Bahrain shuts down exhibition on anti-government uprising

Published time: October 31, 2013 15:48

Bahraini women stand in front of an art installation at the “revolution museum” on October 28, 2013 in Manama. (AFP Photo)

Bahraini riot police have stormed a building housing an exhibition dedicated to anti-government uprising and shut down the display, which was organized by the main opposition group, on grounds it contains “incitement material” and violates the law.

The raid on the “Museum of Revolution” exhibition came on Wednesday, two days after Shiite opposition group al-Wefaq opened it in one of their offices.

The display included scenes depicting ongoing unrest in Bahrain, such as protesters killed in clashes with security forces and alleged torture inside jails, as well as samples of used riot-control munitions and used tear gas canisters.

“The General Directorate of the Capital Governorate Police has found materials inside a building that the [al-Wefaq] society had changed into a location intended to reinforce hatred. This is a violation of the penal code in Bahrain,” the Gulf Kingdom’s state news agency, BNA said on Thursday.

The public prosecutor ordered the confiscation of these materials, while the organizers of the exhibition “were summoned and legal procedures were taken against them,” the agency writes.

“The building houses a number of departments and units in addition to a museum that documents human rights violations perpetrated by the regime and as documented in the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry,” al-Wefaq said in a statement, as cited by Reuters agency.

Unrest has gripped the Persian Gulf Kingdom since February 2011 when an Arab Spring-inspired uprising, launched by majority Shiites, demanded reforms and more share in the country led by the Sunni Muslim al-Khalifa dynasty.

For about two months thousands of anti-government demonstrators had been camping at the Pearl Roundabout in the heart of Bahrain’s capital, Manama, before government forces violently dispersed protesters and dismantled the monument that stood at the center of the square.

Photos of the 2011 revolt, and, also a life-size statue of an armed police officer, and personal belongings of killed protesters were also on display at the now shut-down Bahraini exhibition.

“The theme of the museum irritated authorities as it documents many incidents since the uprising in 2011 until now,” said Al Wefaq’s lawyer, Abdullah al-Shamlawi, as cited by AP.

Despite the violent crackdown, sporadic anti-government protests have continued in Bahrain. Last week, thousands took to the streets demanding more reforms and chanting anti-government slogans.

At least 65 people have been killed since the 2011 popular uprising, though rights groups believe the death toll is higher.

According to an Amnesty International 2013 report, “scores of people remained in prison or were detained for opposing the government, including prisoners of conscience and people sentenced after unfair trials”.

The rights group said Bahrain’s security forces “continued to use excessive force against protesters, resulting in deaths, and allegedly tortured or otherwise ill-treated detainees”. At the same time, only a few security officers were “prosecuted for human rights violations committed in 2011, perpetuating a climate of impunity”.

Earlier in October, UK based rights group, Bahrain Watch, exposed an enormous tear gas tender issued by Bahrain’s Interior Ministry in June, which sought supplies of 1.6 million tear gas canisters and 145,000 stun grenades.

Bahrain, one of Washington’s key allies in the region, hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and participates in US-led military coalitions. Unlike cases in Syria or Libya, where governments also used violence against protesters, Washington has been rather restrained in its reaction to the Bahraini crisis, meeting the crackdown with words only but not actions.

RT – News

Bahrain shuts down exhibition on anti-government uprising

Yet Another Privacy Service Has Shut Down to Avoid the Feds

One of the more unsettling chilling effects of the US government’s quest to monitor everything internet users are saying online is that it puts a bullseye on the privacy services trying to protect users from exactly that.

Two of the country’s top secure email providers, Lavabit and Silent Circle, shuttered their doors shortly after Edward Snowden blew the lid off the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. Now encryption services continue to drop like flies.

The latest is CryptoSeal Privacy, a VPN service that provides a secure and private way to use the internet. The company announced it’s shutting down its consumer privacy product in order to avoid government attempts to access and monitor users’ encrypted communications.

CryptoSeal explained it must comply with subpoenas and warrants from law enforcement, and basically never anticipated this kind of intrusion from the top ranks of the US intelligence arm when the service first launched. Forced to choose between breaking the law or violating its users’ privacy, the company threw in the towel.

“Essentially, the service was created and operated under a certain understanding of current US law, and that understanding may not currently be valid,” CrytoSeal said in an announcement yesterday. “As we are a US company and comply fully with US law, but wish to protect the privacy of our users, it is impossible for us to continue offering the CryptoSeal Privacy consumer VPN product.”

Read More…

BlackListedNews.com

Yet Another Privacy Service Has Shut Down to Avoid the Feds

Holder Shakes Down JP Morgan

On the heels of IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, we have another example of the “Chicago Way” in action. The New York Post reported on Sunday:

JPMorgan Chase has tentatively agreed to pay the Department of Justice a record $ 13 billion settlement to resolve several civil probes relating to residential mortgage-backed securities – a costly deal that still doesn’t protect the bank against additional criminal prosecutions.

The settlement, revealed Saturday, would be the largest lump payout the US government has ever asked of an individual company.

“This is a basic and fundamental attack on capitalism,” declared Dick Bove, an influential bank analyst at Rafferty Capital.

“It is possible that the government is taking away the property of the JPMorgan shareholders without the shareholders having committed any crime or having any say in the expropriation of these funds.”

The shakedown was completed personally by Attorney General Eric Holder. According to newsmax.com:

The settlement deal was sealed this past Friday night in a telephone call between Attorney General Eric Holder and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

Some financial analysts argue that the shakedown was unjustified. The supposed crimes by JP Morgan resulted from portfolios of failed banks that JP Morgan had taken over at administration request. JP Morgan and Wells Fargo were the two well-managed major banks that didn’t need government help during the fall 2008 financial meltdown.

The attack on JP Morgan could be payback for things that Dimon, a former Obama favorite, said during the 2012 election season. According to newsmax.com:

Last year Dimon told Fortune magazine that “we have the royal straight flush,” suggesting that “the debt-ceiling crisis, the failure to do Simpson-Bowles, [and] what I consider the constant attack on business” by the Obama administration had stymied the recovery.

If you want to understand where this behavior comes from, read this May 17 commentary from the Chicago Tribune by John Kass (IRS scandal a reminder of how I learned about The Chicago Way). Kass reminisces about family discussions within his large Greek-American family growing up in Chicago. Here is a selection from this engaging commentary about why his family members enjoyed talking about politics but were afraid to engage in political activities:

“Are you in your good senses?” said my father. “We have lives here. We have businesses. If we get involved in politics, they will ruin us.”…

The health inspectors would come, and the revenue department, the building inspectors, the fire inspectors, on and on. The city code books aren’t thick because politicians like to write new laws and regulations. The codes are thick because when government swings them at a citizen, they hurt.

And who swings the codes and regulations at those who’d open their mouths? A government worker. That government worker owes his or her job to the political boss. And that boss has a boss….

My father had a similar experience involving freedom of the press in Chicago. In the 1930s, he and his brother published a free neighborhood newspaper. It was going well, but then, all of a sudden, its advertising dried up — turned out that the local alderman had told the businessmen that they shouldn’t advertise in his paper. Next the newsboys distributing the paper destroyed the copies. That was the end of a potential voice against the machine.

Under the Obama administration, the Federal government is taking the Chicago Way nationwide. It was tolerated when it was just imposed upon a single American city. Now it threatens America’s political and economic freedom.

The author teaches economics online. He and his father and son maintain a blog at www.idealtaxes.com and co-authored the 2008 book, Trading Away Our Future.

American Thinker Blog

Holder Shakes Down JP Morgan

AMBER ALERT WEBSITE SHUT DOWN, MICHELLE"S "LET"S MOVE" STAYS UP

Posted by  The Right Scoop on October 6th, 2013 in Politics | 38 Comments

This is unbelievable. The Obama administration has shut down the Amber Alert website because of the government shutdown and it now renders this message when you attempt to access it:

I’m sure you care about your lost child but Obama doesn’t – at least not while he’s trying to ‘win’ the government shutdown. I understand from twitter that Amber alerts are state level programs with a federal website. Not real sure how all that works but it just seems unfathomable that this website wouldn’t qualify under ‘essential’, especially when most of the government is still operating.

No, this is just Obama putting politics ahead of you finding your lost child. Despicable.

UPDATE: Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move website works just fine. Seriously. (h/t: @kesgardner)

Drudge Report Feed

AMBER ALERT WEBSITE SHUT DOWN, MICHELLE"S "LET"S MOVE" STAYS UP

Jesse Ventura to Federal Elected Officials: End the Government Shut Down and Regain Our Civil Liberties

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has started a petition on Change.org calling for an end to the government shutdown. Click HERE to sign the petition if you agree with this:

A million federal employees have been laid off since the government shut down. It costs us, the taxpayers, over 300 million dollars a day. The representatives that work for us are still getting paid, even though they’ve declared they won’t show up for work. Can you imagine walking into your job today and telling your boss that you won’t be showing up to work, but you demand your boss still pays you? How well do you think that conversation will play out?

As I’ve said many times before, every American citizen deserves free health care. It isn’t socialism; it’s the right thing to do. Even though I don’t agree with President Obama on many issues, I do know that he was re-elected because We The People, the majority, wanted the Affordable Care Act. The bill was passed. And now, it’s Congress, standing in our way. They’re holding the country hostage. Isn’t that terrorism?

If government healthcare is good enough for our military, and good enough for our representatives, and good enough for our President, then it is good enough for the rest of us too.

Don’t let Congress take away your basic right to health care. It’s inexcusable that they are getting paid to do nothing. Right now, they are getting free government health care too – also, you guessed it – for doing absolutely nothing.

If they’re not working, why should they continue to be paid? Why should we continue to send them our tax dollars? The IRS should pro-rate our taxes, so that we don’t pay a penny to them while they are holding our government and our health care hostage.

Do you know what happened in Australia a few years ago when the country’s legislature failed to make a budget? They were all fired. The Australians fired them and instituted new elections for the entire Legislature.

We need to stop voting for those who do not have our interests in mind. Stop voting for these DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans who put their political parties first, special interest groups second, and we, the American people, third.

If these elected officials want to keep their jobs, we must petition our government to make them actually do their jobs, or else vote them out of office immediately. Remember: they work for us. It’s time they remember that.

Express your anger by taking action to regain our Democracy. Add your signature to my petition.

Peace,

Governor Jesse Ventura

The post Jesse Ventura to Federal Elected Officials: End the Government Shut Down and Regain Our Civil Liberties appeared first on disinformation.

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Jesse Ventura to Federal Elected Officials: End the Government Shut Down and Regain Our Civil Liberties

Greek govt cracks down on neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, arrests leader

Published time: September 28, 2013 13:33

Supporters and members of extreme-right Golden Dawn party hold Greek national flags as they sing the national anthem outside the Greek police headquarters in Athens September 28, 2013 (Reuters / John Kolesidis)

Greek police have arrested the leader, several MPs and dozens of members of ultra-right Golden Dawn party on charges of leading a “criminal organization.” The party promised to respond with mass rallies of its supporters.

Greek police issued arrest warrants for Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos, party spokesman and MP Ilias Kassidiairis, two other prominent members, at least five other party MPs, as well as number of ordinary party members.

“The Secretary General and one lawmaker of the Golden Dawn Party were arrested a short while ago after arrest warrants were issued,” Greek police informed journalists.

Police have detained about 30 members of the ultra-right party, which won 18 seats in the Greek parliament in the June 2012 elections, having received close to 7 percent of the popular vote.

“Democracy in Greece is strong,” Justice Minister Haralambos Athanassiou said after meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias. “All those arrested will have a fair trial,” he said.

In response to the crackdown, the neo-Nazi party called on to its supporters to “resist unlawfulness.”

“We call upon everyone to support our moral and just struggle against the corrupt system,” a statement said on the party’s website.

The ultra-right party faced a public backlash after the Sept. 18 murder of 34-year-old anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, who was stabbed to death in Keratsini by George Roupakias, 45, an avowed supporter of Golden Dawn.

In the aftermath of the killing, the government signaled it would take a tough line against the neo-Nazi party.

“This government is determined not to allow the descendants of the Nazis to poison our social life, to commit crimes, terrorize and undermine the foundations of the country that gave birth to democracy,” Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said in a televised address a day after the killing.

The man who allegedly murdered the rapper confessed to the killing when detained by police, and volunteered that he had links to Golden Dawn. The party, however, denied any links to the murderer and the killing.

After the killing, an investigation revealed that sympathetic members of Greek law enforcement agencies had helped to train the Golden Dawn party’s paramilitary wing. As a result nine police officers, including two high-ranking officials, were fired while two senior police officials resigned for “personal reasons.”

The murder of the anti-fascist activist sparked mass protests nationwide as people held street protests to express their anger with the murder, clashing with police on Wednesday night.

The anti-fascist mass rallies apparently prompted the Greek government to launch a crackdown on the members of Golden Dawn, reportedly including wiretapping party members.

But Mihaloliakos and other leaders of Golden Dawn appeared to be defiant ahead of their arrest.

“We will exhaust any means within our legal constitutional rights to defend our political honor,” Mihaloliakos told reporters on Thursday.

On Friday, Golden Dawn threatened to pull its 18 MPs out of parliament in protest against the murder accusations, a move that could potentially prompt by-elections in 15 regions of the country and – if the opposition were to win those elections – it could threaten the small majority of the ruling coalition, which currently controls 155 seats in the 300-seat parliament.

A good result for the opposition could mean that the ruling coalition would become politically untenable, The Guardian reported Mihaloliakos as saying Friday.

“Golden Dawn holds a weapon in its hands to cause a political earthquake. Those in charge should bear that well in mind,” Mihaloliakos said.

Greece’s finance minister downplayed the political risks of arrests of the Golden Dawn party members.

“There is no risk of destabilization,” Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras told reporters on Saturday.

On Saturday, the ultranationalists called on their supporters to rally outside the police headquarters in Athens where their leaders were being held.

“Shame on them, the people will lift Golden Dawn higher,” Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panagiotaros told reporters shortly before his own arrest.

The Golden Dawn party has expressed open hostility toward left-wing opponents and immigrants in Greece, championing slogans such as “clean up the stench,” and “Greece for the Greeks.” They have pledged to eject all immigrants from Greece and secure Greece’s borders with landmines and armed patrols. The party has also opposed austerity measures introduced in exchange for bailout credits from the EU, IMF and European Central Bank – the so-called “Troika”. 

The arrests of Golden Dawn leaders are the largest crackdown against a political party in Greece since the fall of the neo-fascist military junta in 1974.

RT – News

Greek govt cracks down on neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, arrests leader