Yemen ceasefire talk ... again

Once again there is speculation about a ceasefire in the war with Yemen's Houthi rebels – though whether it will actually happen is anyone's guess.

The cause of the speculation is an audio recording by the rebels' leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, posted on the internet. In the recording, he says the Houthis accept the Yemeni government's "five points" laid down as conditions for a ceasefire, but only "after the aggression stops". 

In fact, there is nothing new in this: the Houthis have said similar things before. Is there any reason to believe it might turn out differently this time? Al-Jazeera's correspondent in Yemen thinks not.

"There have been no negotiations to follow up this initiative," he said. "People in the capital [Sanaa] are speculating there may be some secret talks going on, but there is no evidence this offer has been discussed or co-ordinated at all."

The most recent version of the government's ceasefire conditions contained six points, not five as mentioned by the rebel leader. Presumably he was ignoring the sixth point – referring to attacks on Saudi territory – because of a separate ceasefire with the Saudis which the rebels offered last Monday. The Saudis responded by claiming victory.

Fighting on the Saudi front appears to be continuing, however. On Thursday, the rebels said Saudi forces were carrying out further air and artillery attacks.

The Saudis are now insisting that the rebels must pull back 10km from the border on the Yemeni side and return six missing Saudi soldiers.

On Friday, the UN refugee agency said the number of people displaced since the Houthi conflict began in 2004 has reached 250,000. This is more than double the number who had been displaced when the latest round of fighting began last August – and it is currently increasing by about 7,000 people each week.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 31 January 2010. Comment

UPDATE, 31 January, 13.00 GMT:
The Yemeni government has rejected the rebels' ceasefire offer. An official quoted by al-Jazeera said the Houthis had not accepted the government's sixth point (see above) about refraining from attacks on Saudi territory. A local official in Saada quoted by the Yemen Observer described the offer as "a trick to avoid defeat" and "manipulation in order for al-Houthis to gain time and prepare for a seventh war".

Saudi couple get their marriage back

A Saudi couple who were forcibly divorced more than four years ago have finally had their marriage reinstated by the Supreme Court, in a decision which is being hailed as a triumph for individual rights over archaic tribal attitudes.

The family of Fatima ‘Azzaz, now 36, initially gave permission for her to marry Mansour al Timani, now 40, after satisfying themselves about his reputation and his ancestry as a member of the Shammar tribe. But two years later her half-brothers began complaining that he had misled them about his tribal status – meaning that he wasn't sufficiently well-bred to have married her.

The half-brothers then persuaded a court to annul the marriage on the grounds of "tribal incompatibility" and the couple, who have two children, were forced to live apart.

After the Supreme Court overturned the annulment, Fawzia al Ayouni, of the Voice of Women group, told The National: “I consider this decision to be a milestone in Saudi modern history, as it loudly screams that we are all equal sons and daughters of this country, and tribalism should no longer govern our lives.”

The Supreme Court's decision was clearly an important one but I'm not sure it really blows a hole in the guardianship system which allows families to prevent couples from marrying because of "unsuitable" ancestry.

What it does highlight, yet again, is the flaws in Saudi Arabia's justice system and the lack of self-correcting mechanisms when judges make arbitrary decisions. The lower court apparently did not consider the couple's side of the case and it was only referred to the Supreme Court after intervention by the king (probably as a result of media publicity).

What “turned the case around was the fact that we put our hands on new documents refuting the brothers’ case,” Ahmad al-Sudairy, the couple's lawyer, said. “We managed to prove that [Mr al-Timani] was of tribal descent”.

Unless there is some unreported angle in the Supreme Court's ruling, that does not appear to challenge the principle of "tribal compatibility" in marriage but, if anything, reinforces it.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 31 January 2010. Comment

Tunisia damned with faint praise

At the end of his fact-finding visit to Tunisia this week, Martin Scheinin, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, was full of praise for the Tunisian approach to dealing with terrorism. At least, he was if you believe the Tunisian media.

It is true that he thanked Tunisian officials for meeting him and mentioned one or two positive aspects, such as "the multi-dimensional approach to preventing terrorism through social, educational and anti-discrimination measures", but ...

In his statement to the press conference there were rather a lot of buts that the Tunisian media preferred to ignore:

• "The 2003 counter-terrorism law still contains deficiencies which, as in many other countries, are rooted in the definition of terrorism ... As I have systematically emphasised, deadly or otherwise serious physical violence against members of the general population or segments of it should be a central element of any definition of terrorism. This is clearly not the case in Tunisia ..."

• "I have yet to receive precise statistics from the authorities on the number of terrorism cases tried by Tunisian courts in recent years. However, as terrorism is not an everyday phenomenon in Tunisia, it appears that the scope of application of the terrorism provisions has grown too wide ... I see here a danger of a 'slippery slope' which not only results in the persons being convicted of 'terrorism' who do not deserve that stigma, but also endangers the effectiveness of the fight against terrorism by trivialising the phenomenon."

• "There does not seem to exist a clear provision requiring judges to open investigations ex officio in cases of torture allegations presented in court ... or to exclude any evidence or statements obtained under torture."

• "The most disturbing experience during my mission was the existence of serious discrepancies between the law and what was reported to me as happening in reality ... 

- It appears, and the authorities have admitted as much, that the date of arrest may be postdated, circumventing the rules about the allowed length of police detention ... 

- The frequent use of confessions as evidence in court without proper investigation into allegations of torture or other ill-treatment;

- The inadequacy of guarantees against torture ...

- The disproportionately low number of prosecutions or other clear findings related to torture, compared to the frequency of allegations."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 30 January 2010. Comment

End of the Saudi-Houthi war?

Coinciding with the London conference on Yemen, Saudi Arabia 
announced that it had won its war with Yemen's Houthi rebels. 

The fighting does appear to have stopped, at least for now, though it's not the first time the Saudis have claimed victory. In December, in a statement reminiscent of George Bush's premature boast about Iraq, they said they were suspending major operations because there were only a few infiltrators left.

Although the Houthis have undoubtedly suffered heavy losses, the war has also proved far more costly and difficult than expected for the Saudis. Since fighting broke out in the first week of November, at least 133 Saudi soldiers have been killed – an extremely high casualty rate for what was supposedly just a minor incursion across the border. Thousands of Saudi inhabitants were forcibly uprooted from their villages in the border area, allegedly for security reasons, and it is doubtful how many will be allowed to return.

The sequence of events leading up to the Saudi "victory" is that on Monday the Houthis offered a ceasefire and said they were withdrawing from the kingdom to avoid more civilian casualties.

On Tuesday, a vitriolic article in Asharq Alawsat by Tariq Alhomayed, the Saudi paper's editor-in-chief, denounced the ceasefire offer. "The Houthi talk about a truce with Saudi Arabia is something that should not be given any attention, or even considered," he wrote. 

On the same day, al-Arabiyya (also Saudi) quoted the rebels as saying they had withdrawn completely from Saudi territory.

On Wednesday, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, the Saudi assistant defence minister retorted: "They did not withdraw. They have been forced out." 

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 29 January 2010. Comment

Saving Yemen

There were a number of encouraging signs from yesterday's international meeting in London about Yemen. The first is that it didn't get too preoccupied with al-Qaida and recognised that the country faces "many urgent problems" (to put it mildly) which are inter-related and need to be tackled across a broad front ... Read more at Comment Is Free.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 28 January 2010. Comment

Serious about civil society?

Syria has launched a new initiative to "create more space for civil society to work", according to Rami Khouri in the Lebanese Daily Star.

He discusses a conference in Damascus last weekend on “the emerging role of civil society in development”, which was addressed by First Lady Asma al-Assad and Abdullah Dardari, the deputy prime minister for economic affairs. Dardari reportedly insisted that "civil society and citizen participation through non-governmental organisations were critical for moving forward on Syria’s goals".

This is an interesting and potentially important development but, like Khouri, I have my doubts about it. 

The Syrian regime has a record of making bold gestures, then getting nervous and suddenly pulling back. One example that comes to mind was in the early days of Bashar al-Assad's presidency when he gave a green light for cartoonist Ali Farzat to publish a satirical weekly newspaper. It proved too much of a shock to the system and was eventually forced to close.

Most Arab governments recognise the value of civil society, at least in theory, but (as I explain here) they can't resist the temptation of trying to control it – which of course defeats the whole object of independent action by ordinary citizens.

Khouri writes:

The best hope now is that the Syrians themselves will test the sincerity of their government’s call for a deeper, stronger civil society. If the state is sincere, this is a moment of some hope for Syria and its neighbours. If it is bluffing, this is the moment to call its bluff and find out. 

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 27 January 2010. Comment

No laughing matter

Not to be outdone by Egypt holding a public holiday to celebrate its police force, another regime with a grim human rights record is playing a joke on its citizens. In Tunisia, it's National Laughter Week.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 27 January 2010. Comment

My talk at SOAS

The Khalili lecture theatre at SOAS was pretty full for my talk last night. If you missed it and want to know what I said, you can read it here.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 27 January 2010. Comment

National Torture Day

Back in November I cautioned readers of this blog not to believe what they read on el-Koshary Today, which bills itself as "Egypt's most reliable news source". Its stories about crocodiles attacking the Aswan Dam, the  construction of a new Disneyland in Ramallah to "improve the quality of life for Israeli settlers", and so on, are meant to be satirical.

So yesterday, when I read that Egypt was celebrating the work of its police force with a public holiday, I assumed it must be just another of the website's crazy fantasies.

But no. Egypt really does hold a national Police Day on January 25 and lots of bloggers are talking about it, including: Mohamed Abdel Salam (Bikya Masr), Jack Shenker (Comment is free), 
Zeinobia (Egyptian Chronicles), Max Strasser (The Faster Times) and Hossam el-Hamalawy (3arabawy).

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 26 January 2010. Comment

What's really Wrong ...

  
A reminder, for anyone who's interested, that I'll be giving a talk about my book, What's Really Wrong with the Middle East, at SOAS in London today (January 26).

It starts at 5.30 pm, with tea and biscuits from 5pm, and should finish by 7pm. It's part of the London Middle East Institute's Tuesday evening lecture programme and admission is free.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 26 January 2010. Comment

Clinton, Arabs and the internet

Reading the text of Hillary Clinton's speech on internet freedom, I coudn't help thinking back to the speech George Bush made in 2003, announcing his "forward strategy of freedom" in the Middle East. Each in its own way encapsulated some of the core philosophy of the two administrations. 

Both speeches also contained the Cold War references that seem to be obligatory for American politicians whenever they talk about freedom. I do wish they would move on from that; it doesn't help. As Evgeny Morozov has pointed out, the picture of authoritarian regimes in Clinton's speech was anachronistic and "smacked of a memo written by a bunch of confused Kremlinologists".

Clinton, however (unlike Bush) didn't shy away from criticising America's allies. Tunisia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all got a dishonourable mention, and she deserves credit for that.

Bush's 2003 speech basically equated freedom with democracy (he often used the two words inter-changeably) – which in practice set free elections as the yardstick by which progress was to be measured.

Clinton's speech interpreted freedom much more widely – which in my opinion is the better approach. Marc Lynch is right when he says: "Supporting universal principles of freedom of speech and assembly ('the freedom to connect') is more realistic, more empowering, and ultimately a better approach than high-blown rhetoric about 'democracy' without any accompanying ability to deliver."

Although a large part of the background to Clinton's speech was the ongoing dispute between Google and China, it's worth considering its implications for the Middle East where all but a handful of Arab countries routinely censor the internet, some of them more than others.

The first point to note is that they are doing the censoring  with American help. Look, for instance, at this cheery report from the New York Times in 2001 about American IT companies vying for the "terrific" opportunity to deprive Saudi citizens of their right to information.

I also fear that Clinton's speech, despite its many qualities, will not cut much ice with Arab regimes since they justify internet censorship primarily on the grounds of upholding "morality" and preventing "cyber-crimes" (while also slipping in political and other forms of censorship as if it were an after-thought).

We saw this recently with Algeria, where the case for their 
newly-installed filtering system was presented in terms of "public order and morality". It wasn't long, of course, before the first political opposition website was blocked.

It's a similar story in Saudi Arabia, where most of the blocking is for "moral" reasons (pornography, etc) but some political and religious censorship is also included, along with fairly strenuous efforts to stop people circumventing the censorship via proxy servers.

Clinton acknowledged in her speech that "all societies recognise that free expression has its limits" – mentioning incitement to violence and hate speech as examples. To this, Arab regimes will no doubt reply: "Yes, and in our societies we include pornography and defamation of religion in that, too."

There are two separate issues here. First, if we accept a need for some limits on free expression (hopefully minimal ones), restricting internet access is the wrong way to enforce it. Filtering is a blunt instrument: it penalises innocent websites unfairly (because it's automated), it inconveniences internet users and, with a little know-how, it's easy to circumvent. The sensible way to combat incitement to violence, hate speech, etc, is to deal directly with those who propagate it.

The second issue is a much broader one, and relates to Arab notions about the relationship between governments and their peoples. I've discussed this at length in my book, What's Really Wrong with the Middle East, but essentially it's conceived as a parent-child or a shepherd-sheep relationship – the idea that the public (in their role as children or sheep) must be shielded from harm, including "harmful" thoughts.

This has repercussions way beyond questions of the internet and censorship, and its main effect is to discourage people from developing into active, engaged, independent-minded citizens. 
In her speech, Clinton referred to the 30 activists and bloggers who were detained by the authorities in Egypt last week. But the fact that some of them were bloggers was largely incidental: they were arrested while trying to offer condolences over an attack on Christians in Upper Egypt. 

In the free society, that ought to be regarded as a normal, public-spirited act of citizenship. In Egypt, apparently, it's a threat to public order verging on criminality. 

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 23 January 2010. Comment

'Rape victim' jailed in Saudi Arabia

News organisations in the Philippines are reporting that a woman who alleges she was raped has been jailed in Saudi Arabia and faces a probable flogging.

The 35-year-old Filipina went to Dammam last May to take up a job in a dental clinic. She says that three months after she started working there a Bangladeshi co-work raped her but she did not report it at the time because she feared the rapist would kill her.

In September she was found to be pregnant and her employer reported her to the Saudi authorities for having an illicit sexual relationship.

Since then, she has been in jail awaiting trial. Last month she suffered a miscarriage which her mother blamed on the harsh conditions inside Hafr al-Baten prison.

According to the Migrant Rights organisation, her case is set to be heard in court sometime this month and, on the basis of previous cases, she is likely to be given 100 lashes.

The woman had been working abroad to support her family in the Philippines, which includes three children aged five, 14 and 15. Now that her remittances have stopped, the children are no longer able to attend school, their grandmother said.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 22 January 2010. Comment

UN to scrutinise Tunisia

Martin Scheinin, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, is due to begin a four-day fact-finding visit to Tunisia tomorrow.

Scheinin, a Finnish professor of international law, angered the Egyptian government last October with a highly critical report about systematic torture, secret detentions, extraordinary renditions and the regime's ham-fisted attempts to draft an anti-terrorism law.

His UN role is to help ensure respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms while combating terrorism.

Considering Tunisia's record in this area, his latest mission may cause some sparks. He is due to wind up his visit with a press conference in Tunis on Tuesday.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 22 January 2010. Comment

Prince Bandar disappears

Writing in the London Review Blog, Hugh Miles discusses the mystery of Prince Bandar, the head of Saudi Arabia's National Security Council who previously spent 18 years as the kingdom's ambassador to Washington. According to Miles, the last official sighting of Prince Bandar was more than two years ago.

"In the absence of any official news about his health or whereabouts, the rumour mill has been working overtime," Miles writes. "As is often the case with Saudi affairs, the truth is elusive. Those who know won’t talk and those who don’t know talk a lot."

In August, the Iranian Press TV said he was under house arrest following a conspiracy against the king, and opposition sources in the kingdom now say he is in Dhaban Prison, Jeddah. Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing Press TV and the opposition would be expected to say.

A reader's comment posted under the Miles blog, on the other hand, says Bandar has been at his home in Aspen, Colorado, for the last three weeks.

The truth is indeed elusive. There are clearly some issues between the prince and the king but so far we can only guess as to what they might be.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 21 January 2010. Comment

US senate discusses Yemen

On Wednesday the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a session about Yemen and the transcripts are now online.

Overall, I think the committee got a pretty good picture of the "Yemen problem" – a valuable antidote to some of the rubbish that is being churned out in the American media.

The peril of focusing too much on al-Qaeda at the expense of other issues does seem to be sinking in. Most of those giving testimony, in their various ways, suggested a more holistic approach – something I have been advocating myself (here and 
here), as has Chatham House in London.

Barbara Bodine, former US ambassador to Yemen (and Iraq) told the committee: "Yemen is not Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia … it’s Yemen" and made some interesting points about why it is not (at least, currently) a failed state:

• Yemen lacks the sectarian divides that exploded in Iraq. 

• Yemen lacks the ethnic/linguistic cleavages of Afghanistan.

• Yemen lacks the tradition of clan violence found in Somalia or of warlords in Afghanistan. [Up to a point, Your Excellency]

• Yemen is politically more developed than Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University, and co-author of the Waq al-Waq blog gave a more gloomy assessment. His lengthy presentation went into detail about the rarely-discussed rivalries within the ruling elite, the history of al-Qaeda in Yemen and the background to the Houthi conflict (one of the best explanations of it that I have seen).

Emile Nakhleh, formerly of the CIA, addressed the situation from a security perspective but emphasised that "we should not lose sight of the social factors that drive radicalism and of the regional context of Yemen". He called for an "full array" of methods to be employed, "smartly, selectively, and consistently".

Frederick Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, the leading neocon thinktank, re-presented his recent Wall Street Journal article advocating US support for the Yemeni government against the Houthi rebels. I can guess where he's coming from (Houthi=Shia=Iran) but if you read Johnsen's testimony on the Houthis you'll see why the whole idea is so utterly barmy.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 21 January 2010. Comment

Riot in Saudi women's prison

Four inmates and several staff were injured when a riot broke out at a women's prison in the holy city of Mecca last Friday. Predictably, the head of social affairs in Mecca described it as a “mutiny” and threatened harsh action against the instigators.

A few years ago, that would probably have been the last anyone heard of the matter. But Saudi Arabia is changing, as was seen last month by the public outcry over the authorities' mishandling of the Jeddah floods. When things go wrong, Saudis are beginning to demand accountability.

No fewer than four government departments are now investigating the background to the prison riot, the kingdom’s National Society of Human Rights has become involved, and the Saudi Gazette has kept up a barrage of reports on the affair for three days running (here, here and here). The paper even has quotes from some of the inmates:

They said that they had no choice but to protest because of the alleged abuse they suffered at the hands of the guards and prison officials.

From inside the facility, the women talked about their ordeal. 
They said they were beaten up, often went hungry and had to bear the agony of solitary confinement.

They said that most of them suffered from psychiatric illnesses and were under treatment at psychiatric clinics in Makkah. Others were under observation because of the alleged maltreatment.

The female inmates said that they were happy that the riots took place because it revealed what was hidden from the media and society.

It appears that the social affairs ministry failed to act upon recommendations made two years ago for improving services at the prison, which houses 65 women and is politely known as a "correctional facility".

The Saudi Gazette also alleges an attempted cover-up following the riot, with the hiding of prison files and the sudden transfer of several prisoners.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 20 January 2010. Comment

Two hours to save Yemen

The international conference on Yemen, due to be held in London on January 27, is expected to last only a couple of hours, Ivan Lewis, the Foreign Office minister responsible for the Middle East told parliament yesterday. 

This does sound rather a short amount of time to spend on saving the country from disaster. Hopefully much of the groundwork will have been done in advance, but I'm not too sure about that since the minister added that Britain is still "in the process of discussing participation and the agenda with key international partners".

Lewis also said:

Yemen continues to face economic crisis and state failure. Any worsening of the instability, terrorist activity and poverty already present in Yemen will have a detrimental effect on security-within Yemen and in the region.

The UK strategy is to tackle the core social, political and economic causes of these problems, in co-operation with the international community. The meeting in London on 27 January 2010 is part of our wider strategy towards Yemen, which aims to work with the international community to support the efforts of the Yemeni government to address the fundamental problems they are facing.

The reference to tackling "the core social, political and economic causes" of Yemen's problems is encouraging, however. It suggests that Britain is not accepting Yemen's demand for a more limited agenda focusing on counterterrorism and economic aid, or demands from sections of the American media to focus mainly on fighting al-Qaeda.

A holistic approach to the Yemen problem is absolutely vital, as I argue in an article for Comment Is Free today.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 19 January 2010. Comment

Arrested for insulting Mubarak

A 22-year-old Jordanian man has been arrested for uttering "an insult against an Arab head of state". The head of state in question was Hosni Mubarak and the incident occurred outside the Egyptian embassy in Amman during a demonstration protesting against he construction of the border wall between Egypt and Gaza.

The man will reportedly remain in jail for two weeks while investigations into the case are completed.

There seems to be some kind of reciprocal arrangement among Arab countries not to let each other's heads of state be insulted, though as far as I'm aware it's OK to insult non-Arab heads of state as much as you like.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 19 January 2010. Comment

Saudi man, 80, weds girl aged 12

As Saudi Arabia moves to set a minimum age for females to marry, the Jeddah-based Arab News reports that and 80-year-old man in Buraidah has married a 12-year-old girl.

The child's mother, who is divorced from the father, is seeking to have the marriage annulled.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 19 January 2010. Comment

Why were they arrested?

The US State Department has criticised the arrest of a group of activists and bloggers in Egypt who attempted to visit the town of Naga Hammadi and offer condolences over the killing of six Christians and a Muslim security guard. It said in a statement issued on Saturday:

The United States is deeply concerned by today’s arrests of individuals travelling to the Egyptian town of Naga Hammadi to express support for those tragically killed and injured during Coptic Christmas celebrations on January 7. According to publicly available evidence, those arrested included bloggers, democracy and religious freedom advocates.

We call on the Government of Egypt to uphold the rights of all to peacefully express their political views and desires for universal freedoms and to ensure due process for those detained.

The group have since been released but the question remains: why were they arrested in the first place? The Bikya Masr website points out that they were by no means the only ones to offer condolences:

Over the following week [after the shootings], representatives of reputable religious institutions such as the Sheikh of al-Azhar and Minister of Awqaf; TV and Cinema stars; respectable public figures, and government officials travelled to Nag Hammadi to console the families of the victims and help in cooling down the anger of the Coptic community there. Bloggers, civil rights and political young activists wanted to do something too.

Possibly the explanation is that while official visits by dignitaries are OK, the authorities don't want independent initiatives of this kind by ordinary citizens. 

The Kashf blog has some photos taken on a mobile phone by Amira el-Tahawi, one of the activists, while she was in detention.

Meanwhile, blogger Zeinobia – who has been sceptical of reports that the shootings were a reprisal for the rape of a Muslim girl – 
refers to a claim that the attackers had been demanding money from the church as part of a protection racket.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 18 January 2010. Comment

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