By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

NAGAA HAMMADI, Egypt – Clashes broke out between nearly one thousand Coptic Christians and local police in southern Egypt outside the hospital where the bodies of six Coptic Christians were held. The Christians and one Muslim security guard were killed as churchgoers left Christmas Eve midnight mass, welcoming the Coptic Christmas, which is celebrated on January 7. Ten others were reported wounded.

 

The shootings were believed to be revenge for the alleged rape of a twelve-year-old Muslim girl by a Christian man in November 2009. Since news of the alleged rape spread throughout the Nagaa Hammadi community, sectarian violence has gripped the southern Egyptian town. For five days after the alleged assault, Muslim residents ransacked the town, and set fire to Christian homes and businesses.

 

At the hospital where the bodies of the victims were being held, protestors threw stones at police and smashed ambulances. Police responded with tear gas, and witnesses reported the crowd shouted: “No to repression,” and “O blessed Cross we will defend you with our soul and our blood.”

 

The recent clashes are the latest in Upper Egypt (so-named because it is further upstream on the Nile River), an area that is known for its fierce tribal loyalties and practice of honor killings. In recent years, many Coptic Christians have reported increasing harassment by both residents and government officials. The Copts make up one of the oldest communities of Christians in the world, descended from Egyptians who converted during the first century A.D.

 

Mounir Megahed, director of Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination, said that sectarian violence has escalated in Egypt during the past year, with a new example coming nearly every week. Megahed also alleges that the Egyptian state is “soft on tackling the issue,” and that “they do not put people who commit these crimes to trials.” The most infamous of the violent outbreaks was the killing of twenty-one Christians in the southern Egyptian town of El Kosheh in 2000. Nearly ninety villagers were reportedly involved in the killing, but none were prosecuted, according to Megahed.

 

The lack of official attention to the sectarian violence in southern Egypt may also be rooted in cultural stereotypes and prejudices held by many Egyptians in the north. Salem Abdel Galil, the deputy minister for preaching at Egypt’s ministry of religious endowments said the violence was due to the “low standard of culture or education” in Upper Egypt, rather than any underlying religious intolerance.

 

For more information, please see:

 

Al Jazeera – Clashes After Egypt Copt Killings – 7 January 2010

 

BBC News – Clashes in Egyptian Town After Coptic Killings – 7 January 2010

 

The National – Egypt Fears Rise in Sectarian Violence After Church Killings – 7 January 2010

 

The Telegraph – Coptic Christians Clash With Egyptian Police After Mass Shooting – 7 January 2010

 

Voice of America – Attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt Leaves 7 Dead – 7 January 2010

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On January 4 Iraq has filed a lawsuit against Blackwater in a United States court. Another lawsuit will be filed against the US-based private security firm, according to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The charges come amid anger in Iraq over an American court dropping charges against five Blackwater guards. The guards were charged with killing fourteen Iraqi civilians in an unprovoked attack in September 2007.

According to Maliki, “the US Justice Departments has protested” the court’s ruling that the charges be dropped. Maliki also confirmed that Iraq had “formed a committee and filed a case against Blackwater in the United States and will file one here in Iraq.” Without providing elaboration, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that Iraq had “started to take the necessary measures to bring Blackwater to justice.”

The guards charged in the original case were part of convoy of armored vehicles who were escorting a US State Department vehicle in a Sunni-controlled district in September 2007. They were charged with killing fourteen unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding eighteen others at a busy Baghdad roundabout using both guns and grenades. Iraq alleges that seventeen people were killed in the action. Blackwater claimed that the convoy was attacked by an explosive device and smalls are fire and the guards were acting in self-defense. Witnesses and victims, however, allege that the Blackwater employees shot indiscriminately.

A US federal judge, Ricardo Urbinia, dismissed the charges against the five Blackwater guards. Urbina concluded that prosecutors had violated the rights of the guards by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a US State Department probe. The Iraqi government called this ruling “unacceptable and unjust.”

The immunity was lifted in a bilateral agreement that came into effect in 2009. It is not clear how an Iraqi case against the Blackwater guards or the company itself would get around the immunity that was valid at the time of the September 2007 incident.

Blackwater pulled out of Iraq in May 2009 after the United State State Department refused to renew its contracts. The company subsequently changed its name to Xe Services.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Iraq to Take Blackwater to Court – 5 January 2010

Daily Mail – Iraq Seeks Revenge in Court for the Blackwater Shootout – 5 January 2010

AFP – Iraq Files Case Against Blackwater: PM – 4 January 2010

Reuters – Iraq Will File Lawsuits Against Blackwater – 4 January 2010

By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

BETHLEHEM, West Bank – Caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad impliedly admitted in a report released on January 3 that forces in the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, had tortured Hamas detainees for the past two years. The Associated Press reported that most of the torture in West Bank prisons had ended by October 2009.

 

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is predominated by members of the Fatah Party, while the Gaza Strip is ruled by the PA’s rival party—Hamas. In his statement on January 3, Prime Minister Fayyad said that there was a “dramatic change for the better” in West Bank prisons, and that forty-three prison officers had been jailed, fired, or demoted for torturing inmates. Fayyad claimed that torture was never an official policy of the PA, but rather were the product of a “flawed culture of revenge.” According to the Associated Press, some Hamas prisoners were beaten so badly at the hands of PA officers that eight detainees have died in West Bank prisons since 2007. The AP report drew on interviews with both PA officials and Hamas inmates.

 

There has been long-standing animosity between the two parties, often triggering retaliation and violence between members of the two Palestinian parties; Fayyad’s statement was also the first time that the PA has admitted that Hamas prisoners are arrested on their political affiliation alone. Fayyad’s cabinet issued a supporting statement, expressing its commitment to reforming the PA prison system.

 

The PA announcement comes as Fatah and Hamas continue to work toward a reconciliation agreement. Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip after a violence coup in 2007, and has been at odds with the PA ever since. In the last months of 2009, Egypt attempted to broker a deal between the two parties, and sources inside the negotiations have said the two sides are close to a deal. Saudi officials are also reportedly involved in reconciliation negotiations. The reported deal would require Palestinian elections be held in June 2010 in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had earlier announced that he would not seek reelection from the June ballot.

 

For more information, please see:

 

Jerusalem Post – Hamas: Torture Ends in PA Jails – 4 January 2010

 

Ma’an News Agency – Fayyad Concedes PA Tortured Hamas Detainees – 4 January 2010

 

Al Jazeera – Palestinian Reconciliation “Close” – 3 January 2010

 

Ha’aretz – Fatah to Hamas: Want to Reconcile? Sign Deal – 3 January 2010

By Nykoel Dinardo
Senior Desk Officer, Middle East

SANA’A, Yemen – On January 4, France became the third country to close its embassy in Yemen in two weeks.  The French Foreign Minister explained the closing, saying that their “ambassador decided on January 3 not to authorize public access to the diplomatic mission until further notice.”  Following the attempted bombing on Christmas Day, the U.S. and British embassies have also closed.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP], a Yemen-based branch of the terrorist organization, claimed the attack and continues to make threats.  According to AQAM, Umar Farouk Abdulmullatab, the 23-year-old Nigerian man involved in the attack, received his materials and instruction from AQAM when he was in Yemen.  Abdulmullatab spent several months in Yemen in 2009; he claimed to be there to study Arabic.

John Brennan, a U.S. counterterrorism official, gave a statement to CNN saying that there are “indications that [AQAM] is planning an attack against a target in Sana’a.” 

Concern about Yemen’s effect on the region, as well as the rest of the world, continues to be echoed in the statements of other U.S. politicians as well.  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters on January 4 that “the instability in Yemen is a threat to regional stability and even global stability.”  Clinton explained that the U.S. is working closely with other countries to try to determine the best approach. 

Brian Whitaker, in an article in the U.K.’s Guardian, suggests that the best approach does not involve the Yemeni Government.  Whitaker goes on to suggest that the U.K. and the U.S. should focus on aid to the people of Yemen, particularly those affected by the conflict between the Huthi rebels.  An article in Al Jazeera reinforces the desire for a non-military solution in the region.  Arguing that military action in Yemen will reflect the U.S. offensive in Somalia in the early 1990s, the article goes on to say that military action “will aggravate a fragile state of Yemen into a failing state.”

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Yemen, The Joke is On You… – 5 January 2010

AFP – Yemen Instability Threatens Regional Stability: Clinton – 4 January 2010

CNN – Yemen Fertile Ground for Terror Groups – 4 January 2010

Guardian – Help Yemen, Not It’s Government – 4 January 2010

Financial Times – Third Western Embassy Closes in Yemen – 3 January 2010

By Nykoel Dinardo
Senior Desk Officer, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran – The Iran State Media released information that several foreigners were detained during violent protests in December 2009. 

A video of the clashes with police posted to the internet.  Courtesy of YouTube.com.

In a speech made on state television, Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi told the people of Iran that several foreigners had been arrested during the protests.  He went on to explain that these detainees are suspected of “pursuing propoganda and psychological warfare” against the government of Iran.  Several of the foreigners had arrived in Iran only two days before the protests; Moslehi explained that their belongings, including cameras and equipment, have been seized. 

Moslehi did not specify an exact number of foreigners seized, only that several were detained.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic News Agency, an state-run Iranian company, released a report on January 4 that accuses sixty-two American and European institutes and foundations of assisting with the political disturbances following the Iranian presidential election in 2009.  The report accused these foundations and institutes of participating in false “public diplomacy” and “media diplomacy,” while creating a “soft war” against the government of Iran. 

The report named several of the accused institutions, including the Woodrow Wilson Center, Freedom House Charities, the Hoover Institute of Stanford University, Yale University and all affiliated centers and programs, and Human Rights Watch.  According to a statement by the Deputy Foreign Minister of Information, cooperation with these organizations is considered contrary to the Holy Islamic Republic.

For more information, please see:

ABC News – Foreign Nationals Among Protest Detainees, Says Iran – 4 January 2010

Al Jazeera – Foreigners ‘Among Iran Arrests’ – 4 January 2010

Islamic Republic News Agency – نقش 62 بنياد و موسسه امريکايي و اروپايي در ايجاد اغتشاشات پس از انتخابات (The Role of 62 American and European Institutes and Foundations in Creating Disturbances After the Election)[Available in Farsi only] – 4 January 2010

Reuters Canada – Iran Says Several Foreigners Arrested in Protests – 4 January 2010

YouTube – نبرد تن به تن و نفس گیر مردم با گارد ویژه – عاشورا (Video of Protests on Ashura) – 30 December 2009