Iraq executes Tunisian for bombing of Askari shrine

'Iraq executed a Tunisian man convicted of the 2006 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine that set off the worst of the country’s sectarian violence, a senior Iraqi official said Thursday.

Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim said that Yusri Fakhir, who was convicted early this year of the bombing on the al-Askari shrine in Sunni city of Samarra, was executed Wednesday in Baghdad. Ten other people — one Egyptian and nine Iraqis — also were executed on unrelated terrorism convictions, Ibrahim said.

The Tunisian Foreign Ministry expressed its “regret and displeasure” following the execution, which happened “despite the efforts undertaken by the Tunisian state” to try to win a reprieve for Fakhir.

Last week, Tunisia’s interim president sent a letter to his Iraqi counterpart, Jalal Talabani, asking for Fakhir’s release.

Fakhir’s father told the Tunisian state news agency TAP that his son was innocent of any crime.

“I consider my son a martyr and his final resting place is paradise,” Fakhir Trigui said. “There is no reason to be ashamed because he did nothing wrong.” '


He was innocent of any crime? He did nothing wrong? Did the schmuck go to Iraq as a tourist?

Tunisia is most secular Arab country

Perhaps the most progressive, at least in education. Will that change with Islamic influence? I hope not.

'For all its restrictions on direct political participation, for decades, Tunisia was the most secular and progressive country the Islamic world has ever known. The regime was the least brutal in the region, its people the wealthiest and best educated.

The poverty level was just 4  per cent when the revolution broke out, which is among the lowest in the world.

Eighty per cent of the population belonged to the middle class. And the education system — allocated more funding than the army — ranked 17th globally in terms of quality. The veil was banned in public institutions, polygamy was outlawed, mosques were shuttered outside prayer times, and men needed permission from the local police to grow a beard.

It was the only Muslim country where abortion was legal, where frank sex education was compulsory in schools, and where children had it drummed into their heads that religion and politics were distinct and separate.

Radical Islamists opposed to this strict secular order were either exiled or imprisoned. Now, however, with the collapse of the old order, the Islamists are starting to come back — with a vengeance.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360799/Sex-brothels-REAL-tyranny-threatening-Arab-world.html#ixzz1F6Pn8izw

Could the Iraqi people have overthrown Saddam?

'The Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings succeeded because the military forces of those countries refused to protect the regimes by cracking down on their own countrymen. The Egyptian military's self-image is that of a force that protects the nation and the people, not Hosni Mubarak. Yes, many top officers were his cronies, but when the push came to shove, their loyalty to the state was greater than their loyalty to the regime. The same was true in Tunisia.

Saddam, on the other hand, could always count on two armed groups whose ONLY reason for being was their loyalty to him: the Republican Guard, and the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam. As they showed while putting down the Shi'ite uprising after the Kuwait war, these forces were perfectly happy to kill tens of thousands of Iraqis on his orders.'

Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/02/23/could-the-arab-revolution-have-removed-saddam/#ixzz1ExhllkU2

Thanks RhusLancia for posting over at Zeyad's Healing Iraq.

Fedayeen Saddam were not formed until after 1991. Otherwise Bobby Ghosh is right. Fedayeen was just another tool Saddam & Sons used to control Iraqis. Saddam was stronger in 2003 than he was in 1991.

I asked my my mom a couple of weeks ago if she thought Saddam would have fallen as easily as Mubarak. She said maybe not as easily, but she thinks eventually he would have fallen. I didn't have time to talk about 1991, but I disagree with her. Saddam had already brutally put down a major uprising in 1991 and he had a firm grip on Iraq in 2003. Saddam might have been overthrown if Iraq's Sunni Arabs, including his Republican Guard and Fedayeen, had been united with the Shia and Kurds to overthrow Saddam.

Islamist returns to Tunisia after 22 years in exile

'Leading Tunisian Islamist Rachid Ghannouchi returned home Sunday from 22 years in exile, witnesses said. Thousands turned out to greet him at the airport.

His return is a powerful symbol of the change that has swept this country since its president was toppled by popular protests this month.

Supporters of Ghannouchi's Ennahda movement, which had been banned for two decades, crowded into the arrivals area of the airport and held up banners reading: "No to extremism, yes to moderate Islam!" and "No fear of Islam!"

A group of about a dozen secularists were holding up banners reading: "No Islamism, no theocracy, no Sharia and no stupidity!" '

Will Iraq be like Tunisia or Lebanon?

NYT: 'BAGHDAD — Iraq’s new government has been in office for just over one month, but already it has seen the toppling of governments in Tunisia and Lebanon , anti-government protests in Egypt, and a rise in violence and unrest at home. On Tuesday, as Iraqis watched televised street demonstrations from Lebanon, some here wondered how far they were from destabilizing conditions of their own.

“We need electricity, security and job opportunities,” said Ghazwal Abdul Karim, who runs a laundry in the mostly Sunni Yarmouk neighborhood. “If not, we will be like Tunisia or Lebanon.” '

PS: Hasn't Iraq already been much worse than Tunisia and Lebanon in terms of violence? Or does he mean Nuri al Maliki would have to step down?

Yemenis inspired by Tunisia

"Drawing inspiration from the revolt in Tunisia, thousands of Yemenis fed up with their president's 32-year rule demanded his ouster Saturday in a noisy demonstration that appeared to be the first large-scale public challenge to the strongman.

Clashes also broke out Saturday in Algeria, as opposition activists there tried to copy the tactics of their Tunisian neighbors, who forced their longtime leader to flee the country more than a week ago.

The protests in Yemen appeared to be the first of their kind. The nation's 23 million citizens have many grievances: they are the poorest people in the Arab world, the government is widely seen as corrupt and is reviled for its alliance with the United States in fighting al-Qaida, there are few political freedoms and the country is rapidly running out of water."

Islam not a factor in Tunisian uprising

As'ad Abu Khalil says "Islamists have no role whatsoever in it," but 10 Jews leave Tunisia, just in case.

I noticed the professor doesn't cover the sectarian violence in Iraq, where more people have died in the last week than in the entire jasmine revolution thus far.

Jordan not like Tunisia

The Jordanian King would not let go of power so easily.

Angry Arab: Western media exaggerate Islam's role in Arab politics

' "Western media still highly exaggerate the role and influence of Islam in political behavior and actions (and even violence by) Arabs and Muslims," said AbuKhalil, a political science professor at California State University, Stanislaus, and a blogger for a site called The Angry Arab News Service. '

Really?

Al Jazeera covers Tunisia round the clock

'The network turned to the Tunisian story in December after a young college graduate trying to earn a living as a fruit vendor set himself on fire to protest harassment by police and the hopelessness and lack of jobs under the government of President Zine el Abidine ben Ali. Its footage of angry mobs and blood in the streets was a creeping threat to Ben Ali, who was attempting to censor Tunisian media in a bid for calm.

The Tunisian parliament accused Al Jazeera of distortion and bias in its coverage. It condemned the network for hurting the country's reputation and creating a "spirit of hatred and resentment … to spread chaos, instability and distrust in the country's achievements."

It quickly became apparent, though, that Al Jazeera and other media were reporting on the unmasking and unraveling of a 23-year-old corrupt and autocratic regime. Images of protesters ransacking villas owned by the president's family provided an egalitarian element that roused activists across the region, including in Algeria and Libya, where governments were attempting to quell their own unrest.

Some analysts noted that Al Jazeera focused on the religious aspect of the Tunisian saga. Ben Ali was considered a U.S. ally for cracking down on Islamic extremism, which included jailing militants and forcing opposition politicians into exile, such as Rashid Ghannouchi, leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party. The network appeared to devote more time to Islamist voices than other opposition figures expected to have more of a role in the new political order.

Others, however, credited Al Jazeera with showing balance. "They did an excellent job," said Hussein Amin, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the American University in Cairo. "It was objective coverage with different points of view."

Unlike some of its competitors, Al Jazeera, with an estimated 40 million to 50 million viewers worldwide, prefers a more rapid tempo.

"I was able to follow Al Jazeera's minute-by-minute coverage of the revolution through my iPhone," wrote Bassam Sebti on MidEastPosts. "The Qatari network has an iPhone app that live-broadcasts their news, in addition to its presence on Facebook, Twitter and Al Jazeera Blogs. It was simply everywhere and for free!" '

Tunisia moves towards democracy

'Prime Minister Mohammed Ghanouchi said late Friday in a televised address that President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has surrendered power and left Tunis.

Ghanouchi said that he would serve as interim president, Reuters reported.

Al Arabiya said a six-member leadership council would be formed to rule the country until elections. The council will be led by the head of Parliament and will include the defense minister. The news service said he had fled to Malta.

"I vow that I will respect the constitution and implement the political, economic and social reforms that have been announced ... in consultation with all political sides including political parties and civil society," he said in the live address to a nation rocked by unrest.'

Uprising in Tunisia

NYT: "This ancient Mediterranean hamlet, advertised as the Tunisian Saint Tropez, has long been the favorite summer getaway of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his large extended family, many of whom have built vast beachfront mansions here with the wealth they have amassed during his years in power.

But their new and conspicuous riches, partly exposed in a detailed cable by the American ambassador and made public by Wikileaks, have fueled an extraordinary extended uprising by Tunisians who blame corruption among the elite for the joblessness afflicting their country. And on Thursday idyllic Hammamet became the latest casualty of that rage, as hundreds of protesters swarmed the streets, police fled and rioters gleefully ransacked the mansion of a presidential relative, liberating a horse from its stable and setting aflame a pair of all-terrain vehicles.

That outburst was just a chapter in the deadly violence that flared around the country and in Tunis again on Thursday, making the government appear increasingly shaky. The mounting protests threaten not only to overturn a close United States ally in the fight against terrorism but also to pull back the veneer of tranquil stability that draws legions of Western tourists to Tunisia’s coastal resorts."