An Abu Dhabi court has jailed the wife of a prominent Emirati for 10 years after convicting her of spying for Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, local media reported on Tuesday.
The Emirati woman of Lebanese origin was found guilty of "handing over classified information about top leaders, including how political and economic decisions are made at the highest authorities in the country, to two members of the intelligence wing of Hezbollah," Gulf News reported.
She had also provided "sensitive information" on meetings of senior officials in the United Arab Emirates, exploiting her marriage to "a very important person and her relationships with men and women in political circles close to the decision-making authority in the country," the daily added.
Local media said the woman was a 48-year-old television presenter they identified by her initials R.M.A.
They did not elaborate on her husband's position but said he had been unaware of her activities.
The state security court in Abu Dhabi convicted her of "putting the country's interests and security at risk by delivering such classified information to the Iranian intelligence through agents of Hezbollah," Gulf News said.
The UAE and other Gulf Arab states have blacklisted Hezbollah as a "terrorist" group.
In April, the court sentenced three Lebanese, including a Canadian dual national, to six months in prison on charges of forming a local affiliate of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is fighting in Syria in support of the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Gulf Arab states have backed rebels fighting to oust him.
(Beirut) – Egyptian authorities have banned the prominent director of a women’s rights organization from traveling outside the country. On June 27, 2016, Interior Ministry passport control officers at Cairo International Airport stopped Mozn Hassan, the director of Nazra for Feminist Studies, from boarding her flight to Beirut, where she planned to attend a meeting of regional women human rights defenders.
Hassan is the fourth director of a nongovernmental organization to be banned from travel since a panel of judges reopened an investigation into the foreign funding of these groups in late 2014. That investigation escalated in the first half of 2016, as authorities have sought an increasing number of travel bans and asset freezes against human rights defenders and political activists.
“A travel ban on a women’s rights leader heading for a conference only makes it more likely that the world will hear about Egypt’s persecution of activists,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director. “Egypt’s allies around the world should make it clear that harassment and other abuses against human rights defenders will significantly harm relations and should cease.”
Airport officers told Hassan that the prosecutor general had issued an order banning her from travel at the request of an investigating judge, she told Human Rights Watch. They did not provide further details or show Hassan the order. The officers sent Hassan to colleagues from the ministry’s National Security Agency, which has taken the lead on the investigation of nongovernmental groups, for further questioning. Hassan invoked her right to have a lawyer present, and the interrogation did not go forward. After about an hour, the authorities returned Hassan’s passport and released her from the airport.
One of the judges handling the investigation of nongovernmental groups, which was first opened in 2011 and restarted in late 2014, had summoned Hassan for interrogation on March 29, 2016, but postponed the session indefinitely when she arrived with lawyers, telling them that he would set a date for them to review the case file.
Hassan’s travel ban followed soon after a similar incident on June 21, when Cairo airport authorities told Hoda Abd al-Wahab, the executive director of the Arab Center for Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession, that she had been banned from travel by order of the prosecutor general.
The prosecutor general has also issued travel bans to leaders of at least two other groups, Gamal Eid of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and Hossam al-Din Ali of the Egyptian Democratic Academy, in addition to scores of other people. According to a documented count maintained by the independent group Daftar Ahwal, at least 175 activists, journalists, religious figures, politicians, and human rights workers have been banned from leaving Egypt since the military removed former President Mohamed Morsy in July 2013.
The investigating judges have also requested asset freezes against a number of current and former workers for nongovernmental groups, including Eid; Abd al-Hafiz Tayel, the director of the Egyptian Center for the Right to Education; Mustafa al-Hassan, the director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center; Bahey al-Din Hassan, the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies; and Hossam Bahgat, an investigative journalist who founded the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. A court will continue proceedings related to those requests on July 17, 2016. On June 15, a court approved, in just one session, an asset freeze against Ahmed Samih, the director of the Andalus Center for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies.
A travel ban on a women’s rights leader heading for a conference only makes it more likely that the world will hear about Egypt’s persecution of activists. Egypt’s allies around the world should make it clear that harassment and other abuses against human rights defenders will significantly harm relations and should cease.
Nadim Houry
Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director
On February 17, Health Ministry officials issued an order to close the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, Egypt’s leading center for such treatment, on the basis that it was performing unlicensed work. The center has continued to operate as it tries to negotiate the shutdown order.
The investigation into the foreign funding of nongovernmental groups, known as Case 173, began after Egypt’s uprising in 2011, when the government, accusing foreign groups of helping foment revolution, appointed two judges to look into the matter. It resulted in the conviction of 43 employees, including 16 United States citizens, and the closure of five foreign organizations.
The government reopened the case in late 2014, after the Social Solidarity Ministry gave local groups a November deadline to officially register under Egypt’s onerous 2007 law on associations.
Under Egyptian law, prosecutors could charge leading human rights defenders for working without official registration or accepting foreign funding without government authorization. An amendment to the penal code, passed in September 2014 by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, provides for a sentence of up to life in prison – 25 years in Egypt – for the latter charge.
Article 62 of the Egyptian constitution guarantees freedom of movement and states that “no citizen may be prevented from leaving the state territory…except by a reasoned judicial order for a specified period of time and in the cases defined by the law.” Article 54 states that anyone “whose freedom is restricted … shall have the right to file grievance before the court against this action.” Egypt has no laws that specifically regulate travel bans, but various decisions by the interior minister, some of which have been ruled unconstitutional, give unchecked powers to security agencies to stop citizens from traveling.
Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Egypt is a party, states that “everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.” Restrictions to this right must be provided by law and be “necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others.”
The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body tasked with overseeing the ICCPR, stated in a general comment that such restrictions “must not nullify the principle of liberty of movement, and are governed by the requirement of necessity … and by the need for consistency with the other rights recognized in the Covenant.” In 2011, the committee stated that restricting the movement of journalists and others within or outside their country, especially for the purpose of attending human-rights-related meetings, undermines the freedom of expression that is essential to protect human rights.
Both the National Security Agency and the General Intelligence Service, Egypt’s external spy agency, have for a number of years been gathering information on local groups’ activities, Human Rights Watch said. Their findings were contained in a September 2011 fact-finding report, parts of which were leaked to the media, that named 37 groups under investigation, including all of those affected by the recent summonses and travel bans.
“After restricting their ability to operate inside Egypt, the authorities are trying to punish high-profile activists with travel bans to prevent them from carrying their voices and message abroad,” Houry said.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An activist detained in Bahrain in an intensifying crackdown on dissent was taken to the hospital Tuesday after suffering an irregular heartbeat following 15 days of being held in isolation, his supporters said.
Authorities took Nabeel Rajab to the cardiac care clinic of the Bahrain Defense Force Hospital, said Sayed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.
Rajab's condition wasn't immediately known Tuesday night. Bahraini officials did not respond to a request for comment and state media did not immediately report on the 52-year-old activist's hospitalization.
"We raised our extreme worries about the effects isolated detention would have on Nabeel's health and we were ignored," Alwadaei said in a statement. "Nabeel never suffered heart problems before."
Police arrested Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, in an early morning raid on June 13. He faces a charge of spreading "false news."
Rajab helped lead protests during Bahrain's 2011 demonstrations as the island's majority Shiites and others demanded more political freedom from its Sunni rulers. The government quashed the protests with the help of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, though low-level unrest and attacks on police have continued.
Bahrain, a tiny island that is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, has launched a new crackdown on activists since April. Late Monday, the Interior Ministry announced a series of arrests of people who were "misusing social media" to "incite people or instigate people to abuse others." It offered no further details on the number or identifies of those arrested.
Authorities have also suspended the country's largest Shiite opposition group, Al-Wefaq, and doubled a prison sentence for its secretary-general, Sheikh Ali Salman. Authorities now seek to dissolve the political party in court.
On Tuesday, lawyers representing Al-Wefaq in those hearings issued a statement saying they would withdraw from the case as authorities had blocked them from entering the group's shuttered headquarters to obtain documents and prepare their defense.
Bahrain, just off Saudi Arabia's coast, faces mounting economic pressure as its oil-dependent economy suffers from depressed global crude prices. The agency Fitch Ratings on Tuesday downgraded Bahrain's credit rating by a notch below investment grade, putting it into junk territory. It said that "lower oil prices are causing a marked deterioration in Bahrain's fiscal position."
The decision by Fitch follows a similar move in February by Standards & Poor's to put Bahrain in junk territory.
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) condemned forced deportation of Bahraini human rights lawyer Taimoor Karimi to Iraq, and urged the Al Khalifa regime to reinstate the nationality of all those whose citizenship was arbitrarily revoked on 'politically-motivated grounds'.
“Taimoor Karimi, previously arrested in 2011, and being subjected to torture while in detention is a human rights lawyer, who defended political detainees, before his license to practice law was revoked, due to his lack of citizenship in Bahrain,” the center said in a statement published on its website on Tuesday.
BCHR said in the statement that “before the forced deportation of the human rights lawyer, the Bahraini authorities previously issued an administrative decision revoking the citizenship of Karimi and 30 other individuals in November 2012, citing Article 10 of the Citizenship Law which allows withdrawal of citizenship from people who have allegedly caused damage to state security”.
Many of those thus denaturalized were members of civil society, including human rights defenders, journalists, political exiles, and religious and opposition figures.
The center further added in its statement that the court ordered the deportation of ten denaturalized Bahrainis including Karimi later on 28 October 2014. And on 23 May 2016, the court of appeal upheld the decision to deport Karimi. Then on 26 June 2016, the decision was put into action. Karimi was informed that he will be deported by the General Directorate of Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs, and shortly after, he was only given the choice to leave to Iraq.
“The government of Bahrain has escalated its crackdown on free voices and dissent. Revocation of citizenship and forced deportation are the authorities’ new intimidation and reprisal instrument against any opposition. Since 2012, the Bahraini authorities have revoked the nationality of 300 people and forcibly deported six denaturalized individuals following court orders to deport them. At least eight other individuals are at imminent risk of deportation. On 20 June 2016, the Ministry of Interior revoked the citizenship of Shiite spiritual leader Sheikh Isa Qasim, and has reportedly threatened him with deportation,” the statement said.
BCHR, therefore, called on the government of Bahrain to immediately allow Taimoor Karimi and others to return to Bahrain and to reinstate the nationality of all those whose citizenship was arbitrarily revoked on politically-motivated grounds since 2011.
The center note that “the cases of these forced deportation are based on politically-motivated charges, therefore the Bahraini government should accede to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness".
Dubai: In terms of density of millionaire household Bahrain tops the GCC region with 13 per cent of the households having private wealth in excess of $1 million (Dh3.67 million), according to Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) annual wealth report Global Wealth 2016: Navigating the New Client Landscape.
Private financial wealth includes cash and deposits, mutual funds, listed and unlisted equities, debt securities, life insurance payments, and pension entitlements, all either held directly or indirectly through managed investments, and held either onshore or offshore. It excludes investors’ residences and luxury goods.
In millionaire household density, Qatar is close behind Bahrain accounting for 12.7 per cent of total households in the category. While Kuwait has 7.1 per cent of its households in the millionaire club, Oman and Saudi Arabia have 6.8 per cent and 4.6 per cent of their households respectively with private wealth in excess of $1 million.
Globally Liechtenstein leads in millionaire household density accounting for 18.9 per cent of total number of households closely followed by Switzerland with 15 per cent. In global millionaire household density ranking Bahrain comes third, followed by Qatar at fourth position.
The relatively high density of millionaire households in the GCC is attributed to the large number of family owned conglomerates and their hold on private wealth in the region.
“A significant share of economic activity in the GCC region is controlled by family owned conglomerates that are directly benefiting from the economic prosperity of the region and adding to the numbers of wealthy households. Some of the global offshore centres too have higher density of millionaires because they attract a significant share of global wealth,” said Markus Massi, Partner & Managing Director of BCG Middle East’s Financial Services practice.
Despite the persistent low oil prices over the past two years, Massi expects to see strong growth in Middle East household wealth over the next five years.
“Statistically high net worth households from the region have done well during periods of economic stress, particularly those in the top end of the spectrum because of their high level of exposure to global asset classes such as private equity, emerging market assets and other alternate asset classes compared to the traditional asset mix of global equities and fixed income,” said Massi.
In 2015, the UAE’s private wealth grew 10.2 per cent and is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 14.1 per cent between now and 2020. In Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, wealth creation contracted by 1.4 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively last year.
June 25, The Iran Project – Head of national security and foreign policy commission hasstressed that bio-terrorist attacks should be taken seriously.
Visiting Iranian director Nader Talebzadeh in his home on Friday, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Iranian Member of Parliament said American and Israeli intelligence services are seeking to harm the revolutionary forces, warning against bio-terrorist attacks of the country’s enemies.
Iranian film-director, film producer and documentary filmmaker known for his TV series The Messiah Nader Talebzadeh was victim of biological terror in Iraq through toxic bags.
Speaking about his treatment process, Talebzadeh pointed out that the plot was just publicized to make the people and the official aware of the global arrogance’s conspiracies.
Organizer of the Ammar Festival also stressed that poisoning and illness problems have not interfered with his artistic career.
It should be noted that General Ebrahim Jabbari announced earlier that Iranian filmmaker Farajollah Salahshour was also victim of biological terror by the enemies’ intelligence services.
Farajollah Salahshour, better known for directing TV series Prophet Joseph, passed away due to a strange illness on 27 February 2016.
Now that the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union, African economies—already struggling from slowing demand from China and flat commodity prices—have now been thrown into confusion along with the rest of the world.
“Many emerging market and frontier asset markets will come under pressure,” Razia Khan, chief economist for Africa for Standard Chartered Bank, tells Quartz. “Much will depend on how quickly some sort of financial market stability can be restored.”
The UK’s minister for Africa and advocate for leaving, James Duddridge, has promised that relations with the continent would only improvewithout the burden of the EU, but Africa’s largest economies are still likely to suffer. More...
The feeling of insecurity and terrorist plots was highlighted by Bahraini Prime Minister Salman Al Khalifa during an encounter with senior state officials and other personalities as he emphasized the need to be “cautious and vigilant and take necessary measures to preserve the security and stability of our country and its people” because “there are agents who are operating under various covers to serve the interests of external sides.”
He stressed that the government will not relax its policies despite concerns from other countries because “there is no turning back or leniency regarding terrorism.”
For the past couple of years, Bahraini authorities have voiced their concern over terrorism coupled with Iranian and Hezbollah’s interference in the country’s domestic affairs. Bahrain stripped Shia Cleric Ayatollah Isa Qassim of his citizenship last week and both Iran and Hezbollah warned that it could lead to severe consequences for Manama which could incite armed resistance and set fire to kingdom.
A UN Advisor also criticized the decision prompting a rejection of his statements as “interference in Bahrain’s internal affairs and a breach of his mandate as advisor” by the Permanent Representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council in a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.
Besides the Gulf Cooperation Council member states, several other countries have expressed backing to Bahrain’s endeavors to preserve its security and stability.
Prime Minister Salman said “what is going on around us will strengthen our determination and resolve to carry on the development process for the interests of the homeland and its people.” “We are on the right track, and we will remain strong and determined to achieve the interests of Bahraini citizens,” he said adding that Bahrain will continue its consultation approach with its citizens to face domestic challenges.
Majority of Bahrain’s population are Shias and they claim that they are being sidelined by the Sunni minority that controls power and enjoys the support of regional Gulf States.
Iran's supreme leader has blasted as "foolishness" a decision by Bahrain's leaders to strip a top Shi'ite Muslim cleric of his citizenship, and said it could provoke violence from Shi'ites, who make up the majority in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom.
The speech by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, carried by state media, came after Bahrain's Sunni authorities stepped up measures against the island's Shi'ites and stripped their spiritual leader, Ayatollah Isa Qassim, of his citizenship.
"This is blatant foolishness and insanity. When he still could address the Bahraini people, Sheikh Isa Qassim... would advise against radical and armed actions," Khamenei said in remarks carried by state television on Sunday.
"Attacking Sheikh Isa Qassim means removing all obstacles blocking heroic Bahraini youths from attacking the regime."
Bahrain in 2011 put down an uprising led by Shi'ites demanding reforms. Since then, there have been almost daily skirmishes between Shi'ite youths and security forces, as well as several bomb attacks.
Bahrain accuses Iran of fomenting unrest among its Shi'ite population and providing financial and material support, a charge Tehran denies.
In a series of moves over the past three weeks, authorities also closed down the main Shi'ite opposition al-Wefaq Islamic Society, doubled the prison sentence on the group's leader, Sheikh Ali Salman, and detained prominent rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab.
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has strongly criticized the revocation of the citizenship of a senior cleric in Bahrain, saying Bahraini youths cannot be silenced anymore.
"In Bahrain, a ruthless and arrogant minority is oppressing the majority; and has now carried out an act of aggression against the diligent scholar, Sheikh Isa Qassim. This is insanity and stupidity," the Leader said on Saturday.
Ayatollah Khamenei elaborated that it was Sheikh Qassim who prevented the mass protests in Bahrain from being driven to extremism.
"These fools do not understand that eliminating Sheikh Isa Qassim means removing the barrier in front of the spirited Bahrani youths against the government. Nothing can silence these youths anymore," the Leader said.
Bahrain on Monday revoked the citizenship of Sheikh Qassim, accusing him of sowing "sectarianism and violence."
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry claimed in a statement that Sheikh Qassim actively sought the “creation of a sectarian environment” through his connections with foreign powers.
The ministry claimed that the cleric had misused his religious position to advance a political agenda and serve foreign interests.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rrights said in a statement that the decision against the top Shia cleric "is yet another blow to freedom of speech and expression in Bahrain” and is “part of an escalating crackdown on freedoms and rights.”
It urged the government to “immediately and unconditionally reinstate the citizenship of Qassim and all those affected,” saying that it had documented evidence of at least 261 cases since 2012.
Elsewhere in his speech, Ayatollah Khamenei pointed to the enemy plots against Iran, saying, " They created Daesh [Takfiri terrorists] to defeat the Islamic Republic. Iraq and the Levant were a prelude to crippling Iran."
However, the Leader stressed, "It was the might of the Islamic Republic that brought them to their knees."
Iran has recently arrested a number of Takfiri elements seeking to carry out terror attacks in the country.
Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said on June 21 that as many as 10 terrorists were apprehended from June 14 to 20 in Tehran and three border and central provinces.
According to the minister, the militants were planning remote control explosions, suicide bombings, and car bombings against bustling areas.
A day earlier, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry released a statement about the foiled bombing plots by Takfiri-Wahabi groups.
Wahhabism is the radical ideology dominating Saudi Arabia. It forms the dogma of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, which is wreaking havoc mainly in Iraq and Syria.
Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks in a meeting with the families of Iranian military advisers killed in Syria while on a mission against the Takfiri terrorists wreaking havoc in the Arab country.
Iran maintains military advisers in Syria, where the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is fighting an array of foreign-backed militant forces, including, but not limited to, those of the Daesh terrorist group.
Syria has been gripped by a foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. According to United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
Also meeting with the Leader on Saturday were the families of the victims of a bomb attack in Iran in early 1980s.
On 28 June, 1981, a powerful bomb went off at the the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) headquarters, where the party’s leaders were holding a meeting. Tens of Iranian officials, including then Head of Supreme Judicial Council Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, were killed in the bombing by the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).
The MKO has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials over the past three decades. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist attacks since the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to MKO's acts of terror.
Bahrain Human Rights 