SYRIA: Anti-government activist describes life in Baniyas

Ahmad, a Syrian university student and pro-democracy demonstrator, is optimistic that the regime of President Bashar Assad cannot sustain its ferocious crackdown on protesters for much longer.

“Perhaps one or two months,” he told Babylon & Beyond in an interview in neighboring Lebanon, where he recently arrived with the help of smugglers. “The international sanctions are hitting and the internal situation is very bad. In my area and in other places people are not paying their electricity and water bills anymore -- let alone taxes -- because they started to despise the regime. People are only buying food and necessities."

Ahmad, who did not want to give his last name, is from Baniyas, the Syrian coastal city that became a protest hub before coming under siege by the Syrian army and security forces in May. Large protests haven't been reported there since.

Ahmad says he participated in protests from the start and became involved in a Syrian activist group that documents the uprising against Assad. He often spoke to Arab and international media, including the Los Angeles Times, about the situation on the ground during the upheavals. It didn't take long before his name ended up on the Syrian authorities’ black list of activists.

"They started listening to my phone from the beginning. My family had to flee the city and I haven’t seen them in six months. I can’t talk to them. I have a friend in Damascus whom I spoke to once on the phone. They took him and held him for two months."

Before the army and security forces started cracking down on demonstrators months ago, Ahmad said,  protesters did not call for the downfall of the regime. In the first week, protesters complained about sporadic and expensive electricity and wanted a corrupt local government official fired, he said. Then demonstrators called for prisoners to be freed.

The violence had not begun yet but security forces were trying to impose an economic siege as protests gained strength in Baniyas; the forces banned the entrance of various goods and necessities into the city, according to Ahmad's account. Then phones and electricity were cut late one night, prompting residents to fear that something bad was coming.

Ahmad recalls groups of people standing in the city streets that night, nervously talking to each other.

ISRAEL: Google Street View coming to Jerusalem and elsewhere

Israel is the next country to allow Google Street View to map its roadways, although not without concerns. Even before the funny-looking vehicles hit the streets of Israel, they've been in for a bumpy ride. Since being approached about a year ago, Israeli authorities mulled over the various defense, legal and privacy issues, and even opened the topic to public discussion on an open government platform.

Since launching the service in 2007, Google Street View has stirred controversy, mostly over privacy concerns, as the service recorded people's faces, license plates and captured them in compromising situations. After the service was found to collect personal data while mapping out wireless networks, Google was forced to apologize, saying it was a mistake. A number of countries have imposed conditions for continuing running the project, and last year Israel was among 10 governments that sent Google a letter demanding better enforcement of privacy regulations.

Even without being caught with their pants down, many resent the potential invasion of their privacy, although they probably enjoy the many practical aspects of the service that has put the world at everyone's fingertips. When the subject came up, a blog titled "The big invasion of your privacy has begun" offered Israelis tips on how to handle the "threat," including mooning cameras (as done in Germany) and harpooning a vehicle (as in Norway).

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem -- reportedly the first city to be photographed and mapped -- are likely to do neither, of course, although the sometimes-insular community that often protects itself fiercely from prying eyes is not going to like going global and might put up a fight, according to local media.

In the past, Israel has voiced security concerns as secret bases and other sensitive installations were brought out of the shadows, thanks to Google Earth. A few years ago, military experts complained that the service compromised top-secret sites with images that were a boon to terrorists. Other experts dismissed this, saying the images were neither real-time, not otherwise unobtainable, or posed no genuine threat.

Being "outed" by technology is a two-way street. Last year, reports claimed Google Earth revealed a denied Scud missile cache, the subject of potentially dangerous regional tensions. Satellite imgaery of Israel is restricted and intentionally downgraded in resolution by American-based commercial satellite companies, in compliance with the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act from the late 1990s. Russia, too, degrades its imagery of Israel.

Israel's approval comes with conditions. The Justice Ministry's Law, Information and Technology authority gave its consent on a number of terms, including advance publishing of the route the cameras will take when photographing public places and providing a mechanism for people to ask their faces, license plates and homes to be blurred after uploading if this isn't done automatically. There are also legal conditions obliging adherence to Israeli law in case of legal proceedings.

While apprehension continues regarding risks to security and privacy, some see this as an opportunity. Political activists plan to use the service to promote demonstrations against the occupation, according to a news report that says a Facebook group will work on coordinating the demonstrations with the vehicles' routes, which Google promised to make known in advance.

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem.

Photo: Google Maps camera car in California in 2010. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

SYRIA: Cartoonist beaten, Human Rights Watch disputes Assad pledge

Activists say killings and arrests are continuing across Syria despite President Bashar Assad's pledge last week to end military operations against protest strongholds.

At least 12 people were killed across the country between Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a network of Syrian opposition activists. Additionally, Syria's army conducted raids on Thursday in the town of Bokamal on the Iraq border, activists said.

In the capital, Damascus, attackers abducted and beat a prominent Syrian cartoonist, who was found bleeding along the city's airport road. A photo released by activists after the attack showed cartoonist Ali Ferzat, 60, in a hospital bed, with his head and both hands swathed in bandages.

Activists blamed government security forces and pro-regime men known as shabiha.

The cartoonist, one of the best-known in the Middle East, had become increasingly critical of the Syrian regime and had begun addressing the uprising against Assad in his drawings. One of his recent cartoons depicts Assad painting railway tracks to escape from a train approaching him at fast pace.

Several Facebook groups sprang up Thursday in solidarity with the artist.

Also Thursday, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch released a new report on Syria called "Setting the Record Straight.'' The report challenges the Syrian regime's accounts of the current state of the crackdown.

The organization sought to debunk the impression that the Syrian authorities have ended the military crackdown since Aug. 17, when Assad pledged to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon that "military and policing operations had stopped.”

The report claimed that at least 49 people have been killed in operations across Syria since that phone call.

"That same day, and in the days that followed, Syrian forces attacked peaceful protesters in Homs, Latakia, towns in the governorate of Daraa, and suburbs of Damascus," said the report. "On August 19 alone, 31 protesters were killed by Syrian security forces, including 3 children, according to local activists."

The report also explored the "myth" that Syrian troops need to use lethal force to put down armed groups, saying that only a small number of demonstrators have used force and that there is no real organized armed opposition.

The Syrian government has insisted throughout the uprising against Assad, now in its fifth month, that it is fighting obscure armed groups.

A report by Syria's state-run SANA news agency alleged that seven members of the army were killed in ambushes by "armed terrorist groups" in areas near Homs on Wednesday.

The Syrian government says hundreds of army and security personnel have been killed by armed gangs over the last months. Human Rights Watch says "there are credible accounts" that those Syrian troops were killed by other members of the security forces.

"Security force members who defected have told Human Rights Watch of cases in which soldiers who defected or refused to take up arms were shot by officers, for example. The Syrian government has not published a list of dead security forces, while anti-government activists have compiled a list of 394 security members killed," said the report.

-- Alexandra Sandels in Beirut

Photo: Prominent Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat at his Damascus gallery. Activists say he was kidnapped, beaten up, and dumped on a road by Syrian security forces on Thursday. Credit: Khaled Hariri / Reuters

 

 

SYRIA: Troops caught on camera behaving very badly [Video]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disturbing new footage showing uniformed soldiers beating, kicking, and humilitating what appear to be detainees have emerged on the Internet and gone viral on pan-Arab TV stations in the last few days.

One of the clips, posted below, shows a group of handcuffed, shirtless men being punched and kicked by men in camouflage uniforms -- some of whom are seen recording video of the abuse with their own mobile phones (warning: violent images).

The men are sitting in the middle of a dusty road in what looks like a makeshift military camp. Tanks and a fluttering Syrian flag can be seen at a distance away.

TUNISIA: Court sentences 25 relatives of Ben Ali and his wife to prison

When the 23-year reign of ex-Tunisian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali crumbled this year after nationwide popular protests that forced him into exile on Jan. 14, dozens of his relatives and those of his wife, Leila Trabelsi, rushed to the Tunis airport on the same night to try to flee the country--allegedly with pockets stashed with cash and jewels.

Most of them didn't get far though, partly because one pilot is said to have refused to take off after he found out that members of the group were among the passengers.

Their escape plan had apparently also been foiled by the Tunisian police. Earlier this week, a Tunisian police colonel claimed he and a group of police officers caught 22 of the group on a bus driving them to a private plane on the airport tarmac, reported Agence-France Presse.

Ben Ali and Trabelsi managed to leave, however, and were granted refuge in Saudi Arabia.

On Friday, a Tunis court sentenced 25 relatives of Ben Ali and his wife to prison terms in the so-called "Tunis-Carthage Airport Case" with jail sentences ranging from a couple of months to six years and fines totaling 200 million Tunisian dinars ($140 million) for illegally trying to escape the country with money and jewelry, according to the official Tunisian news agency TAP.

SYRIA: Video shows armed pro-regime enforcers attacking demonstrators

Dramatic and disturbing video footage from Friday's anti-government protests in Syria against President Bashar Assad, in which Syrian activists say at least 22 people were killed, has emerged on the Internet.

In the clip below, purportedly filmed at a small protest in the southern town of Dara on Friday, a group of people is standing on a road as loud sounds of crackling gunfire are audible in the background.

As the sound of the gunfire intensifies, one young man suddenly falls to ground, apparently hit by a bullet from Assad troops. "He's injured," the cameraman screams as the men in the street hurry to move the wounded person on the ground, apparently bleeding from his head, into safety behind a wall. Then they put him on a motorcycle parked nearby and drive him away.

 

LEBANON: Court releases names and pictures of Hariri's alleged killers

 The United Nations-backed international tribunal set up to bring to justice those responsible for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and others on Friday published the identities, photographs, and background information of four suspects named in the indictment, issued on June 28.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon splashed photographs and detailed information on its website about the personal history of the four suspects -- identified as Salim Jamil Ayyash, Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra.

The men range in age from 36 to 50. The published information includes the names of their parents, their passport and social security numbers, and their last known addresses.

SYRIA: Mass arrests reported ahead of Friday prayers

Troops and militiamen loyal to Syrian leader Bashar Assad appear to be stepping up military operations and mass arrests in a crackdown on anti-regime protesters ahead of Friday prayers, dubbed a day of national unity by organizers.

Syrian activists said Thursday that Assad's troops were shelling neighborhoods in the central city of Homs -- an area where dozens of people reportedly have been killed over the last week-- and that snipers were firing from rooftops.

"The dead and injured inside the houses can still not be reached due to shelling and snipers opening fire on any moving object on the streets," said an activist network, the Local Coordination Committees in Syria.

Mass arrests were also reported in certain neighborhoods of Homs as detentions across the country appear to have intensified.

According to U.S.-based watchdog Human Rights Watch, more than 2,000 people have been arrested in Syria during the past month. They included demonstrators, medical workers who have treated injured protesters, and individuals who allegedly have disseminated information to media organizations, according to new research published by the organization Wednesday.

In total, about 15,000 detainees linked to the four-month-long uprising are in Syrian jails, a representative from the coordination committees told Babylon & Beyond. Tens of thousands more, added the spokesman, have been temporarily detained in the uprising against Assad that began in mid-March.

LEBANON: Seven Estonian hostages freed after nearly four months in captivity

A case that for months was shrouded in mystery has finally come to an end.

After nearly four months in captivity, seven Estonian cyclists abducted by a group of gunmen as they entered Lebanon from Syria where they had done a bicycle tour were freed in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley on Thursday.

The Estonian foreign ministry said in a statement that the men were all in "good health" and that they were being looked after at the French embassy in Beirut.

Their release, the statement says, came as a result of cooperation by Estonia, Lebanon and others.

SYRIA: New images said to show regime enforcers firing at demonstrators from close range [Video]

Militiamen loyal to the Syrian regime were out in force during Friday's protests against President Bashar Assad's rule in the Damascus district of Midan, some of them firing at protesters from close range according to the clip below, posted to the Internet.

"This is what the security is doing," a narrator says as bands of what appear to be pro-regime elements are seen running down what the narrator says is Corniche Street in Midan.

One of the men, wielding a gun and what looks to be a pair of sticks, points his pistol at what appears to be a demonstrator who is trying to back up, and fires a shot. "God is great," the narrator repeats as the scene unfolds.

 

 -- Los Angeles Times

Photo and video credit: YouTube

IRAN: 26 alleged U.S. intelligence operatives to be tried in absentia

Iran plans to try 26 alleged American intelligence officials in absentia, raising the possibility that it will out U.S. spies who Tehran claims attempted to recruit Iranians as part of a sophisticated intelligence-gathering operation. 

Iranian lawmaker Esmail Kowsar (pictured) said Sunday that Parliament will discuss the matter when it reconvenes.

"The plan for arresting and punishing 26 American officials will be discussed in the Parliament's open session after the parliamentary recess and following the approval of parliamentarians," he was quoted as saying Sunday by the Tabnak news agency (link in Persian).

"Those American officials will be judged in absentia by Iranian courts and will be presented to the competent international courts."

Iranian officials frequently accuse foreign spies of attempting to infiltrate the nation's institutions, periodically bringing out some political prisoner from solitary confinement to confess publicly to collaborating with the enemy.

But the level of detail in the latest alleged plot, involving employment recruitment agencies based abroad, was unusual and appeared to jibe with generally understood Western tradecraft and policy goals, which include aggressively gathering intelligence on the country's nuclear research program.

Iranian officials claim to have the handles and descriptions of the Americans they say are involved in the alleged operation.

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IRAN: Intelligence Ministry claims to arrest 30 alleged CIA spies 

-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: Esmail Kowsari. Credit: Press TV

IRAN: Detained American hikers to be tried on 2nd anniversary of their arrest

Two American hikers taken into custody in 2009 on charges of espionage for crossing into Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan are to stand trial July 31, the second anniversary of their arrest, their lawyer said Monday. 

"I've just received an official notification that says the next trial will be on July 31 in the morning, which is exactly the anniversary of their arrest in the Iran-Iraq border two years ago," Masoud Shafii, the lawyer, told Babylon & Beyond.