A call for prosecuting Lebanon's War Criminals

An article in a leading Lebanese Daily has called for the prosecution of the country's war criminals, many of whom are politicians. The article cited two tools for this purpose. First, the use of universal jurisdiction, as in the  cases of the Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 and the cases of Israeli military/political officials who are usually fearful of visiting Europe.
Lebanese warlords, turned politicians, have second homes and fat bank accounts in Europe, the article says, and could be prosecuted abroad for crimes of torture, in the absence of local justice due to an amnesty law and immense political influence.

Read More

Report: Egyptian Parliament discusses law to allow husbands "goodbye intercourse" following death

An Egyptian columnist caused an uproar in his country after he alleged that the Islamist-dominated Parliament is discussing a law to allow husbands "goodbye intercourse" during the 6 hours following death. According to the Al-Ahram columnist, the Parliament is also discussing a law allowing women to marry at 14. There has been no independent confirmation of these discussions in parliament, and considering Al-Ahram's reputation, it remains a possibility that the information is false.

(Egypt's parliament was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Annour Salafist party following the last legislative elections)

Read More

Saudi Arabia crucifies a Sudanese Resident

The Saudi government has crucified a Sudanese resident after convicting him with rape and murder. Here is the video (warning, it is graphic):

Abdul Rahman Zeinul Abedeen broke into the Saudi woman's house in Riyadh, where he killed and raped her, before stealing the house, and trying to set it on fire.

Read More

Iran plays a crucial support role in Syria’s repression

The Arab Digest can reveal from separate sources that the Iranian regime is involved in coordinating the Syrian regime’s repression machine. Iranian sources told an undercover Arab Digest reporter that they have deployed heavy artillery and played a crucial logistical support role in the Homs offensive which resulted in hundreds of deaths, especially among civilians.

The source said that the Iranian military provided the Syrian counterpart with training, concluding that Syria’s army “is corrupt, un-organised, lacks seriousness and would lose quickly in any external confrontation”. “The Iranian regime decided to take things into their own hands, providing the training and weaponry. We even had to send the Turks a message last December when we blew up an oil pipeline during cold Winter. It was considered publicly an accident, but it wasn’t”. 

Read More

Lebanese Police rape a Bangladeshi Maid in Prison!

After running away from her former employers, a Bangladeshi maid went through hell in her Lebanese Prison Cell. According to this report from Al-Akhbar newspaper. The maid, who was unnamed for legal reasons, was raped by a Lebanese policeman on the eve of the last Valentine's day. The report said that the Lebanese judge wanted to release the charged policeman, but refrained from doing so due to objections from concerned citizens. The disturbing news comes after an abused Ethiopian maid committed suicide; her abuse had been recorded on video, and broadcasted by a local TV channel.

Read More

Syria's Mandella accepts Annan Plan

Riyad Al-Turk, known as Syria's Mandella accepted Annan's Plan, according to statement published by AFP.
Al-Turk, an SNC member, who spent many years in Assads prisons, and is now in hiding inside Syria, has said that his acceptance of the plan stems from his national responsibility as a representative of Syrian Opposition inside Syria (thus making a distinction with the adamant opposition in exile).

Al-Turk, 81, spent 18 years in Syrian prisons, from 1980 till 1998, under terrible conditions. He was tortured, and lived many years of solitary confinement. Ali Atassi, a Syrian film-maker, made a film, Ibn el-Am, about Al-Turk's life and prison years. He is widely respected, and known as "Syria's Mandella".

Here is the statement translated by NOW LEBANON:

Syrian opposition figure Riyad Turk urged on Tuesday support for Kofi Annan's peace plan as he called for a national dialogue in Syria, but insisted that President Bashar al-Assad must first step down.

The "need to put an end to the cycle of killings and massacres... urges us to accept Kofi Annan's plan," said Turk, a member of the Syrian National Council, whose leaders have not yet given a clear stance on the UN-Arab League envoy's peace proposal.

Annan on Monday told the UN Security Council that Assad had accepted an April 10 deadline to start implementing his peace plan calling for an end to violence.

"A political solution... must first and foremost start with the president giving up power, and launching a national dialogue that does not exclude any political component of the Syrian people, including regime members whose hands were not stained by blood," Turk said in a statement to AFP.

Turk, 82, and nicknamed "Mandela of Syria", said that "by this, we are placing the international community in front of their responsibilities to protect" the people in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 10,000 people have been killed since the anti-Assad uprising began in mid-March last year. The United Nations puts the toll at more than 9,000.

A dialogue will finally lead to "an independent transitional government that will transform the country over a defined timeframe into a national democratic system through electing a constituent assembly, under Arab and international supervision, that will elect a [new] president," said Turk.

Turk, who now lives in hiding in Syria, was jailed for more than 17 years by late president Hafez al-Assad, father of the current leader who also put him behind bars.

He is a prominent member of the Damascus Declaration coalition of opposition activists formed in 2005.

Read More

Why I became a Saudi Dissident?

By Dr. Walid Amin Ruwayha

Today, I, a 73 years old Saudi, retired in Paris.

I would like to present a short historical introduction into how and why I became a Saudi dissident.

I firmly believe that if the late King Abdul Aziz bin-Saud was alive today, he would have been, unequivocally, an ardent Muslim Arab-nationalist dissident and most probably imprisoned. But why?

The Yalta Conference was held on February 4–11, 1945. The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of war-torn European nations. The bottom-line was: “….the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live - the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived to them by the aggressor nations …”

Abdul Aziz, as my late father Dr. Amin Ruwayha used to call him, was able to impose his presence at the Yalta Conference. Although he represented a newly born, fragile and poor Bedouin country, he met the winners of World War II: The U.S. represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S.S.R. represented by the General Secretary and the United Kingdom represented by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

However, Abdul-Aziz, the courageous revolutionary Bedouin Muslim Arab-nationalist warrior, did not permit that his kingdom becomes a colony, whether directly or indirectly, by any foreign power. Nor did Abdul Aziz encourage foreigners (USA, USSR or UK) to gain a foothold in his Kingdom.

In order to accomplish this, Abdul-Aziz was assisted by different, ardent, other Muslim Arab-nationalist revolutionaries including my father. Together, they fought, endured, were jailed and died in order to create and crystallize the Muslim Arab-nationalist Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, based on the Islamic “Sharia”.

At the same time, Abdul-Aziz defended and protected Arab nationalists who were mostly Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians and Egyptians. Together, they fought imperialist France and U.K., in Syria, Iraq and in Palestine.

According to the ‘British Foreign Ministry Secret Documents: For Your Eyes Only’, my father was arrested in Palestine, on the 18^th of November, 1938, by British forces. The British Foreign Office Document N° 233, Reference N °. 0F/505/57, sent by the High Commissioner for Palestine, Jerusalem, on 18^th November, 1939, and N°. 163 (2835/478/21) Jeddah, December 19, 1939, says: «On his arrival at Lydda airport on the 10^thNovember, 1939, Dr. RUWEIHA was apprehended on my instructions and was placed in detention …. His passport which bore the number 155 was issued on the 8^th February, 1939, by the Saudi Arabian Consul in Baghdad and is valid until 1940 ….. His attitude towards us is well known and his many contacts throughout the Arab world would enable him to do considerable mischief…. Ibn Saud seeks as a favor to him if some way of releasing RUWEIHA can de found … Am transmitting King’s request to proper authorities but fear they are unlikely to release RUWEIHA who is regarded to be dangerous“.

My kidnapped father was “placed in detention” as the British said, for seven years in Rhodesia-South Africa. He was a political prisoner, cruelly mistreated, never charged nor given the chance to stand trial. He had a piece of British democracy!

In reference to the above, I wrote in 1990, my Ph.D. thesis “Terrorism and Hostage Taking in the Middle East”.

Unfortunately, today in Abdul-Aziz’s Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, exactly the contrary is taking place. But why?

I was born on July 27^th, 1938, in Baghdad, Iraq. On September 10^th, 1938, my father obtained the following document: “Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Royal Legation of Saudi, Arabia – Baghdad. N°. 998, 15 Rajab 1357, 10 September 1938 (Walid, son of Dr. Amin Bek RUWEIHA). The above mentioned child is a citizen of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This certificate has been given to him as an official statement thereof. The Charge d’Affaires & Consul General. Signature and seal”.

24 years later, I was deprived from my Saudi Passport.

I was a diligent student at the University of Bonn/Germany, preparing my Masters Exams and Vice-President of the ‘Arab Students Association in Germany.’ I was invited to attend an ‘International Arab Students Conference’ in Cairo/Egypt.

At the time, the Saudi Charge d’affairs was Mr. Hassan AL-Shawwaf; we studied together at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania/USA.

I informed Mr. AL-Shawwaf that I intended to participate. Years later, I found out that he wrote a ‘report’ about my Arab-nationalist political convictions and activities. His report put me on the path of becoming a Saudi ‘dissident.’

After attending the Conference, I flew back to Germany. My ‘friend’, Mr. AL-Shawwaf, got in touch to tell me that he received strict instructions from the Saudi Foreign Ministry not to renew my passport and to contact the German Government, asking them to deport me to Saudi Arabia; I was accused of “high treason”. He added: “As a ‘friend’ I advise you to go back to Egypt before you are arrested.”

I flew back to Egypt and, from there, accompanied by my father; we went to Iraq where I obtained an Iraqi Passport that permitted me to return to Germany and graduate, earning a Master’s Degree with distinction.

After being unjustly deprived of my Saudi Passport and charged with “high treason”, my name and that of my elder brother Faysal were removed from the Saudi student’s scholarship-list. My father was also punished; he stopped receiving his monthly retirement dues. A taste of Post-Abdel Aziz’s Saudi Arabia!

(Video: a Saudi Prince throwing money at a singer; Saudi activists have been protesting of high unemployment rates, bad infrastructure and corruption despite high oil revenues)

It must be mentioned that also in 1962, the Saudi Prince Talal bin Abdel Aziz and his four brothers, became known as the “Free Princes”. After handing in their Saudi Passports, they flew to Egypt and met the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Today, in most Arab countries, if not in all of them, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Arab-nationalists who refuse and resist any foreign occupation or presence in any Arab or Muslim country, are labeled and designated as the “enemy”; they could even be accused of being dangerous “terrorists”. Please bear in mind that some of these ‘Muslim’ regimes have even recognized the so-called state of “Israel”.

Shifting gears to modern times, what you will be gaining knowledge below was communicated totally by me, during an hour’s meeting on Thursday, 02/02/2012, to the Saudi Arabian Military attaché in France General Abdullah Al Suhaibani.

Read More