Armies of Liberation

The latest Arab dictator, Usama bin Laden, has been issuing his edicts fast and furious. Bomb the oil pipelines. Bomb the Shiites and the Americans. Zarqawi is now the “Amir of Iraq,” and Iraqi Muslims should “listen to him.”

While the US may not have gone far in promoting the ideal of democracy in the Muslim world, bin Laden has done a remarkable job of stimulating forward thinking among Arabs and Muslims.

With each new diatribe and beheading video, with each car bomb and civilian massacre, al-Qaeda presents a challenge to the Arab world, an absolute vision of society and governance, and an estimate of its ultimate cost in blood. The Arab world has responded with a countervailing view and a renaissance of the Arab liberalism so hearty in the 19th and 20th centuries until the rise of Nassarism and Bathism.

Reform, elections, judicial independence, stemming corruption: these are the buzzwords on the Arab street today, and this is the essential work of the pioneering Iraqis. The transition of executive power in Egypt, Lebanese independence, minority rights in Syria, freedom of press in Yemen, youth enfranchisement in Saudi Arabia: these are the topics of modern patriots in the Middle East, their hope derived from free Iraqi labor unions and political parties and the anonymous anti-corruption hotline in Baghdad.

Opposite these concepts of reform are the nihilistic ideology of al-Qaeda and the bloody tactics of the “Amir of Iraq,” Zarqawi, who freely murders innocent children, patriotic Iraqis, and poor truckdrivers.

In bin Laden’s distorted mirror, tinges of Western Islamophobia are an unforgivable crime against billions of Muslims, but Eastern Anglophobia is a great revelation of truth. Hate speech vilifying a people is no sign of enlightenment at either end of the spectrum. (Read on …)

This week in Yemen: Four more journalists convicted, another editor attacked, justice delayed again for al-Khaiwani.

This is on top of one editor imprisoned, one editor murdered, and three newspapers closed. You can’t write about the Saudis-oh no-but trash Bush all you want. You can’t write about governmental corruption in your own country but its fine to demonize the US and UK governments until the cows come home. “Democratization” without a free press is just another way of gaining development aid and clinging to power until your son, Salah Jr., turns 40 and can take over the presidency. And the rationale for censorship is what: the citizens are so infantile that they can’t handle the truth? its impolite to discuss foreign relations with Arab states? an oped is going to cause an uprising? The whole premise is warped, the society harmed, and all these reform conferences a sham.

(Technical note: comment moderation is on-I’m getting slammed with spam, half pharacutical and half political. Even the spam here is freer than the press in the Middle East.)

(also known as Yemen 6) was actually published in …Yemen by the Yemen Observer. (The article is also up on Middle East Transparent a very interesting site with the latest thinking from Arab liberals. I’ve gotten lost there for hours reading some of the articles.)

The strategy for success in Iraq, that people will reject extremism when a hope of freedom exists, should be employed in Yemen now, in advance of the arrival of Al-Qaeda from Iraq next spring. The press, which acts as a watchdog against corruption and governmental improprieties, is essential for democratic progress. The targeting of the opposition and independent media in Yemen indicates a disturbing new trend toward authoritarianism in Yemen which is best opposed at its onset.

The death sentence handed down in Yemen to two Al-Qaeda operatives convicted in the bombing of the USS Cole may indicate a new intolerance for terrorism by the Yemeni government. Flourishing democratic institutions, specifically the free press, may strengthen that intolerance in Yemeni society as well.

Not that I submitted it to them, they just found it on the web and published it. Iran Daily,which Memri refers to as a “the Iranian reformist newspaper Iran Daily, which is close to Iranian President Muhammad Khatami,” did the same thing with Yemen 7 (The Power of the Pen).

at a rate of 1000 per day.

Detailed article on the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo with the Rwandan Army.

Related post: A little bit of the Congo in your cell phone.

(You knew it was coming. Or maybe I should call it al-Khaiwani 3.)

Or as I like to call it “The Power of the Pen” was published in Pakiststan by by The Daily Times (not that they notified me) and also by the Arab Times in Kuwait, print edition. It is also up on the progressive website Middle East Transparent.

US version here.

Update: The article was also picked up from the Daily Times by the Iran Daily in Tehran. They dropped my name but kept the article verbatum. I like the graphic on this one.

It also found its way to the website South East Asian Media.

Update: Alsp published in Bangladesh by the Independent. Interestingly, this was the only paper that added anything (the first three sentences are not mine) and edited out anything (a reference to a Bangladeshi editor in jail).

More on Yemen.

is quite similiar to many in the region.

CEIP: It preserved penalties of up to five years imprisonment for those who defame the royal family. It affirmed the government’s right to ban Moroccan or foreign journals if the publications “undermine Islam, the monarchy, territorial integrity, or public order.” Morocco’s subservient judiciary has shown little hesitation to interpret this broad-brush legal wording in the most repressive manner.

Such an attitude is particularly short-sighted because the independent press offers a public space in which members of society can peacefully debate one another on controversial issues—a space generally lacking in Morocco.

To open regional democracy center and calls on the Arab League to institute the reforms he proposed.

How is President Salah going to fit all that into his busy schedule of shutting down newspapers and arresting journalists and imprisoning editors? Then there’s that editor’s murder to investigate.

“smacks of a targeted assasination” says the International Federation of Journalists. The following article includes the important information that Mr. Sagheer owned the one printing press that serviced the 26 indpendent and oppostion newspapers in Yemen. In the context of the imprisonment of Abdulkareem Al-Khaiwani, the closure of three publications and the new charges against seven journalists, the murder of al-Sagheer and his wife is a truely chilling development for the Yemeni people and journalists.

IFJ: The International Federation of Journalists today called for a “thorough and detailed” investigation into the shooting of Mohammed Salem Al-Sagheer, a leading Yemeni journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Waseet newspaper.

“This appalling attack, in which Al-Sagheer and his wife were both gunned down, has all the hallmarks of a targeted assassination,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.

Al-Sagheer, a press freedom campaigner as well as a businessman, was found dead with his wife in their home in downtown Sana’a on December 6. Police inquiries so far have uncovered evidence that the killer, described as a professional, had used a gun with a silencer in the attack in which both the journalist and his wife were shot in the head.

The killing has shocked the Yemeni community of journalists and the IFJ affiliated Yemen Syndicate of Journalists is following the police investigation closely. The exact motive for the attack remains unclear.

“This distinguished journalist was a rare breed of entrepreneur and press freedom fighter,” said White. Sagheer had worked to ensure that private sector and opposition newspapers were able to publish by providing printing facilities at affordable prices.

“The possibility that this tragedy is linked to his work and commitment to independent journalism cannot be ignored,” said White. “The authorities must act swiftly to find those responsible and bring them to justice.”