive in the coming months to keep a lid on public displays of discontent.

“Most of our supporters are young university students, who cannot afford to pay that penalty,” said Tural Abbasli, chairperson of the opposition Musavat Party’s youth organisation. Non-payment, he continued, would mean that “the court would go after their property, their houses, which will be such a headache for their families.”

Abbasli, saying he didn’t what to bear responsibility for bringing hardships down upon young activists, indicated that he would feel “very uncomfortable” about advocating street action in 2013.

Other opposition activists agree; the new fines mean greater caution in organising protests, said Hesen Kerimov, chairperson of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan’s Supreme Council.

“The majority of our supporters are unemployed because of their political views,” Kerimov claimed. Even for those who have jobs, “their financial capabilities are not at all sufficient to pay the penalty,” he added.

While the government of Baku does allow protests outside the city centre, officials make it as difficult as possible for those wishing to participate, opposition leaders say.

“(The Baku city government) creates so many obstacles, such as stopping people from walking in the direction of the site of the protest (and) creating intended obstacles for taxis,” said Kerimov, a member of the Public Union, a coalition of various opposition parties and sympathisers which routinely holds protests without city permission. “They leave no option for us.”

With all other protest possibilities seemingly cut off, social media platforms, an increasingly popular venue among Azerbaijanis for debate about political topics, are the only realistic protest option left, noted Abbasli. Official statistics report that five million Azerbaijanis – about 54.5 percent of the population – have Internet access. The Facebook-traffic-analysis site Socialbakers claims that 900,000 of them are Facebook users.

Opposition activists hope that a social media-based opposition strategy, given Internet usage numbers and Facebook’s flexibility as a means of communications, will re-invigorate the movement – essentially taking one step back in order to take two forward.

“At the first stage, those people who are observers soon become active in discussions and build trust,” commented Natig Adilov, the founder and administrator of Xilas (Salvation), one of the largest Azerbaijani Facebook discussion groups, with over 200,000 members. “At the next stage, they feel confident enough to have their protests in the streets.”

Abbasli agrees: “Those protests in cyberspace will involve more people, will expand broader and it will not stay there forever. People will move back from cyberspace to the streets. This time more aggressive, more difficult to control.”

Practically speaking, it is no sure thing that voices of dissent will become bolder online than they are on the streets. Officials already carefully monitor Azerbaijani citizens’ web activities, and individuals already have been jailed for reasons related to their online activities.

One U.S. communications researcher who tracks developments in Azerbaijan cautions that moving criticism of the government from Facebook to the streets indeed poses a challenge. As political opponents increasingly go online to mobilise, government monitoring and surveillance will increase, in turn, predicted Katy Pearce, an assistant professor of communications at the University of Washington.

“That could easily discourage online dissent,” Pearce said in an email interview with EurasiaNet.org. “Despite the fact that the Azerbaijani government does little blocking of content, because individuals fear the repercussions of expression online, people self-censor and thus there isn’t freedom of expression online for Azerbaijanis.”

Azerbaijani blogger Ravil Asadov concedes that he often wrestles with self-censorship. “I am being threatened for my blog, which is critical of the government. It does not stop me. But it is annoying,” Asadov said. “Every time I write, I think of censoring myself so that I do not have more headaches.”

At a U.N.-sponsored meeting held in Baku in early November, European leaders castigated Azerbaijani authorities for their repressive web tendencies. Baku authorities, meanwhile, insist they are tolerant of the Internet’s diversity of views.

“The principal position of the Azerbaijani government is to create all possible conditions for ensuring full Internet-freedom,” Elnur Aslanov, head of the presidential administration’s political analysis department, told 1news.az on Nov. 8.

Activists like Abbasli have strong doubts about the sincerity of the government’s statements on Internet freedom, but they add they have no other option than to press on with a web-based campaign, despite the risks.

*This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Asia, Europe, Media, Politics, Report Tagged With: , , , ,

Kurdish Prisoners Hungry for Freedom

November 13, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Katie Lin, Cagri Cobanoglu

DIYARBAKIR, Nov 13 (IPS) – Five MPs from Turkey’s main Kurdish political party, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and the Mayor of Diyarbakir have gone on hunger strike to support a protest by more than 700 Kurdish prison inmates. The prisoners’ hunger strike has now lasted 63 days, and spans dozens of prisons across Turkey.This comes after fellow MPs Özdal Üçer and Emine Ayna pledged their support to the protest, stating that "the demands of the hunger strikers are our demands as well and we will die for these demands too."

Among their demands, the prisoners are seeking the right to use the Kurdish language in court and in schools, and to bring an end to the solitary confinement of Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist group that has been internationally dubbed a terrorist organisation.

They are also demanding that the Turkish government resume negotiations with Öcalan – who is currently serving a life sentence on the prison island Imrali – for resolution of the Kurdish issue.

An estimated 30 million Kurds reside in the region of Kurdistan, a contiguous area comprised of parts of Iran, Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

Kurds in Turkey, who make up roughly one-fifth of its population, have suffered decades of systematic discrimination and forced assimilation, which went so far as to involve bans on Kurdish music and literature.

By the early 1980s, a liberation movement spearheaded by the PKK was set in motion, paving the way for what would become a highly politicised armed struggle for Kurdish independence.

Violent clashes between the Turkish military and the PKK peaked in the 1990s. Its founder, Öcalan, was captured in 1999.

But to this day, tensions remain high as Kurdish separatist groups continue to fight for autonomy and the reinstatement of the Kurdish identity.

And while the current administration under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has fulfilled some of its promises to provide more constitutional freedom to Kurds in Turkey, the government has ceased talks with the PKK as they attempt to solve the Kurdish issue. It is the PKK’s inclusion in this process, under the leadership of Öcalan, that the hunger strikers seek.

Mixed responses from the Turkish government have left protesters and parliamentarians alike unclear as to how this situation is going to be handled and the demands addressed.

On Oct. 31, at a press conference in Germany, Erdo?an appeared to minimise the hunger strike.

“As for the hunger strike, at present there is no such thing – it is a complete show,” he told reporters. “I personally sent my minister to prison to see for himself and over half have already given up.”

Earlier that month, justice minister Sadullah Ergin had indeed visited inmates at Sincan prison in the Turkish capital Ankara – but he did not paint the same picture Erdogan had described.

He reported that 680 people were participating in the hunger strike and that no one was in critical condition, but nonetheless pleaded with prisoners to, "give up these actions…for your own health, for your families who love you, and for those who you love.

“If these actions are being done to get their voices heard, that voice is being heard,” he said. “There are intense ongoing efforts for a Turkey where there will be no need for these kinds of actions."

Former PKK member Hamit Kank?l?ç participated in a “death fast” in 1982 while completing a 20-year sentence at Diyarbak?r prison in southeastern Turkey, an institution famed for its poor conditions and torture of inmates.

“We were beaten every day and sometimes 30 people were put in one cell,” Kank?l?ç recalls. “We were not even allowed to have pen and paper to prepare our defence for the court.”

Kank?l?ç and his fellow prisoners set out their demands and followed them up with a “death fast”, where even water is not ingested and death occurs much sooner than it would in a hunger strike.

“If you are free, there are other methods of protest, like joining demonstrations,” he says. “But when you are jailed, you have nothing to resist but your body.”

And as many hunger strikers enter their ninth week without food, the possibility that fatalities will occur is that much greater.

Dr Muna Saloman, health and education programme manager at the U.S.-based organisation Turkey Human Rights Watch, urges medical intervention at this stage of the hunger strike.

“Now they are in danger, because no one can tolerate starving for a long period of time,” she says.

“Little by little, the nutrients in the body diminish, creating low protein, which affects the brain and liver. Even if they start eating after that, any permanent damage done is going to be difficult to reverse.”

And there are questions about what damage the government’s reaction to the hunger strikes will do to already strained Kurdish-Turkish relations.

There may be decades of armed struggle between the two groups, but Kank?l?ç sees these protests as a step in the right direction for peaceful resolution of the Kurdish issue – a new aspect to the struggle which he believes should be acknowledged by the Turkish government.

“(Mahatma) Gandhi did a hunger strike in protest of British rule and he was praised for his peaceful methods,” he observes. “Kurds are trying to find a solution without violence and this hunger strike is the most democratic reaction.”

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Featured, Human Rights, Justice, Middle East, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Greeks Gear Up to Cast ‘Protest Votes’ Against Austerity

May 3, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Analysis by Apostolis Fotiadis

ATHENS, May 3, 2012 (IPS) – Aggeliki Anagnostopoulou (30) sits in a corner of the huge room that volunteers from the new party, Independent Greeks, are using as a headquarters for their pre-election campaign in the lead up to polling day on May 6.

A New Democracy (ND) voter until the last election in 2009, she recently joined the Independent Greeks, led by former ND minister Panos Kammenos who broke away from his old party when it entered a pro-bailout coalition government at the end of last year.

"Greek voters are disappointed with the two big parties. They are trying to find a new perspective. I (used) to vote for Panos Kammenos in New Democracy but I was disenchanted with the party so I followed him to this new beginning," said Anagnostopoulou, who used to work as an external auditor for a United States-based multinational but was made redundant in 2011.

At the two-month-old, improvised party headquarters, modern techniques like the use of social media are being fused with the traditional practice of citizens registering with the party, in the hope of attracting new supporters while keeping the old voter base happy.

With elections just around the corner, the Independent Greeks’ headquarters has become increasingly populated.

Former supporters of ND and PASOK, the two parties that dominated Greek politics from the beginning of the 1980s up until the last election in 2009, have thrown their lot in with Kammenos in what appears to be the biggest protest vote the country has experienced in the last 30 years.

Kammenos, known for his explosive speeches in parliament, has capitalised heavily on anti-bailout rhetoric with nationalist undertones, in a campaign that blames PASOK and New Democracy politicians for betraying the country and conspiring against the nation.

Recent polls show him climbing up to 10 percent support in the national election this Sunday.

Creditors hold the reigns

Greece all but handed over its public finances to its creditors – led by the Troika, an administrative structure consisting of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – when it became all too clear in May 2010 that the country was unable to repay its huge public debt.

Since then it has implement a severe austerity programme of raising taxes and cutting pensions and state salaries across the board, deregulating the labour market and pushing ahead with pro-market reforms in exchange for billions of ‘bailout euros’.

The programme of slashing public spending has sunk the country into three years of recession and pushed unemployment up to 21 percent.

The austerity policy has also damaged political parties associated with its implementation and sent an enormous wave of protest votes fleeing towards leftist and right-wing parties.

Pre-election polls have highlighted the fragmentation of political forces, showing ten parties from across the political spectrum climbing above the three percent support threshold.

"It is evident now that the old political system that nurtured Greece’s public finance issues is meeting the beginning of its end," said Nick Malkoutzis, a renowned journalist and political analyst who has gained recognition covering the crisis on his popular blog ‘Inside Greece’.

Increased support for leftists or the appearance of extremist groups like the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are not yet proof of a change in political culture; still, "It is evident that people are looking for something different. Plenty of them think that a vote for the neo-Nazis is a way to punish traditional politicians," said Malkoutzis.

"Real change might come not in this but the next election," he told IPS.

Given that the Troika plans to return to Greece right after the elections, to determine an economic plan that will bring 11.5 billion euros into the country, "it is unlikely that the new parliament will live long," Stavros Lygeros, a senior Greek political analyst, commented a few days ago.

"It is in fact one of the major paradoxes of this election that ND and PASOK fight each other, when they have both signed (onto) the austerity programme to be implemented after elections."

He added that the mainstream political establishment is hopeful that the two parties will survive the election only to form a new coalition government that will carry on under the Troika’s command.

During the announcement of elections at the beginning of April, Troika officials publicly exerted pressure on the leaders of PASOK and ND in order to prevent them from straying too far from the rhetoric of bailout commitments.

Paul Thomsen, head of the IMF mission in Greece, has specified measures the new government will have to implement, irrelevant of which party wins the election.

"It is very negative for Europe that technocrats were able to express opinions in international media that elections should not take place in Greece, or that the country must carry out its commitments irrelevant of the outcome of this election. It is obvious that the Troika would prefer a PASOK and ND government that implements further austerity measures," says Malkoutzis.

ND and PASOK leaders have employed a pre-election rhetoric that borders on blackmail, explicitly warning the nation in their latest speeches and articles about the chaos that will surely follow if they do not survive the election.

Though "this blackmail worked for the last two years, it wont be of use for much longer," said Zeza Zikou, an economic analyst for the biggest national political newspaper, Kathimerini.

Gradually, she said, people will understand that the bailout agreements have condemned ordinary people to work forever to repay a debt that can never be settled.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Economic Crisis, Europe, Featured, Unrest Tagged With: , , ,

Protest Time in Tunisia Again

April 20, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Jake Lippincott

TUNIS, Apr 20, 2012 (IPS) – Thousands of centre-left demonstrators violently clashed with police in street battles that completely shut down central Tunis last week, left scores seriously injured and underlined the persistent divisions in Tunisian society.

The demonstrations were organised by several political parties, unions and human rights groups. Ostensibly meant to mark the national Martyrs Day celebration, their more immediate aim was to challenge the recent government ban on protests in central Tunis.

The police response was violent and seemingly disorganised, and called into question both the government’s democratic credentials and its ability to maintain order even in the heart of Tunis.

The trouble started when the Tunisian government, which is dominated by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, justified its ban on all demonstrations late last month, by painting it as an effort to ‘maintain order’ on the eve of the economically vital summer tourist season here.

However, the centre-left opposition saw this ban as a blatant attack on political freedom. After a small protest against unemployment was violently crushed by police on Apr. 7, the opposition began organising a massive protest to challenge the ban and the government.

The demonstration began on the morning of Apr. 9 and was attacked almost immediately by police wielding truncheons and tear gas guns. The uniformed police were supported by masked young men in plain clothes (generally known in Tunisia as "militia") who also enthusiastically attacked protesters and journalists with sticks and stones.

Several hundred protesters built barricades and threw stones at security forces. By the end of the day scores of people, including French journalist Julie Schneider, had been hospitalised.

The excessive use of tear gas, involvement of militia and intentional attacks on journalists and bystanders with cameras brought to mind the worst excesses of the former dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and has proved to be a public relations disaster for the governing coalition here.

Due to extensive public backlash, the government rescinded the protest ban. Recent polls have indicated that the Tunisian government is still popular, but facing increasing challenges.

According to the Tunisian National Association of Statistics, total unemployment here has risen 0.6 percent, going from 18.3 percent in the second quarter of 2011 to 18.9 this February. The unemployment rate for college graduates is even worse, rising from 29.2 to 30.5 in the same period.

While continued economic problems could be eroding Ennahda’s support, they have also been caught in the middle of an increasingly vicious cultural conflict between hard-line Salafis on the one hand, who want to scrap the Tunisian constitution and replace it with sharia law, and leftists who want to preserve Tunisia’s socially liberal traditions and increase protections for women and minorities.

Ennahda’s official ideology calls for inclusive parliamentary democracy loosely guided by moderate Islamic principles. During the election this mix allowed Ennahda to gain the support of a broad swathe of Tunisian society, from hard-line Salafis to non-practising Muslims.

However, now that it has to govern this sprawling voter base, Ennahda and its coalition allies are struggling to keep disparate constituents happy.

Earlier this month, in what was seen as a nod to the party’s more conservative supporters, the government spoke approvingly of a decision by a provincial judge to sentence two young men to over seven years each in prison for insulting the Prophet Muhammad on their facebook pages.

This decision to punish the two men was supported by many mainstream Tunisians but outraged intellectuals and many sexual and religious minorities who fear that this is the first step in a broader campaign of intolerance.

Furthermore, in recent months Salafi vigilante groups have been attacking people they see as ‘un-Islamic’. While the Salafis are not officially supported by the government, many leftist Tunisians accuse the authorities of turning a blind eye to their violence.

Saif Bjaoui is a young queer activist who participated in the Apr. 9 protest. When asked what motivated him to attend the demonstration, he told IPS more than anything else it was opposition to Ennahda and what he sees as their intolerant policies.

He mentioned the recent court case and added, "I’m afraid of Ennahda, because they are trying to take our rights, Samir Dilou (the current Tunisian minister for human rights, and an Ennahda party member) said last month that gays are ‘sick’," he said.

Early last February, Dilou told a local talk show that gay people do not deserve freedom of expression because they are mentally ill.

As a result, Bjaoui is not very optimistic about minority rights in the new democratic believing that, "things will get worse before they get better."

Two days after the protest, Rached Cherif, a member of the Tunisian League of Humanists, told IPS that the actions of the Ennahda government were putting certain segments of Tunisian society in danger.

"The government is tolerant of Salafi activism which is aimed directly at minorities like Christians, Jews and gays – this puts these minorities directly in danger," he said.

"The government is friendly with the Salifists but they brutally suppressed the peaceful leftist protest (on Apr. 9)," he lamented.

Despite the significant number of Tunisians who support leftist parties and minority rights, it is clear that many people here also support Ennahda’s conservative policies and oppose increased rights for sexual and religious minorities.

Cherif believes that many Tunisians are frankly "intolerant" of social liberalism, which might hurt the new democracy’s chances at survival.

"Democracy without minority rights is not democracy," Bjaoui added.

On Apr. 10, a day after the repression, demonstrators returned to the main drag in downtown Tunis accompanied by a group of opposition assembly members. Many of the rank and file protesters wore bandages from injuries sustained the day before. This time, however, both demonstrators and police showed restraint and the protest went on loudly but peacefully.

The next day, the government officially declared that protests were once again legal in central Tunis. The immediate crisis caused by the protest ban seems to have abated.

Still, Tunisian society remains starkly divided on social issues and plagued with economic problems. If the new democracy here is to survive, there must be some steps towards reconciliation.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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