At least 32 doctors, including surgeons, physicians, paediatricians and obstetricians, have been arrested and detained by Bahrain””””s police in the last month in a campaign of intimidation that runs directly counter to the Geneva Convention guaranteeing medical care to people wounded in conflict. Doctors around the world have expressed their shock and outrage.

One doctor, an intensive care specialist, was held after she was photographed weeping over a dead protester.

Another was arrested in the theatre room while operating on a patient.

Many of the doctors, aged from 33 to 65, have been “disappeared” – held incommunicado or at undisclosed locations.

Their families do not know where they are. Nurses, paramedics and ambulance staff have also been detained.

Emails between a Bahraini surgeon and a British colleague, seen by The Independent, describe in vivid detail the threat facing medical staff as they struggle to treat victims of the violence.

They provide a glimpse of the terror and exhaustion suffered by the doctors and medical staff.

Bahraini government forces backed by Saudi Arabian troops have cracked down hard on demonstrators since the unrest began on 15 February – and the harshness of their response has now been extended to those treating the injured.

In a series of emails, passed on in the hope of drawing attention to the plight of he and his colleagues, one surgeon describes appalling scenes at Salmaniya hospital, with staff being threatened and detained in increasing numbers for treating injured democracy protesters.

According to the surgeon, the military has taken control of the hospital, and soldiers and policemen are treating doctors, nurses, paramedics and patients as suspects.

John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “These reports of harassment of medical staff in the ongoing unrest in Bahrain, including surgeons trained in the UK, are deeply disturbing. The protection and care of people wounded in conflict is a basic right guaranteed by the Geneva Convention and one that every doctor or medical institution should be free to fulfil.”

The EU””””s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Ashton, has expressed concern about the killings and beatings in Bahrain, ahead of a visit there.

According to the Daily Mail, the bill warns that in addition to posing health hazards, the growing popularity of dog ownership “poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar Western culture”.

If the legislation is passed, violators will be fined between 60 and 305 pounds and “their animal will be confiscated”.

The bill does not specify what fate awaits the seized “dangerous, unhealthy or unclean animals” dogs.

A police circular already forbids dogs from cars and from being walked in public places, but the law is barely enforced.

Sheikh Saleh al Talib warned in his sermon on Friday that Islamic teachings become distorted as they are accessible to any person regardless of his knowledge of Islamic affairs. He added that the media is helping in this by interviewing scholars who are “talib elm”, a rank that does not allow them to make their opinions public.

Mr al Talib was referring to Sheikh Ahmad al Ghamdi, a senior member of Saudi Arabia’s religious police, and criticised him for liberal statements he has made recently. Mr al Ghamdi had riled conservatives in April by approving of gender mixing and allowing shops to stay open during prayers, practices that are banned by the religious police and rejected by Saudi scholars. Mr al Ghamdi has become somewhat of a spokesman for Saudi progressives, including much of the mainstream media, which have been increasingly vocal in criticising the religious police.

Another controversy among the senior scholars were statements made by Sheikh Abdulmohsen al Obaikan, a member of the kingdom’s consultative body, the Shura Council, and a consultant to the royal court. Al Watan published a story on May 26 saying he permitted mature women to breastfeed unrelated men in order for them to be able to mix freely and lawfully. Mr al Obaikan told the paper that he had been misunderstood when he first discussed the issue on a television show.

The National

But additional information is also coming in, in the form of a report from an unnamed Israeli staff-sergeant, who claims proudly to have single-handedly killed at least six of the civilian aid workers.

The staff-sergeant says he has no doubt everyone on board was a “terrorist” and claimed there were secretly dozens of “hardcore mercenaries” on board.

The staff-sergeant’s story is being well received in Israel, where the killings have been lionized by a sympathetic media and by government officials eager to cash in on the latest jingoist craze. He is now being praised for “stabilizing the situation” and is being considered for a medal of valor for his killings.

The Israeli military insists that, far from the straightforward massacre of civilians that it appears to be, they are the victims of a massive conspiracy to frame them, and that 50 “well trained” Turks with communication devices, who they said were likely ex-military, were on board shooting and throwing grenades at them.

The fact that no grenades or guns or communication devices or, indeed, “terrorists” were found on board is being claimed as another coverup, that after the massacre the “terrorists” somehow had the presence of mind to throw all the evidence overboard. Exactly how they all disappeared themselves is unclear, but not a single captive was charged with any crime.

Arabnews

The organization quoted the activists as saying that the Israeli authorities confiscated their passports when they were kidnapped on the high seas on May 31. They were not handed back the passports on release.

The Campaign feared that the Israeli authorities, mainly the Mossad spy agency, may use the passports to carry out new assassinations. Top Hamas commander Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was assassinated in a Dubai hotel on Jan. 19 by Israeli agents using forged European passports.

The Campaign called on European countries to follow up on the issue and prevent the misuse of the stolen passports.

arabnews

“Iran’s Revolutionary Guards naval forces are fully prepared to escort the peace and freedom convoys to Gaza with all their powers and capabilities,” Ali Shirazi, Khamenei’s representative inside the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

Any intervention by the Iranian military would be considered highly provocative by Israel which accuses Iran of supplying weapons to Hamas, the Islamist movement which rules Gaza.

Iran does not recognise the Israeli state and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often predicted its imminent demise.

Last Monday Israeli troops killed nine activists on board one ship in a convoy trying to deliver aid to Gaza, sparking international outrage, especially in Muslim countries.

Another ship was boarded on Saturday and pro-Palestinian activists have promised more as they challenge the blockade imposed four years ago with the stated aim of stopping arms getting to Hamas.

arabnews

The cameras, including 40 concealed in walls and trees, are targeted to track the precise movement of people entering and leaving the Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath neighbourhoods of Birmingham, central England in the first surveillance of its kind in the UK.The installation project, which is three times the number to monitor the city centre, was principally been sold to locals as an attempt to combat antisocial behavior, vehicle crime and drug dealing in the area.

But according to the Guardian, the cameras have been paid for by a £3 million grant from the Terrorism and Allied Matters Fund, which has been previously used to monitor potential targets but not whole communities.

ABNA

The group aims to “help to focus the attention of the international community on the plight of those Christians in the Middle East who suffer for their beliefs,” he said in announcing the group, a part of the Catholic Church’s Synod of Bishops.

A Vatican statement outlining the church’s position on Christians in the Middle East, introduced by the Pope on Sunday and On the Vatican website, says the interfaith strife arises from Muslim theocracies.

“Often times, relations between Christians and Muslims are difficult, principally because Muslims (make) no distinction between religion and politics, thereby relegating Christians to the precarious position of being considered non-citizens … The key to harmonious living between Christians and Muslims is to recognize religious freedom and human rights,” the statement says.

The 51-page document says lamented that with the exception of Turkey, in countries with a Muslim majority, Islam is generally the religion of the state and the principal source of legislation, inspired by sharia, or Islamic law.

“In some countries, the State is Islamic and sharia is applied in not only private life but also society, even for non-Muslims, with the consequent deprivation of human rights. Islamic States generally do not recognize religious freedom and freedom of conscience,” the statement says.

“Furthermore, with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, attacks against Christians are increasing almost everywhere.”

It calls for “joint action” against extremists “clearly a threat to everyone, Christians and Muslims alike.”

CNN

Protest organizer Pamela Geller, a conservative blogger, and her group, “Stop the Islamicization of America,” planned the event because, according to the group’s website, “Building the Ground Zero mosque is not an issue of religious freedom, but of resisting an effort to insult the victims of 9/11 and to establish a beachhead for political Islam and Islamic supremacism in New York… Ground Zero is a war memorial, a burial ground. Respect it.”

CNN

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