WADIblog

Hätte man 2011, als das Land noch nicht in Schutt und Asche lag, in Syrien interveniert, es wäre zu einer humanitären Katastrophe, ja einem Bürgerkrieg gekommen. Erinnert sich noch wer an das Mantra aus Washington, Berlin und Brüssel?

Ganz multilateral gemanagt hat sich Syrien inzwischen in den Worten eines UN Vertreters zu der schlimmsten humanitären Katastrophe der Nachkriegszeit entwickelt:

António Guterres, who has led the UNHCR through the worst of the refugee crises in Afghanistan and Iraq, said the Syrian civil war was more brutal and destructive than both and was already the worst humanitarian disaster since the end of the cold war.

Und wo ist die ARD-Gala zur Unterstürtzung syrischer Flüchtlinge, wo die Mavi Marmara Flotte , wo die großartigen Papiere deutscher Friedens- und Konfliktforschungsinstitute, wo der Ruf, die europäischen Grenzen für die Überlebenden des Gemetzels zu öffnen? …. Ach es ist Zynismus angesichts des Elends noch solche Fragen zu stellen. Syrien, das ist in jeder Hinsicht die Nemesis der sog. Internationalen Staatengemeinschaft, ein moralischer Totalbankrott, so groß wie die damalige Untätigkeit angesichts des Genozides in Ruanda.

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Wenn der Religionspolizei in einem utrareaktionären Golfstaat der Auftritt einer Delegation eines anderen ultrareaktionären Golfstaates zu provokativ ist, dann passiert sowas. Jetzt sind es nicht nur die Frauen, die unverschleiert Männer verführen, nein auch gutaussehende Männer sind gefährlich! Also Schleierzwang für alle!

“A U-Tube film published in Saudi newspapers this week showed national guard members were evicting a member of the feared Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice from the UAE pavilion at Genaderia festivities in Riyadh after he stormed the stand. The incident triggered furor in the Kingdom, with the Commission Chairman Abdul Latif Al Shaikh calling for an investigation. (…)

A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission members feared female visitors could fall for them,” the news service said, adding that the festival’s management took urgent measures to deport the three to Abu Dhabi.”

Hivos and our partner WADI proudly announce the launch of the ‘Stop FGM Middle East’ campaign’s website to break the silence about female genital mutilation (FGM) in the Middle East and to contribute to its full elimination.

Girls and women all over the Middle East face the practice of FGM, which constitutes a gross violation of their rights and is often condoned by various cultural, traditional and religious excuses. Credible data and statistics on the prevalence of FGM are essential if we are to break the silence and taboos surrounding the practice of FGM in the Middle East. Hivos and WADI started collecting evidence on FGM and reporting on activism against FGM in Middle Eastern countries in 2011. In January 2012, WADI and Hivos organised a conference on FGM in the Middle East in Beirut. It was the first of its kind. Experts and activists from Iraq, Yemen, Indonesia and Egypt took part laying the foundation of a region-wide network to fight FGM.

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Das ist doch eine Meldung, die man gerne liest und die ein wenig Hoffnung macht:

Three quarters of Arab youth have said their best days are ahead of them, according to the fifth annual ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey, released on Tuesday. In each of the 15 countries surveyed, a clear majority are optimistic about the future, with a nearly equal percentage of youth in the Gulf and non-Gulf states (76 percent and 72 percent, respectively) saying “our best days are ahead of us”. Likewise, more than half (58 percent) believe their country is “heading in the right direction” considering the last 12 months, while 55 percent say their national economy is also heading in the right direction. (…)

Two-thirds (67 percent) feel “better off” following the events of the Arab Spring and 45 percent believe their national government has become more transparent.

Ausgerechnet Bashir al-Assad warnt vor einer Destabislisierung des Nahen Osten, sollten er und sein regime gestürzt werden, wo doch die Assad Familie schon lange vor Ausbruch der Aufstände in Syrien wahre Meister der Destabilsierung waren und es keine im Nahen Osten tätige Terrorgruppe gab, die nicht über eine Dependance in Damaskus verfügt hätte:

The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has warned that the Middle East faces being destabilised for decades if rebel forces battling to overthrow him succeed. Assad, locked in a two-year conflict he says has been fuelled by his regional enemies, also criticised Turkey’s “foolish and immature” leaders and accused Arab neighbours of arming and sheltering rebel fighters.

New rules from the education ministry of the Islamist Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip will bar men from teaching at girls’ schools and mandate separate classes for boys and girls from the age of nine.

The law, published on Monday, would go into effect in the next school year and apply throughout the coastal enclave, including in private, Christian-led and United Nations school. (…)

“We are a Muslim people. We do not need to make people Muslims, and we are doing what serves our people and their culture,” Waleed Mezher, the education ministry’s legal adviser, told Reuters.

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To put the grim scale of the killing in perspective, Assad’s men were able to kill more Syrian civilians in the last 2 years than all Arab armies combined have killed Israeli military personnel since 1948. The number of Israeli military casualties stands at approximately 22,000; the number of Syrian casualties is harder to estimate but the last estimate from the U.N. is around 70,000 since April 2011, with civilians representing approximately half of the victims. Syrian human rights organizations think the number of civilian casualties could prove to be much higher. That number represents more than 3 times the total number of Palestinian casualties attributed to Israeli security forces since 1948 (estimates vary but these numbers come from combining statistics from B’tselem and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). Seventy thousand victims in 22 months averages out to more than 100 casualties per day. On average, there are more Syrian casualties every 2 days than the total number of Palestinian casualties during the last Israeli operation in Gaza (“Pillar of Defense”). In fact, more than ten times as many Syrians have died in the last two years than Palestinians have died since 2000, including the Second Intifada and the last two Gaza operations.

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Die deutschen Rüstungsexporte in die Golfregion sind nach einem Zeitungsbericht im vergangenen Jahr stark gestiegen. Der Wert der im Jahr 2012 genehmigten Ausfuhren dorthin sei mehr als doppelt so hoch wie die Vorjahressumme gewesen.

Das berichtet die “Süddeutsche Zeitung” unter Berufung auf eine Antwort des Bundeswirtschaftsministeriums auf eine Anfrage der Linken-Bundestagsfraktion. Der mit Abstand größte Anteil entfiel auf Saudi-Arabien, das vor allem Grenzsicherungssysteme anschaffte. (…)

Insgesamt sei 2012 die Ausfuhr von Rüstungsgütern in die sechs Staaten des Golf-Kooperationsrats im Wert von 1,42 Milliarden Euro genehmigt worden. Im Jahr 2011 habe der Wert bei knapp 570 Millionen Euro gelegen.

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A spree of executions that has sent10 prisoners to their deaths since the beginning of the year in Saudi Arabia must be halted, Amnesty International said today.

The beheadings included the death of Abdullah Fandi al-Shammari on 5 February 2013 who had originally been convicted of manslaughter, but was tried again on the charge of murder in proceedings that did not meet fair trial standards.

The case has attracted significant attention in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Shammari was beheaded having spent over 30 years in prison.

“This case has thrown the country’s flawed justice system into especially sharp relief, highlighting the serious lack of transparency, patently unfair trials, and fatal results,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

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Bahraini security forces have fired teargas, rubber bullets and birdshot at demonstrators hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails in street battles that left one teenager dead and dozens more people injured on the second anniversary of the country’s failed pro-democracy uprising.

The main opposition group, al-Wefaq, said 16-year-old Ali Ahmed Ibrahim Aljazeeri died from his injuries about an hour after being shot early in the morning in the village of Diya, near the capital Manama. “He was shot with three rounds from a birdshot gun and died of critical injuries to the upper body and lungs,” the group said. “Witnesses confirm he was posing no threat to any police officers at the time.”

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Twenty-two Muslim countries and territories had fertility declines of 50 percent or more. The sharpest drops were in Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Libya, Albania, Qatar and Kuwait, which all recorded declines of 60?percent or more over three decades.

Fertility in Iran declined an astonishing 70 percent over the 30-year period, which Eberstadt says was “one of the most rapid and pronounced fertility declines ever recorded in human history.” By 2000, Iran’s fertility rate had fallen to two births per woman, below the level necessary to replace current population, according to Eberstadt and his co-author, Apoorva Shah.

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By Oliver M. Piecha

THE GREAT UNKNOWN

The number 140 million is currently the common official figure of women in the world that have undergone a procedure known as female genital mutilation (FGM). FGM is defined by the World Health Organization as “partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons”.[1] 140 million is a very large and deplorable number, yet today we must seriously begin to consider the possibility that the number of genitally mutilated women in the world is, in fact, much higher. How so? 140 million is the estimation primarily for Africa; but growing evidence suggests that FGM is not only an “African problem” – it may well be widespread in various parts of Asia – including the Middle East. Finding out more about the real measures of the practice beyond Africa should be on the agenda of the international bodies and campaigns against FGM in 2013 and in the years to come.

In December 2012, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution that condemns all forms genital mutilation.[2] Though the resolution is not legally binding, it is an important step in support of legal bans the practice and towards a change of norms on the ground. Burkina Faso led this effort in the UN that yielded the resolution, joined by other African countries. FGM is indeed widespread in several countries of Africa including Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Mali. In 2013 and the years to come, countries of the Middle East, as well as other parts of Asia must be encouraged to join the international struggle against FGM, which may well be practiced in their midst. The first step in this struggle is to clarify where and to what extent it is widespread.

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Deutsche Nahostpolitik dieser Tage sieht so aus: Während man die roten Teppiche für den ägyptischen Präsidenten Mohamed Mursi ausrollt, seine kluge Außenpolitik lobt und antisemitische Ausfälle des Mannes als “nicht hilfreich für den Frieden” abtut, der iranische Außenminister zur Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz geladen wird, bereitet man sich auf die Unterzeichnung eines Abkommens mit dem sudanesischen Regime vor:

Am 29. Januar 2013 lädt das deutsche Außenministerium zu einer Konferenz für die finanzielle Unterstützung der sudanesischen Regierung des
Präsidenten Omar Al-Bashir ein. Die Konferenz findet in Berlin statt, der sudanesische Außenminister wird zu Gast sein.

 Deutschland beteiligt sich so am Morden und Foltern der Menschen im gesamten Sudan.

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Saudi Arabien und die Islamisierung in der Sahel Zone:

Mali ist genauso wie die Nachbarländer Niger, Burkina Faso und Mauretanien seit Jahren Aufmarschgebiet radikaler wahhabitischer Prediger. In den vergangenen zehn Jahren sind im Sahel unzählige Moscheen von islamischen Nichtregierungsorganisationen gebaut worden, in denen Kinder und Jugendliche von ausländischen Predigern auf den „rechten Weg“ gebracht werden. Wer hinter diesen Organisationen steht, ist weithin unbekannt. Besonders fleißige Koranschüler werden zum Studium nach Saudi-Arabien eingeladen. Es sind jedes Jahr einige hundert allein aus Mali. „Die werden regelrechten Gehirnwäschen unterzogen“, sagt Haïdara. „Die erkennst du nicht wieder, wenn sie zurückkommen.“

It’s not quite the “Arab Spring,” but even Saudi Arabia, the most change-resisting nation in the Middle East, is showing signs of being affected by the mood of the time.

Consider events of just the past week or so:

* The new Consultative Assembly has women members for the first time. In fact, a Royal Decree states that from now on women should have at least 30 percent of the 150 seats.

* Once a purely advisory body, the Consultative Assembly now has the right to introduce legislation — a major step that in time could transform this unelected body into a true parliament.

* The suggestion that female members sit in a separate hall and participate in the debates via closed-circuit TV was shot down. They’ll sit in the main hall, albeit in balconies especially reserved for them.

* The ban on employing women in public places has been partly lifted. Women can now work in a number of shops and offices, despite a chorus of disapproval from hard-line Islamists.

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Aus dem Tagesspiegel:

Schnee, Regen und Fluten – der Nahe Osten erlebte diese Woche die schlimmsten Unwetter seit mehr als einem Jahrzehnt. Betroffen sind nicht nur Syrien, sondern auch sämtliche Nachbarländer Libanon, Jordanien, Irak und Türkei, wohin sich mittlerweile mehr als eine Million Menschen in Sicherheit gebracht haben. „Die Lage ist absolut unerträglich geworden, nicht einmal Tiere müssen so leben“, klagen die Betroffenen gegenüber lokalen Journalisten. Allein im Libanon sind seit Anfang des Jahres 13.000 neue Flüchtlinge hinzugekommen, in Jordanien waren es 10.000 – eine weitere Eskalation in diesem bisher größten Flüchtlingsdrama in der Geschichte des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens. Zusätzlich irren 2,5 Millionen Syrer in ihrer zerstörten Heimat herum und versuchen in Höhlen und Kellern dem Morden zu entkommen. Hunderttausende hungern.

Vor einer Dekade noch waren es vor allem frustrierten und perspektivlosen Jugendlichen in der region, die scharenweise den islamisten zuliefen, heute schreibt die LA-Times:

Many of Egypt’s twentysomething generation, hungry for a just society and economic opportunities, say they see themselves as lost after last month’s clashes over the nation’s constitution.

Egyptians like artist Mahmoud Aly and student Mohamed Abdelhamid were shock troops of the revolution. They gathered in the streets in February 2011 and shouted for then-President Hosni Mubarak to go. They cheered in amazement when he did.

But they look around now and wonder who, if anyone, is guarding their interests following the battle between ruling Islamists and the liberal opposition.

Aly, whose ripped-up jeans are often marked with the paint he uses to draw political images across the sidewalks and public buildings in the coastal city of Alexandria, said the current government does not represent him or his friends and family. He lost faith after President Mohamed Morsi and his supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood pushed through an Islamist-drafted constitution in December, ignoring the objections of many Egyptians.

Abdelhamid, a university student in Cairo who marched for the opposition last month, believes that the new rulers will do little for people like him.

Despair like theirs could be dangerous for the Islamists, who risk alienating the larger population with heavy-handed measures, and also the opposition, which may be adept at protests but is unable to offer a compelling vision for governing or mobilizing grass-roots followers at the polls.

Treffende Beschreibung des Nahen Ostens in einem Satz:

What I see is an angry, broken, dysfunctional region that wants to transcend itself and resolve the conflicts that hold it back, but just can’t.

“More than 700 Palestinians have died in Syria since the beginning of the conflict, including in Yarmuk” refugee camp in southern Damascus, the PLO’s Zacharia al-Agha told officials of Palestinian refugees in Arab states.

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Maikel Nabil, Egyptian blogger and long timer prisoner, visits Israel and has this message:

“We exist everywhere: in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, and the media doesn’t cover us. It focuses only on the negative things. But we exist, we exist in Israel and Arab-speaking countries, and we seek peace in nonviolent ways and we are not happy with the picture our governments are trying to draw of the Middle East as a completely hostile and violent area.” (…)

“I believe the majority of my people don’t want war with Israel,” he had said earlier, noting that Egyptians feel strongly about the Palestinians’ plight and are interested in “nonviolent ways to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian rights.” Abbas is a “good partner for peace,” he added, criticizing Israel’s plans to expand construction in the West Bank and recent statements by Jerusalem attacking the international community and specifically the European Union.

“We should differentiate between being supportive of Palestinian rights and being anti-Israel,” he said.