Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Protests Take Over

See also Israel Feature: As World Worries About Iran, Netanyahu Expands Settlements
Palestine Opinion: Britain's Deportation of Sheikh Raed Salah
Friday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Will the Regime Challenge the Protests?

The opening day of the funeral of Bahraini citizen journalist Ahmed Ismail Hassan, shot to death two weeks ago

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2224 GMT: Back from a conference to find that the United Nations Security Council has unanimously adopted UN Resolution 2042 for the first 30 unarmed military monitors, who are expected to leave within days.

The observers will report on whether the resolution has been met by "a full cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties". The measure also demands that the Assad regime implement the six-point peace plan put forward by United Nations envoy Kofi Annan, with the pull-back of troops and heavy weapons from cities and town.

A new resolution with a full mandate will be required for the full monitoring mission of more than 200 observers.

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Israel Feature: As World Worries About Iran, Netanyahu Expands Settlements (Lynfield)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank at a time when international attention is focused elsewhere, with President Obama gearing up for reelection and the West targeting Iran's nuclear program.

Last week, the Netanyahu government took a variety of steps that, taken together, amount to a significant strengthening of Israel's hold in the West Bank, the biblically resonant territory occupied in 1967, which Palestinians claim as the heartland for their future state.

For Netanyahu, who heads a right-wing coalition with a strong pro-settler contingent, it was a delicate dance of one small step back and six larger steps forward for settlements.

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Palestine Opinion: Britain's Deportation of Sheikh Raed Salah (Patel)

Sheikh Raed Salah (Photo: EPA)The circumstances surrounding Home Secretary Theresa May's decision to issue an exclusion order against Sheikh Raed Salah is a cause for great concern. It is unacceptable that the British government ministers can be influenced heavily by lobby groups on the basis of little more than conflated "evidence" and hearsay, and to such an extent that a senior minister can actually be "misled" and operate under "misapprehension". That was the damning conclusion of the Upper Immigration Tribunal's vice-president who considered Sheikh Salah's appeal against the deportation order.

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EA on the Road: "America" in Manchester, "Arab Spring" in Dublin

I will be on the road this weekend, first in Manchester in northwest England at the British Association for American Studies conference and then at the Clinton Institute of University College Dublin for the conference "Media and the Arab Spring".

James Miller will be here later today to take you through a Protest Friday, but updates may be limited, especially on Iran Live Coverage. As usual, we thank readers for bringing in news and issues through the Comments section.

US War-On-Terror Opinion: A "Liberal" Betrayal? (Davis)

Bradley ManningMore than three years into the presidency of Barack Obama, it’s almost a cliché now to ask: What if George W. Bush did it? From dramatically escalating the war in Afghanistan to institutionalizing the practice of indefinite imprisonment, Obama has dashed hopes he would offer a change from the Bush’s national security policies – but he hasn’t faced a whole lot of resistance from liberals who once decried those policies as an affront to American values.

Like those on the right who now crow about fascism but spent the Bush years gleefully declaring left-wing celebrities “enemies of the state,” many of those on the liberal-left treat issues of war and civil liberties as useful merely for partisan purposes. When a Democrat’s in power those issues become inconvenient. And usually ignored.

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The Latest from Iran (13 April): Before the Nuclear Show

President Ahmadinejad greeting an unseen crowd in Hormozgan Province in southern Iran

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1644 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update. Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani has the podium today, and he is in a nuclear mood: “As the [Leader of the Islamic Revolution] Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has said and other Iranian officials have reiterated, the work done in the field of nuclear energy [in Iran] is not meant for making nuclear weapons."

Just to make sure the US, European powers, China, and Russia got the message before tomorrow's talks, Emami Kashani emphasised, “These activities are for scientific purposes; you must realize and believe this."

However, while the West ponders this reassurance, this passage from Emami Kashani is more interesting to me --- cheerleading for the Supreme Leader's "Year of National Production", worry about the economy, or both?:

Everyone must enjoy their lives. There should be jobs in society, [and] the youth should be able to marry and have good living and housing conditions; therefore, production is important....Honest investors must invest in order to serve the country and benefit from its profits. Jobs must be promoted qualitatively and quantitatively and everyone at any level should [be able to] lead a clean life.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Will the Regime Challenge the Protests?

Mass demonstration last night in Freedom Square in Deir Ez Zor, Syria

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1919 GMT: According to the Local Coordinating Committees of Syria, they have been able to confirm the deaths of 13 so far today:

3 martyrs were documented in Hama as a result of sporadic gunfire at the protesters, 2 martyrs in each of Daraa and Aleppo as a result of sporadic gunfire at protesters. Also, 2 martyrs were documented in Idlib and one of corpses was un-identified. 2 martyrs in Homs in a random shelling at some neighborhoods. 1 martyr in Daraya, Damascus suburbs, in a sporadic gunfire by security forces at the protesters and 1 martyr in Hasaka, a defected recruit who was executed.

Homs, and several surrounding towns, were heavily shelled once again today. In this video, a building burns as heavy gunfire fills the background in Qosour:

Ahmed Al Omran provides this video, a wider view of the Khalidiya district of Homs:

Video reportedly shows shelling on Homs today, sounds of intense gunfire youtube.com/watch?v=bo6qOx… #SYRIA

— Ahmed Al Omran (@ahmed) April 13, 2012

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Bahrain Document: Activists Appeal to BBC and Sky Not to Broadcast Grand Prix

A cartoon by Carlos Latuff is converted into a mural in Barbar village

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With pressure mounting on Formula One to pull out of the forthcoming Bahrain Grand Prix, activists are beginning to target the organisations around the race. Earlier today, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and other Bahrain activists wrote a letter to the BBC and Sky --- who hold the broadcasting rights for the race --- calling on them not to broadcast the events on moral grounds. Speaking to the Guardian, Dr Ala'a Shehabi said of the campaign:

Formula One is all about advertising, marketing, it's more about the commercial side than the actual sport itself.

So we know that in broadcasting, you're encouraging all of the commercial interests in the sport which puts finance over human rights. That is what the major moral issue is here. If we can target the broadcasters, we can at least cut some of the possibility of profits made from advertising, at least.

The full text of the letter:

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April 12 2012

Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC
Jeremy Darroch, Chief Executive, Sky

We are writing to ask you to consider canceling your planned televised coverage of the Formula One race in Bahrain on moral grounds and in consideration of the thousands of victims of state atrocities over the past year. On this small island, 85 people have been killed by security forces, and there are around 600 political prisoners. The majority of the people will not be watching or enjoying the race. In fact they will see it as a provocation.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Deadline for a Cease-Fire

Analysts on Al Jazeera English's Inside Story discuss whether a peace plan can succeed in Syria

See also Bahrain Document: Activists Appeal to BBC and Sky Not to Broadcast Grand Prix
Turkey Live Coverage (12 April): Erdogan "If the UN Does Not Follow on Syria, What Will It Follow Through?"
Wednesday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Deadline? What Deadline?
Turkey Live Coverage (11 April): Erdogan Taking the Lead on Syria?

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2005 GMT: A significant update from Bahraini photojournalist Mazen Mahdi:

opposition groups call-off Friday 3pm rally and call on supporters to take part in funeral of citizen journalist Ahmed Ismail #Bahrain

— Mazen Mahdi (@MazenMahdi) April 12, 2012

The family of Ahmad Ismail Hassan, the citizen journalist killed two weeks ago as he filmed protests on Salmabad --- allegedly by a regime operative firing from a Land Cruiser --- had refused to accept the body from the hospital because "shooting" was not put as cause of death on the certificate.

Now that the family has taken Ismail Hassan for burial, the march promises to be one of the largest in recent months on the island.

1945 GMT: The Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria have issued a clarification about today's claimed death toll of 37:

The Local Coordination Committees would like to note that the martyrs of Deir Baalba's Massacre [in a section of Homs] that was discovered today have actually fallen on the 8th of April, 2012; and it was until today that their bodies were discovered.

This happened because of the heavy presence of the army and the lack of communications in the city during the last week. Therefore, the number of martyrs who were killed today...is 22 martyrs, distributed as follows: 9 martyrs in Homs, 6 in Idlib, 5 in Damascus Suburbs and 2 martyrs in Aleppo.

An evening demonstration in Hama:

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The Latest from Iran (12 April): Strike a Diplomatic Pose

See also Iran Feature: Maya Neyestani --- Challenging Repression Through The Cartoon
The Latest from Iran (11 April): Targeting Ahmadinejad

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2040 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Activist Kouhyar Goudarzi, of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, has been released after 8 1/2 months in detention.

1930 GMT: Reformist Watch. An interesting push by MP Mohammad Reza Khabbaz after the debate among reformists whether to boycott March's Parliamentary system....

Even through the reformists have been reduced to a token group of about a dozen in the Majlis --- and even though reformist parties have been suspended or broken up by the regime --- Khabbaz wants a new effort to work within the system. He has said that they can regroup to engage in political activities for the 2013 Presidential election if former President Mohammad Khatami leads the campaign.

Khabbaz said that Khatami's decision to cast a ballot --- a move criticised by many reformists and activists --- had paved the way for his return to the country’s political stage.

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