Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

 A Syrian gravedigger recounts a genocide, but is anyone listening?

Scale of torture and deaths in unofficial prisons

Some of this reminds me of how five or six years ago in a class of seven students in a UK elite university three of them (two Germans and one British) were in favour of a "benevolent dictator" (in the Arab context). The bloody horrors of Pinochet showed how capitalism will react when it's threatened

Donald Rumsfeld, US protests and the neoliberal hypocrites

Syria and beyond Many "leftists" in Britain, who keep marching for Palestinians, for example), viewed the Syrian regime as "progressive"with socialistic elements, anti-Western imperialism, and its main backer, Russia, as a balancer to American imperialism. 
Many "liberals" viewed the Syrian regime as "secular", the lesser evil, the one whose leader and first lady were Western-educated and enlightened. After all, it was the Islamic State group that "threatened our way of life", not al-Assad. Many now will consent to normalising relationship with the "victor": Some Arab states have already began such a process and Western ones will follow suit. Capital will thrive and old and new wealthy oligarchs will join hands. And, of course, the language of "human rights" and prosecuting the perpetrators are among those commodities which will accompany "reconstruction" and "normalisation". 
Is protec

"Strategical partners" German arms feeding the Yemen conflict

"Human Rights" in Tunisia Context: it was during an era the Tunisian regime was hailed as "the best student" by the IMF and a "liberal secular" regime under Bourgiba (1956-1987), and was in good relations with the US, France, Britain, Italy and others while torture, repression and plunder went on. Now any complicity is forgotten. From the liberal   Guardian to the Financial Times and the Economist , the talk now is about a "nascent though weak democracy" and "transitional justice". Meanwhile, the international financial institutions carry on with their debt enslavement programme and "restructuring". 

What imeprialism reproduces while dominating a local uncivilized population " Max Ginsburg painted Torture Abu Ghraib (oil, 46×32) from life, except for the dog, which came from one of the photographs of prisoners tortured by American soldiers. The models for the figures are wearing costumes from an Army-Navy store. Ginsburg was influenced, while he was working, by Caravaggio’s Flagellation of Christ. 2007. Iraqis will never forget. My students have no idea about this." — T. Swedenburg, November 2018

Midle East Monitor , which the bbc says it is pro-Hamas, is trying to tarnish "our British values", spreading hatred of "our democracy and freedoms"!  "UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee reported that British intelligence officers have been involved in human rights abuses on hundreds of occasions. According to government lawyers, there are concerns that some potential human rights abuses took place within international armed conflict and could amount to war crimes."

We know the American war crimes in Iraq, but We may never know if the British committed war crimes there Why? Because the British forces are (almost) perfect.  The last person in Britain to be prosecuted for crimes committed by forces under their command was in 1651 during the civil war.

Fly Emirates! Tortured, detained, disappeared: United Arab Emirates abuses rife in southern Yemen

Echoes For Samira al-Khalil

Warning : do not read this if you are eating or about to eat, going to bed, or going to make love. This happened between 1952-1956, not in the nineteenth century. "Interrogation under torture was widespread. Many of the men were anally raped, using knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels, snakes and scorpions. A favourite technique was to hold a man upside down, his head in a bucket of water, while sand was rammed into his rectum with a stick. Women were gang-raped by the guards. People were mauled by dogs and electrocuted. The British devised a special tool which they used for first crushing and then ripping off testicles. They used pliers to mutilate women’s breasts. They cut off inmates’ ears and fingers and gouged out their eyes. They dragged people behind Land Rovers until their bodies disintegrated. Men were rolled up in barbed wire and kicked around the compound."  — Caroline Elkins, Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya , 2005 An update from Elkins

It is a sin to link to the Daily Mail, but it is good to know one more example of how a criminal regime apologises for its crimes by putting the blame on three or four individuals .

Ghani's statistics on armed groups show that most of them also involve cases of violence against women – and the Syrian government heads that list. Women are deliberately targeted, he says, because they always played an important role in the opposition against Assad. The regime sees torture and sexual abuse of women as a war strategy, Ghani argues. "Break the women and you break the family – and with it opposition in society. That's the goal." Syrian women in Assad's prisons

Terrorists of feather flock together. How Britain did Gaddafi's dirty work Ian Cobain is the author of

"The question that emerges clearly and forcefully is one of justice. What does justice for Muslims mean in the face of US [led] state violence?  The answer, as you can imagine, is complex, but it is certain that endless wars, militarism, and intervention will not bring justice." 16 years into "the war on terror" and institutionalized Islamophobia lives on

Kurdish FSA commander loses his faction after refusing to fight

Lebanese army accused of torturing Syrian refugees

Tunisia makes a pact with remembering its past