By Brandon Kaufman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

By Bobby Rajabi

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The committee in charge of vetting candidates in Iraq has found that six of the winning candidates in the March 7 general election should be disqualified for their alleged ties to the former Baath government. If the move by the panel is upheld, it would alter the election result, which resulted in former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiyya coalition winning by two seats. Iraqiyya, however, lacks to the seats to form a government.

Iraq’s Accountability and Justice Commission found that six of election winners were members of the Baath political party. This was the party of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and is banned under Iraqi law. The Committee, sometimes referred to as the De-Baathification Committee, was formed to prevent people associated with Hussein’s party from standing for elected office. Officials from the Committee, who chose to remain anonymous, told the Associated Press that of the six winners, four of them belonged to former Prime Minsters Allawi’s coalition.

Officials from the Justice and Accountability Committee told the AP that they had originally submitted fifty two names to barred from the standing in the election. However, according to the officials, Iraq’s Independent High Election Commission did not act on the recommendations of the committee. Six of the fifty two candidates subsequently went on the win their elections.

Allawi’s Iraqiyya bloc has rejected to moves of the Justice and Accountability Committee. Hamid al-Mutlaq, a winning candidate that is a member of Iraqiyya, insisted that “those six winning candidates have the approval of the election commission and this decision is a political one, not a legal one.” The Independent High Election Commission, despite ignoring the fifty two names referred to them by the Justice and Accountability Committee, ultimately barred close to fiver hundred candidates from standing for election.

The State of Law coalition leader, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is currently mounting a legal challenge to the election. Despite this challenge, both United Nations and United States envoys to Iraq have said the the March 7 election was credible.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Call to Bar Iraq Election Winners ‘Connected to Saddam’ – 31 March 2010

New York Times – Panel in Iraq Moves to Disqualify 52 Candidates – 29 March 2010

Associated Press – Iraq Panel Wants to Bar 4 Elected on Winning List – 29 March 2010

By Ahmad Shihadah

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

ADEN, Yemen – About 40 southern separatists escaped from a prison in Yemen after a guard lobbed a hand grenade to disperse an inmates’ protest at the facility, officials said Thursday.

The men escaped amid a melee that erupted when the grenade exploded in the prison in the southern town of Dali, the officials said. Authorities immediately imposed a curfew on the town and launched a manhunt to track down the escaped inmates.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media, said four prisoners were wounded in the blast. The inmates were protesting their detention without trial.

Southerners in Yemen complain of neglect and discrimination by the north, and an increasingly vocal southern separatist movement has been coming to blows with the central government. The two parts of the country were separate nations before they united in 1990.

Yemen’s interior ministry on Thursday denied the police report that around 30 recently arrested prisoners had made a run for it after a bomb exploded outside a jail in the south of the country. “Information about prisoners fleeing is completely false,” the ministry said in a statement of an earlier police report that sympathizers of a southern secessionist movement had escaped from outside prison.

Also Thursday, police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in Dali and several other southern towns. The demonstrators were protesting the government’s ongoing crackdown against southern pro-secession activists.

Police officials said scores of protesters were detained. Pro-independence protests have multiplied in the south, especially on Thursdays, the start of the Muslim weekend, amid a worsening economic situation in Yemen and charges of discrimination in favor of northerners.

Elsewhere in Yemen’s south, an activist was shot dead and three others were injured when security forces dispersed a protest in the town of Radfan in Lahej province, the local official and media reports said.

Western countries and neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability in Yemen to launch attacks in the region and beyond.

For more information, please see:

Reuters – Mass Escape From Yemen Jail After Blast – 1 April 2010

AP – 40 Activists Bust Out Of Yemen Prison After Blast – 1 April 2010

AFP – Yemen Denies Prisoners Fled After Bomb Blast – 1 April 2010

BBC – Prisoners Escape From Yemen Jail – 1 April 2010

By Bobby Rajabi

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran – There has been an increase in concern regarding Iran’s nuclear program from other countries in the United Nations. Countries such as France and the United States have made it known that they feel that the best method to deal with the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is to impose new sanctions against the country. Turkey, however, is arguing that new sanctions would be a mistake and the best method to dealing with Iran is diplomacy.

The leaders of the United States and France have vowed to push for new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with U.S. President Barack Obama regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. President Obama, after the meeting, commented that they planned on having sanctions in place “within weeks.” President Sarkozy also commented, promising that “all necessary efforts to make sure Europe as a whole engaged in the sanctions regime.”

The United States and France are not alone with their arguments in favor of new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In ensuring that all of Europe remains in involved in the new sanctions discussion, Sarkovy has ensured the support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Sarkozy also explained that “the time has come to take decisions” on Iran’s nuclear program. He argued that simply punishing Iran isn’t enough; the Islamic Republic must be stopped from continuing on their “mad race.”

Chancellor Merkel has indicated that if the United Nations Security Council cannot agree on the sanctions to be imposed on Iran, Germany is willing to pursue its own sanctions against the Islamic Republic and invites like-minded nations to join them in doing so.

Turkey, unlike many of its fellow United Nations members, is not in favor of additional sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on March 29 that economic sanctions against Iran would do more harm than good. Erdogan made his case to Merkel during a visit to Germany. He later told reporters that “the best route (to solving the nuclear issue with Iran) is diplomacy.”

Turkey currently serves as a non-permanent member of the UN security council and Erdogan indicated that no firm decision has been made by the country as of yet.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Obama Pushes Speedy Iran Sanctions – 31 March 2010

BBC – US and France Vow to Push For New Sanctions On Iran – 30 March 2010

Reuters – Turkey Makes Case Against Sanctions on Iran – 29 March 2010

By Ahmad Shihadah

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SA’DA, Yemen – Yemen told international donors at a meeting in Abu Dhabi on Monday that it urgently needs to receive their pledged financial aid to combat poverty and unemployment.

“The need is increasingly urgent for the mobilization of (financial) resources” promised at a London conference in 2006, Deputy Planning Minister Hisham Sharaf Abdullah told the Friends of Yemen meeting.

He said the billions promised were needed to “reduce poverty and unemployment” in Yemen, a poor neighbor of the oil-rich Gulf Arab monarchies. “The government has undertaken reforms … but the road is still long and requires a combination of efforts to meet the challenges that hinder development and undermine the foundations of security and stability,” he added. Abdullah emphasized the importance of the active partnership between Yemen and the international community to make available the amount needed, in addition to coordination and consultation in this respect.

Representatives from about 20 Arab and Western countries met for the workshop co-chaired by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hosts and Germany to address economy and good governance issues in Yemen.

The Yemeni government made a similar request last month, during a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Riyadh. Gulf countries pledged roughly $3.2 billion, almost none of which has been delivered — much like the billions promised during a similar international conference in London in 2006. GCC countries have met just 15 percent of their 2006 promises, according to Abdullah, who said the Yemeni government hopes they will deliver another 15 percent this year.

Khaled Ghanem al-Ghaith, the UAE’s deputy foreign minister, said Gulf countries would meet their commitments to Sana’a, but also seemed to link foreign aid to tougher military actions against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Yemeni government receives takes in 70 percent of its annual budget through oil revenues, and the country’s reserves are declining rapidly.

For more information, please see:

The Majlis – Yemen To World: We Still Need $44 Billion – March 30 2010

Yemen Post – Yemen Says Needs $44 Billion As Friends Meet In Abu Dhabi – March 30 2010

AFP – Yemen Urges Donors To Honor Aid Pledges – 30 March 2010

SABA NET – Yemen Needs $44 Bin To Implement 4^th Five Year Plan, Says Sharaf – March 30 2010