Irandaily | No. 4377 | Middle East

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Mass Protest in Kuwait Against Voting Changes

Tens of thousands of Kuwaitis packed into a square opposite parliament on Sunday in a peaceful opposition-led rally against new voting rules.
Recent demonstrations against the electoral changes, ordered by Kuwait’s ruler last month ahead of a poll on December 1, have led to clashes between protesters and police as marches spread out of the areas usually designated for rallies, Reuters reported.
Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the 83-year-old emir whose family has ruled Kuwait for more than 250 years, has said the new rules are aimed at preserving national unity. He warned last week there will be no leniency for threats to national security.
Hundreds of Kuwaiti men wearing white traditional robes streamed into the square where opposition leaders gave speeches from a stage to protesters, many sitting on carpets drinking tea as others sang Kuwaiti songs.
Hundreds of women dressed in black traditional robes sat in a separate area of the audience. Helicopters circled overhead and police lined the streets around the square which were clogged with traffic.
“The government just wants a parliament that does everything they want,” said computer security manager Abu Abdullah. “They are playing with our constitution.”
Fatima Al-Badah, an educational supervisor, said: “The decision (to change voting rules) came from the emir. It is more accurate if this issue is discussed in parliament. Under the new system it is easier to buy votes.”
In a conscious echo of Arab Spring slogans used in other parts of the Arab world, some protesters chanted “The people want to bring down the decree (on voting).”
Protests have toppled four Arab leaders since last year. Although Kuwait, an OPEC member and United States ally, allows more dissent than most other Persian Gulf states, in recent weeks it has begun to emphasize the limits of its tolerance and has arrested small groups of people at the protests.
Made up of Islamist, tribal and liberal lawmakers, as well as youth groups, the opposition says the new voting rules are an attempt to skew the parliamentary election in favor of pro-government candidates.
Opposition politicians held a majority in the last parliament which was fraught with legislative deadlock and dissolved by a court ruling in June.
Under the new rules, each voter chooses only one candidate instead of four, a move the opposition says will prevent its candidates winning the majority they had in the last vote.
They say the four-vote system better enabled candidates to form political allegiances during the election campaign by recommending supporters cast additional ballots for their allies.
Tensions over the proposed changes have been building. Police used teargas and smoke bombs to disperse thousands of Kuwaitis protesting beside a motorway on November 4. In October, two demonstrations were also disbanded by police.
There are 397 candidates for the 50-seat parliament according to the election affairs directorate, which closed registrations on Friday.
Kuwait’s opposition has urged a boycott of the election to select the country’s fifth parliament in six years.
Some protesters are also calling for a government that is elected rather than appointed by the Al-Sabah family. Currently the emir picks the prime minister, can veto legislation and has the right to dissolve parliament.
They also want to see the creation of political parties, which are currently banned, meaning lawmakers form blocs based on policy and family ties.

Acquitted Medics Face Uncertain Future in Bahrain

Nearly five months after being acquitted of crimes related to Bahrain’s anti-government uprising, some Shiite medics remain suspended from work and fear they may never practice medicine in the country again. Their fate lies in the hands of a committee that aims to determine whether they breached ethical codes at the height of the Persian Gulf kingdom’s unrest last year.
The medical workers, who assumed their names had been cleared for good, say they are confused by the ongoing investigation as authorities have yet to provide them with full details.
Several have been subpoenaed by the Civil Service Bureau for questioning later this week on the same charges of which they were acquitted, an action they say is illegal.
A spokesperson for Bahrain’s Information Affairs Authority, Salman Al-Jalahma, assures the process is legitimate. “Though they have been acquitted in courtrooms, there were ethical breaches of them criticizing their profession and other ethical codes that they broke,” he said. “This will be dealt with by the hospital administration and has nothing to do with the government.”
A Bahraini military court last September sentenced 20 health workers to prison terms of between five and 15 years for crimes such as attempting to overthrow the government.

Sentences
Of the nine acquitted in June, eight are employed by Bahrain’s Ministry of Health and say, in addition to their suspensions, they also are forbidden to work at private clinics. Nine of their colleagues were given reduced sentences; five are still in prison. Two of medics originally convicted are believed to have fled the country.
While the government maintains the medics politicized their profession while on duty, Bahrain has been heavily criticized for violating medical neutrality. Many believe the revised, reduced punishments were the result of mounting international condemnation.
A senior researcher with Physicians for Human Rights, Abdulrazzaq Al-Saiedi, says he believes the government is behind the ongoing interrogations and that convicting the medics of ethical crimes could be a way to punish them without garnering much outside attention.
During Bahrain’s initial crackdown on Shiite protesters, it was the medics who described to the media the injuries they had seen.
Shiites, who make up the majority of Bahrain’s indigenous population, took to the streets in February 2011 to demand political reform from their Sunni rulers.
The medical workers insist they did nothing but provide help for injured anti-government demonstrators.
But the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry affirmed staff at the country’s main hospital, “moved in and out of their roles as political activists and medical personnel.”

Torture
The medics were eventually arrested and say they were tortured into confessing to charges against them.
Those later acquitted say the new interrogations could result in further suspensions or the complete withdrawing of their licenses.
Al-Saiedi, from Physicians for Human Rights, argues the medics should be receiving compensation, not more punishment.
“They need to get paid all the money that they lost, and they need to be reinstated, and also they need to be compensated for the torture,” he said. “And they need to be treated well. But now we see they still think of themselves as a target. They are not safe. They don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

Turkey MPs Join Hunger Strike For Ocalan

Several leading Kurdish politicians have joined a weeks-long hunger strike demanding an end to the isolation of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who is currently serving a life sentence in prison.
The mayor of Diyarbakir, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey, said in a statement on Sunday that he had stopped eating. Five Kurdish members of parliament also said they are on hunger strike.
The politicians join some 700 Kurdish inmates, a mix of militants and political activists with links to the PKK, who have spent more than eight weeks on hunger strike.
Ocalan has been kept in solitary confinement on an island near Istanbul since 1999. His lawyers have not been allowed access to the island for 15 months.
The hunger strikers are also demanding that they be allowed to speak Kurdish in court. The language has been subject to widespread restrictions for decades. It was banned in schools until earlier this year, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans to allow it as an elective subject.
The Turkish government insists that none of the prisoners are in critical condition yet. They are consuming water and sugary drinks, which allows them to prolong their strike.
But several members of the Republican People’s Party, the main opposition party, told Turkish media that prisoners they met during a tour of detention facilities were showing symptoms of starvation.
Local media reports said the government is negotiating with members of the Peace and Democracy Party, the main Kurdish party, to end the hunger strike.
Erdogan’s government has boosted Kurdish cultural and language rights since taking power, but activists want greater concessions, including steps towards autonomy for southeastern Turkey.
There are about 15 million Kurds in Turkey, one-fifth of the population.
The PKK, which wants an independent Kurdish state, has staged some of its bloodiest attacks in more than a decade this year as tensions grow between Turkey and its neighbor, Syria, which Ankara has accused of arming the group.

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