Kuwaiti Royalty Arrested Over Tweets

Sheikh Meshaal

KUWAIT: A Gulf rights group and a Kuwaiti MP yesterday criticized the arrest of a member of the Kuwait ruling family for expressing “political views” deemed offensive. “Freedom for Sheikh Meshaal Al-Malek Al-Sabah who was arrested by the state security police,” the Gulf Forum for Civil Societies, an organization of liberal activists, said on its Twitter account. It said Sheikh Meshaal was arrested “because of his courageous views that opposed the policies of the Kuwaiti ruling family.”

Islamist opposition MP Waleed Al-Tabtabai deplored the arrest of Sheikh Meshaal “for his political views,” and criticized what he called the return of a government policy of harassing activists who use social media. Tabtabai said Sheikh Meshaal has been detained by the secret service for the past three days. Activists said he was arrested on Thursday on his return from Saudi Arabia where he met the governor of Riyadh. So far, there has been no official comment on his arrest. Sheikh Meshaal is a member of the Al-Sabah family which has ruled the oil-rich emirate for the past 250 years without challenge.

In tweets he wrote over the past few days, he said he will contest the next parliamentary election to become the first royal in Kuwait to do so, and also vowed that if he becomes an MP, he would expose corruption among top officials. He also complained that the Kuwaiti constitution entrusts power to only one branch of the Al-Sabah family-the descendants of Mubarak Al-Kabeer who ruled Kuwait from 1896 to 1915. Sheikh Meshaal, who is not descended from Mubarak Al-Kabeer, called for the constitution to be amended and the introduction of political reforms.- AFP

This report is via KuwaitTimes.net

Salafi or Salafreaky?

Former MP Ali Wanees arrested for fondling woman in parked car. 

Let me begin by stating that I am not necessarily against a couple "hooking up" in a parked car. I mean, it happens a lot and they aren't hurting anyone so I don't find it to be an issue.

However, when you are a Salafi who is against such actions and may even criticize or criminalize such actions and then you get caught doing them, then you are fair game in my eyes.

According to Al Jazeera news:

"An Egyptian court has sentenced a former MP to a year in prison for public indecency, after police said they found him fondling a woman on his lap in a parked car at night.

Ali Wanees was sentenced on Saturday to a year in prison for the incident and six months for abusing the policemen, while the woman involved got a six month jail term.

Police said in a report that the man was touching and caressing the woman when they approached him while parked alongside an agricultural road outside Cairo last month.

Wanees has denied the charges, saying that he pulled the car over to assist his ill niece. Police claim that he is not her uncle.

The police report claims Wanees called the officers "sons of dogs" when they knocked on his window asking to see his license and registration.

Wanees' whereabouts are unknown and he was tried in absentia and is allowed a retrial.

The court sentenced the woman he was with, who has been in custody for about a month, to six months in jail. She also has the right to appeal.

Wanees once sat in parliament as part of a Salafi-led coalition headed by the Nour Party, which won 25 per cent of seats in the lower house before it was dissolved late last month."

I must say the "Sons of Dogs" comment sounds much better and less ridiculous when you say it in Arabic, but that's beside the point. The point that I hope this article will make is that hypocrisy, sexual repression and politics religion seem to go hand in hand (in hand). Need I remind you about the Catholic Church?

I find that the more sexually repressed people are, (especially sexually repressed people who want to sexually repress others), the more sexually deviant they become. I have no scientific evidence to prove this (maybe you can google Freud or Kinsey), it's just an observation I'm making based on events that occur. (Wait, that might be somewhat scientific?)

Also, before I get attacked in the comments, let me just say that I am not brushing all religious and sexually repressed people with the same stroke. I am just saying, if you are sexually repressed and this is due to religion and you try to push your views on others, you're probably less Salafi and more Salafreaky.

The United Nations and the Veto.

In the wake of many humanitarian crises the world frequently turns to the United Nations to uphold international law that deems human suffering and oppression by governments as a crime. The United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Right's first article states:

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."


With such a declaration, one would assume that all the countries in the UN would have equal rights as well. Not so. In actuality the United Nation's Security Council has more power than all the other member countries. There are 5 permanent countries in the UN Security Council and 10 temporary members, whose membership lasts one year. The 5 permanent members are: The United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia. These 5 nations have unmatched power that allows them to control which resolutions can pass or not, regardless of a majority or unanimous vote from all other members. This power is known as the veto.

The veto power has long been criticized by the people who suffer because of it. The most recent case of the devastating effects of the veto power is in Syria. Several resolutions that would allow stronger and more specific sanctions on individuals in the Syrian regime, which would in turn strangle the murderous regime of Bashar Al-Assad and subsequently reduce (if not end) the heinous bloodshed of his people, have been vetoed by Russia and China (allies of Assad).

Without the veto power of the UN Security Council, the aforementioned resolutions would have passed and the death toll in Syria may not be where it is today. As such, it is time to seriously consider the validity and usefulness of the veto power.

Just think, if you were being ruthlessly attacked and tortured by your government would you want the allies of your government to have the ability to block any resolution that may save your life? I think not.

I say, Veto the Veto!

Syrian Defections ... The More the Merrier!

Syrian army soldiers hold the Syrian revolution flags as they stand in front their armored personnel carrier shortly after they defected and joined the rebels at Khaldiyeh neighborhood, in Homs province, central Syria, Saturday, May 12, 2012. (AP / Fadi Zaidan)

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20120622/syria-defections-aleppo-120622/#ixzz1yYAHCjzu

Reports have surfaced that high-ranking military officials of Assad's regime are preparing to defect. Hallelujah! This is a significant development because although many members of the Syrian regime have defected, most of them are low-ranking officials whose positions can be easily replaced. When higher-ranking officials defect, their actions have the ability to seriously cripple the Syrian regime, (here's hoping...).


Today The Telegraph is reporting, "Members of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle are secretly making plans to defect to the opposition should the Syrian regime become critically threatened by the rebellion, US officials have told The Daily Telegraph.


Senior military figures are understood to be laying down “exit strategies” and establishing lines of communication with the rebels to discuss how they would be received if they deserted.
On Thursday a Syrian air force colonel became the first senior officer to defect in an aircraft after he abandoned a mission to attack the city of Dera’a and landed his MiG 21 fighter jet in Jordan.

The Daily Telegraph also reports that the pilots of three other MiGs on the mission also considered defecting, but were worried about being turned away.

Mr Assad is under intense pressure over the 15-month uprising, with world leaders considering offering the Syrian president an immunity deal to ensure he relinquishes power."

Another report from CBS News is claiming that a Syrian activist group said that four senior army officers have defected and joined the opposition.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights provided a video Friday purporting to show two brigadier generals and two colonels. They declared they were defecting. Watch the video above (it's in Arabic btw). 

Fun Fact: The Syrian flag behind them has been altered with the word "freedom" in Arabic on the top green portion. 

Elections Under Siege

In this photo taken during a government-organized tour, Syrian campaign workers wait outside a polling station during the parliamentary elections, in Damascus, Syria, Monday, May 7, 2012. Syrians cast ballots Monday in parliamentary elections billed by the regime as key to President Bashar Assad's political reforms, but the opposition dismissed the vote as a sham meant to preserve his autocratic rule. (AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman)

Elections in Syria were held on May 7, 2012, amidst the continual barrage of bullets and tanks. The Syrian opposition had boycotted these elections, especially since the areas with the strongest opposition to Assad's regime, such as Dar'a, Homs and Hama, are under siege. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday that balloting in the current atmosphere in Syria "borders on ludicrous." 

The Syrian government, on the other hand, hailed the multiparty elections, Syria's first, as marking a historic step toward comprehensive political reform in a country that has been ruled by the same family and political party for more than four decades.

In February, Syrians voted for a new constitution that abolished the one-party system long controlled by the Baath Party. That election was also boycotted by the opposition, which said it did not offer real reforms and came after President Bashar Assad's crackdown on dissent had already resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians. 

The video below illustrates how many Syrians feel about the current elections. It's a spoof of the supposed "free and fair" elections the Syrian regimie claims to be holding:

However, State media on Monday showed Syrians eagerly voting at polling stations and, in interviews on the street, extolling the importance of casting a ballot. Judicial supervision "ensures fairness, freedom and democracy for the electorate in choosing their representatives," the Syrian Arab News Agency reported. 

An activist in Damascus countered the state media reports, saying that residents were boycotting the polls. In addition, activists were calling on businesses to remain shuttered for the day.

"No one is in the streets, and no one is coming or going," the activist said. "It's all empty talk."

The National Development Party registered earlier this year, saying its goal was to establish a democratic society in Syria through political and legal means. Yet it did not participate in the election. Mohammad Samman, one of its founders, said his party didn't have enough time to select candidates.

It was not clear if any other political parties besides the Baath Party placed candidates on the ballot.

Another activist in Aleppo said there was some voting in a few neighborhoods but that many of those at the polls were government workers forced to participate, or supporters of the regime.

Omar Hamzah, an activist from the Damascus suburbs, said in a Skype interview that there were several instances of people having their ID cards confiscated at a checkpoint and being forced to go to election centers to cast their votes before getting their IDs back. 

In some Syrian cities, activists staged protests. Others used cyberspace to mock the polling: In the video above, said to have been shot in Idlib, activists staged a skit about the elections, depicting voters getting money from pro-government thugs as they enter a polling station, then being given ballots already filled out with the names to vote for. (The state media video did not appear to have been uploaded to the Internet).

Another video, seen below, made fun of the rhetoric used on Syrian state television, extolling the "great participation" in the elections over footage of chickens pecking at feed: