(update below)
Algerians that participated in a “Day of Rage” on February 12 continue to come out and protest. The news site Bikya Masr reports “Algerians pledge to continue to demonstrate until President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been removed from power.” The protesters inspired by Egypt intend to begin to engage in sit-ins that can hopefully bring the country to the brink like Egyptians brought their country to the brink and forced President Hosni Mubarak from power.
Demonstrators chant, “Bouteflika out,” but not all of them. Some just want democratic reforms. Those demonstrating have mostly been Islamists or pro-democracy activists.
They talk about the fear being gone after what unfolded in Egypt and Tunisia.
The Telegraph: Egypt’s new man at the top 'was against reform'
"The military leader charged with transforming Egypt opposed political reform because he believed that it “eroded central government power”, according to leaked US diplomatic cables."
The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables show no evidence of Iran's hand in Bahrain unrest
"US sources dismissive of Bahraini allegation, and as early as 2008 noted tensions between its Shia majority and Sunni rulers.
The United States has repeatedly dismissed claims by the Bahraini government that Shia Muslim unrest in the Gulf island state is backed by Iran."
El País: Guatemala, un país controlado en un 60% por el narcotráfico, según el fiscal Castresana (60% of Guatemala is controlled by drug sales, according with the attorney Castresana)
Tal al-Mallouhi was arrested in Syria in December 2009, and yesterday, at 20 years old, was sentenced to five years in prison for spying, an action condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists. She had written blog articles saying she wished to play a role in shaping the future of Syria, and asking US president Barack Obama to do more to support Palestine. She was charged with "revealing information that should remain hushed to a foreign country". An official told Al Jazeera she "deserved 15 years in prison but her sentence was commuted considering her age".
PJ Crowley, of the US state department, "sharply criticized" Syria's handling of this case. Obama recently interfered in a similar case in Yemen, that time demanding that a Yemeni journalist remain in prison for reporting the truth about a US attack in Yemen that killed 55 civilians.
Saudi Arabian Mufti Sheikh Yusof al-Ahmad warned that Saudi Arabia could also face a revolution unless steps are taken to fight widespread unemployment and poverty. He criticized government spending as wasteful and called for supervision over public spending. In particular, he criticized a recent USD 29.8 billion spent on King Abdullah University. The unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia is 10.5% (official) or as much as 20% (unofficial) and parliament recently announced that 22% of the population live below the poverty line.
WL Central has already reported one Saudi Arabian protest in an article on February 2 and another reported on February 13 along with a protest scheduled for February 18.
Yemen protests started in mid January with a self immolation and the arrest and release of Yemeni activist Tawakel Karman, and they have not really stopped since. A Day of Rage was organized for February 3 but tens of thousands were in the streets on January 27 as well as many smaller protests, throughout the time period. The last five days have seen a huge increase in the numbers in the streets, as well as the violence directed at them. According to Human Rights Watch, president Ali Abdallah Saleh’s security forces have attacked demonstrators, activists, lawyers, and journalists in Yemen capital city Sanaa without justification. An estimated 3000 people protested from Sana'a University, clashing with police and pro-Saleh demonstators using batons, rocks, and occasionally knives. Today in Taiz, over 2500 people are refusing to leave and are forming committees and buying tents to continue occupying their protests grounds.
The videos below show the current size and emotion of some of the protests.
January 27, 2011
Despite all search engines showing nothing but football for news in Cameroon, Twitter insists they are having a revolution, beginning with protests on February 23. The hashtags are being used, but there is very little under them. The Cameroon Tribune reports “Thousands of youths last Thursday, February 10 marched in the streets of Yaounde to demonstrate their patriotism and commitment to preserve peace, stability and development in Cameroon. The march in support of President Paul Biya and the institution he incarnates was in reaction to the wind of violence and destabilisation of State institutions blowing across some African countries.”
For those in countries that are working to topple brutal and oppressive regimes, there is a power that WikiLeaks cables have, one that can be tremendously beneficial. Cables from Tunisia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Algeria, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia all illuminate why the people of those countries would rise up against their governments. They compel people to acknowledge the magnitude of abuses and suffering that the people have been experiencing under autocratic regimes.
The planned “Day of Rage” protests being met with security forces and violence in Algeria, Iran and Yemen can be further understood thanks to the cables. The clashes in Bahrain and the brewing unrest in Syria can be illuminated because of the analysis from US diplomats in the cables. And, what continues to unfold in Egypt and Tunisia and inspire people in countries like Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Libya, whose people intend to hold their own “Day of Rage” on February 17.
At the final day of the extradition hearing on 11th February 2011 SC Montgomery from the Crown Prosecution Service, acting for the Swedish prosecution authorities, made what this writer considers to be some extraordinary submissions. One of them was directed personally at Robertson and was simply unacceptable, if, and I believe it to be so, that the tweeter @federicacocco correctly recorded it:
Robertson SC has every right to report her to the Bar Council of England and Wales. It was uncalled for and unhelpful to the case and one can’t help thinking of automatic adverse inferences on both counsel and his client, the respondent/defendant Julian Assange which would have been aggravated if there had been a jury involved.
Perhaps I’m wrong and the English bar allows practitioners to insult each other at the bar table in such fashion but I rather doubt it.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned and is said to be in a coma or "psychologically devastated". His appointed replacement, Omar Suleiman, is nowhere to be found and the Egyptian army has taken over. There has been wild celebration in the streets of Cairo but there is good reason to think that all is not well and the danger is far from over. Thanks to the reporting of Robert Fisk, we now have the information upon which to arrive at the terrible conclusion of the title. Senior Egyptian army officers, the very ones that are exercising a military dictatorship now, where quite willing only two weeks ago, to carry out a wholesale slaughter of the thousands of protesters in Liberation Square.
Renewed Items
On February 14, the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives had an opportunity to reject or approve an extension of governmental authority to use surveillance methods deemed permissible under the current Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act (pdf) and the USA Patriot Act, whose stated goal is "to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and other purposes," including:
Wikileaks has released the following in response to the Wikileaks Twitter case covered by WL Central here, here and here.
WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE
Mon Feb 14 18:28:37 2011 GMT
Tomorrow (Tuesday morning), a federal magistrates court in Virginia's national security heartland will be the scene of the first round in the US government's legal battle against Julian Assange. The US Attorney-General has brought an action against Twitter, demanding that it disclose the names, dates and locations of all persons who have used its services to receive messages from Wikileaks or Mr Assange. It is understood that Twitter will resist the order, so as to protect the privacy of its customers.
Assange said today "This is an outrageous attack by the Obama administration on the privacy and free speech rights of Twitter's customers - many of them American citizens. More shocking, at this time, is that it amounts to an attack on the right to freedom of association, a freedom that the people of Tunisia and Egypt, for example, spurred on by the information released by Wikileaks, have found so valuable".
On December 14, 2010, the US Department of Justice obtained an Order requiring Twitter turn over records of all communications between Wikileaks and its followers. This Order was acquired through the use of the "Patriot Act", which establishes procedures whereby the Government can acquire information about users of electronic communication networks without a Search Warrant, without Probable Cause, without particularizing the records that relate to a proper investigatory objective—and with without any public scrutiny. The basis for the Order remains sealed and secret.
Abdulmunir Mohammed from Mosul, a married man with four children, died yesterday after setting himself on fire in what is being reported as a continuation of Iraqi protests against unemployment. Today several hundred Iraqis held a Valentine's Day demonstration at Baghdad's Tahrir Square to call on their leaders to love Iraq rather than rob its resources, an organiser, Karnas Ali, a young engineer told AFP. "We do not want Valentine's Day to be only one day of love but a celebration for reform, democracy, citizenship and freedom."
On February 11 hundreds of lawyers marched in the streets of Baghdad, Karbala, Kut, Ramadi and Amara to protest corruption and unemployment, and call for open scrutiny of secret prisons and access to legal advice for prisoners. On the 10th, an anti corruption official had made a statement saying that ministerial coverup of corruption was frequent. Around 500 people marched in Baghdad that day. Media representatives had already marched in protest against high usage fees.
In an Al Jazeera video on February 9 (below) a government official states, "We know the suffering of the citizens. But we cannot deal with that by a decree. Electricity cannot come back by a ruling from the minister's cabinet saying tomorrow electricity should be running 24 hours a day." However, the government did just that on Saturday the 12th, promising Iraqi citizens their first 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month free of charge, courtesy of the Ministry of Electricity. In October the government had doubled the price of electicity. The government has promised to increase power imports from Iran and they are also talking with Syria and Turkey and planning to improve their own electrical output.
The Guardian: Egyptian military head is 'old and resistant to change'
"US ambassador to Cairo gives his opinion on Muhammad Tantawi and number two general, Sami Enan.
Nothing Egypt's military council has done in its past suggests it has the capacity or inclination to introduce speedy and radical change. Guaranteed its $1.3bn (£812m) annual grant from the US — a dividend from the Camp David peace accord with Israel – it has gained the reputation as a hidebound institution with little appetite for reform."
The Guardian: UK 'threatened to pull out of Open Skies deal', leaked US cables show
"Senior British civil servant warned that UK could pull out if the US did not approve BA's proposed tie-up with American Airlines, according to US embassy cables obtained via WikiLeaks.
Britain threatened to pull out of the controversial trans-Atlantic Open Skies aviation agreement if the US government did not approve British Airways's proposed alliance with American Airlines, a senior British civil servant warned US embassy officials, according to a leaked cable obtained via WikiLeaks."
El País: España aportará a EE UU pruebas que ayuden a condenar al cerebro del 11-S (Spain will contribute with proof to help the United States to condemn the brain behind 9-11)
The release of tens of thousands of emails from executives working for the classified cybersecurity services firm HBGary, which was found to have proposed plans to target WikiLeaks last week, shows exactly what members of the firm meant when they discussed using fake documents to sabotage or target WikiLeaks.
(If you are unaware of the story that has been unfolding, here is previous coverage, which has appeared on WL Central.)
A search through the database for emails that discuss “WikiLeaks” reveals one email on “stopping WikiLeaks.” It links to a Wordpress blog called “Godel’s Lost Letter and P=NP,” which covers stories related to technology and theories of computing.
The group of hacktivists known as Anonymous has released tens of thousands of emails from HBGary, a provider of classified cybersecurity services to the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and other US government agencies. Anonymous leaked the emails after HBGary’s CEO Aaron Barr plotted to infiltrate Anonymous and uncover the identities of individuals within the group and after it was found out that HBGary and two other firms had been actively plotting to sabotage and target WikiLeaks.
Additionally, it has been reported that Anonymous has obtained Stuxnet access. That is because the emails, now public, were improperly secured. A cybersecurity service did not protect itself from the possibility of infiltration from hackers.
Ahmad Abou El Maati is one of four Canadian citizens of dual nationality who became loosely linked together, incidentally and accidentally, by botched police and intelligence investigations in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the US.* All four were either apprehended in or kidnapped and transferred to Syria, where they were tortured.** Because El Maati’s country of origin was Egypt (born in Kuwait to an Egyptian father), he alone was transferred from Syria to Egypt months after he was detained, and survived another two years of torture in a succession of Egyptian prisons.
These four cases have received decisive if not finished judicial investigation in Canada. The first and best-known of the four, the case of Maher Arar, was the subject of Justice Dennis O’Connor’s inquiry in 2004-06, which led to an official apology to Mr Arar from the Canadian government and compensation of $10 million. Although the O’Connor inquiry was able to investigate the behaviour of Canadian agents and officials thoroughly, it remains unfinished because the governments of the United States, Jordan, and Syria refused to co-operate with the inquiry.
Twitter and Gulf News reported a Kuwaiti group called Fifth Fence (AlSour AlKhamis) using Twitter to attempt to organize a mass rally outside parliament on February 8. That protest has since been rescheduled to March 8. "We at the Fifth Fence call on the Kuwaiti people to assemble at parliament ... on Tuesday at 11am (0800 GMT) to press for our legitimate right of holding sessions and to declare our rejection of the continuity of this government and its undemocratic practices." the group wrote, inviting opposition MPs to join them.
The protests were, by some accounts, related to an investigation into Minister of the Interior Shaikh Jaber al-Khalid Al Sabah about the death by torture of a 35 year old Kuwaiti citizen, Mohammad Gazzai Al Mutairi, at a police station after he was arrested for possessing alcohol. The government and parliament postponed sessions for six weeks which was described as unconstitutional by the opposition. The death occurred on January 11 after six days of torture, and resulted in the arrest of sixteen policemen and the resignation of the Shaikh Jaber, a member of the family that has ruled Kuwait since 1756, but the cabinet asked Jaber to stay on.
According to newly released emails. of HBGary through the work of Anonymous, HBGary, Palantir Technology, Berico Technology formed a team and submitted a report to win a contract of the law firm Hunton & Williams,whose client is Bank of America. The final report written in Nov.4, 2010 is here, titled "Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell". What they assert in there is providing technological/traditional way of spying targeted entities, whatever that may be. To enumerate some of their 'tactics':
Threat intelligence
Social media exploitation
Influence operation
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance(ISR)
Custom software development
Among them, what would the last category, 'Custom software development' include? On page 9 of the document discussing explicit timeline of the planned phases, 'Develop customized bots and helpers' is listed as one of the major tactics. One can only guess about what kind of 'bots' that would explicitly be, but an article on Crowdleaks can give some hints on the kind of 'bots' or, 'custom software'. Following is an excerpt:
On February 2, WL Central asked Will Saudi Arabia protest? and showed a video with Saudi Arabians doing just that, despite all protests and public assemblies being illegal in Saudi Arabia. Now another video has surfaced (below) along with a facebook page calling for a protest day on February 18th for "those who are unemployed, who demand better work conditions and better civil rights." The facebook page is calling for:
- automobile factories to be opened in every major area and industrial training for young people.
- open factories and provide better training in the world of technology, programming and maintenance
- electrical plants in each region
- electric appliance factories to be opened.
- video game factories (like Playstation) to be opened in every area.
- food and dessert factories to be open in every region and jobs allocated for women.
Cable Indicates the Green Movement May Not Be Capable of Launching Uprising
On the twenty-fifth of Bahman on the Iranian calendar or February 14, the Green Path Opposition (GPO) or “Green Wave” plans to mobilize people and hold demonstrations in Iran. Organizers inspired by recent events in Egypt and Tunisia are hoping to see many turn out and defy an Iranian regime that has rhetorically indicated its support for the Egypt revolution but yet refused for some time to permit public demonstrations in Iran.
The upcoming day is something WL Central has been following closely. On February 10, WL Central looked at plans for the upcoming “Day of Rage,” the Iranian regime’s pre-emptive crackdown on activists planning demonstrations, and how Iran was jamming BBC’s Persian TV so Iranians could not witness what was happening in Egypt.
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