“On Memory and Democracy: Skeletons in the Turkish Closet”--The 2014 Campagna-Kerven Lecture on Modern Turkey

As some of you will recall, in April Ayşe Kadıoğlu, Dean Faculty at Sabanci University gave a thoughtful and gutsy talk at Boston University.  The streaming video of the lecture is also available on the CKLS website (where you may also find eight other previous lectures.

Soli Ozel's Campagna-Kerven Lecture at Boston University: "A New Honeymoon: Turkish-American Relations in the Age of Arab Awakening, NATO Weakening, and the Asian Pivot"

Professor Soli Ozel is well known to many readers.  He is a faculty member at Kadir Haz University in Istanbul.  His April 24, 2013, lecture was lively and insightful, occasionally irreverent lecture and certainly of the moment.  The talk is now available at the CKLS website.  (Unfortunately, the streaming video was delayed by a series of technical glitches; a few tweaks remain to be done.)

Video from the April 2013 Boston University meeting

Intro by Prof. A R Norton

State-Society Questions:

Professor Gareth Stansfield (University of Exeter) Moderator article
10:15 a.m. H.E. Abdul Latif Rashid, “The Kurds of Iraq”

Video from the April 2013 Boston University meeting

Video 2 of 3

Featuring Prof Ali Banuazizi, Prof Matteo Legrenzi and Amb Charles Dunbar

Video from the April 2013 Boston University meeting

April 2013 conference Iraq+10
Video 3 of 3

State-Society Questions II:

Professor Eric Davis (Rutgers University), Moderator
Dr. Hanan al-Fatlawi (M.P.), “The Dynamics of Parliamentary Life in a Free Iraq”

Iran’s Domestic Politics & the Nuclear Standoff

Lecture

“Iran’s Domestic Politics & the Nuclear Standoff with the United States: Internal dynamic of Iran’s Nuclear Intentions”

Speaker: Bahman Baktiari

Wednesday, April 18, 2012
12:00 to 1:30 pm
Eilts Conference Room, 154 Bay State Road, Room 203, Boston, MA

Bahman Baktiari is the Executive Director of the International Foundation for Civil Society in Salt Lake City, UT. He received his PhD in Government from Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at University of Virginia. He has published extensively on Iranian politics and society. His major publication Parliamentary Politics in Revolutionary Iran was published by University Press of Florida in 1997.

His most recent publications include “Sharia Politics and the Transformation of Islamic Law in Iran ” was published in Shari‘a Politics: Islamic Law and Society in the Modern World , edited by Robert W. Hefner, Indiana University Press ( 2011), Seeking International Legitimacy: Understanding the Dynamics of Nuclear Nationalism in Iran, in Nuclear Politics in Iran, edited by Judith S. Yaphe, published by the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University (2010), Iran’s Conservative Moment, Current History ( January 2007), Voices within Islam: Four Perspectives on Tolerance and Diversity, Current History (January 2005), Doubting Reforms in Iran ( coauthored with Haleh Vaziri ) Current History ( January 2003), Impact of September 11th on Iranian Foreign Policy, Middle East Policy ( December 2002), Exporting the Islamic Revolution: Iranian-Egyptian Relations, With Asef Bayat in N. Keddie and R. Mathee edited, Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics, University of Washington Press ( 2002). He also published several opinion pieces the Christian Science Monitor on Iranian political developments and its impact on foreign policy and relations with the United States.He has been interviewed on several national media outlets, including the NPR Morning Edition, Talk of the Nations, The Todd Feinburg Radio, and Jim Lehrer NewsHour.

Free and open to the public. Includes lunch.

IDF lt. colonel responds to peaceful protest

[Added: more information on the incident and other videos]

"Democratic" Israel mobilizes to exclude pro-Palestinian demonstrators: Imagine that Israel might spend as much energy confronting violent settlers who victimize Palestinian civilians

Jillian Schwedler on the Political Geography of the Arab Spring

Lecture with Jillian Schwedler

“The Political Geography of the Arab Spring”

Wednesday, April 18, 2012
5:00 to 6:30 pm
International Relations Conference Room
152 Bay State Road, Room 102, Boston, MA

Join us as Dr. Jillian Schwedler discusses the political changes since the Arab Spring and the geographical implications for the area today. Dr. Jillian Schwedler is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Beginning September 2013, she will join the faculty of the City University of New York, Hunter College, as Professor of Political Science. Dr. Schwedler is author of the award-winning Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen (Cambridge 2006) and most recently editor (with Dr. Laleh Khalili) of Policing and Prisons in the Middle East (Columbia/Hurst 2010). Her articles have appeared in World Politics, Comparative Politics, Middle East Policy, Middle East Report, Journal of Democracy, and Social Movement Studies (among others). Dr. Schwedler was a member of the editorial committee (1995-2002) and chair of the board of directors (2002-2009) of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), publishers of Middle East Report. She has conducted research in Jordan, Yemen, and Egypt and has traveled extensively throughout the region. She is currently finishing a book manuscript tentatively titled “Protesting Jordan: Space, Law, Dissent,” which examines political protests and policing in the Hashemite Kingdom from 1946 to the present.

Free and open to the public.

Seats are limited. Please let us know if you plan to attend.

"Citizenship and Community in Iraqi Politics and Society", Sami Zubaida, April 2 at Boston U.

The Institute for Iraqi Studies at Boston University is please to present:

"Citizenship and Community in Iraqi Politics and Society"

Speaker: Sami Zubaida

Monday, April 2, 2012

4:30 PM

Boston University, Room B19, 745 Commonwealth Ave., Boston MA 02215

The Shattered Nation: Protest, Violence and Social Fragmentation in the Syrian Uprising

Paulo Pinto, April 3, 2012 at Boston University

ELif Shafak's 2011 Campagna-Kerven Lecture: streaming video

CK Website.

Bahrain: Choking Dissent by Toby Jones

Egyptians' negative views of the U.S. "reward" longstanding U.S. fixation on stability at the expense of reform; negative attitudes on peace with Israel are no surprise to anyone who knows Egypt

Download results.

From Washington Post

More poppycock from the Bahraini potentate

"Today we are trying very hard to improve the process of reform and rectify those problems that have arisen along the way. Sectarian divide has created a schism in our society that is a major challenge. As monarch of all Bahrainis, it pains me to see many harmed by the actions of a few. And yet I am optimistic and have faith in our people. We all realize that now is the time to strike a balance between stability and gradual reform, always adhering to the universal values of human rights, free expression and religious tolerance. I am confident that we can strike this balance in cooperation with our long-time friend and ally, the United States, producing an outcome that will preserve the aspirations of our young democracy in transition."


We must wonder how "pained" the potentate was upon learning fo the death of Mr. al-Fakhrawi: 
" ‘Abdel-Karim al-Fakhrawi, a 49-year-old businessman and member of al-Wefaq, the largest Shi’a political association, died in police custody on 12 April. According to reports, his body bore marks of torture but the authorities have attributed his death to kidney failure." Amnesty International

This photo and others may be found on Demotix.

Amnesty International Briefing Paper on Bahrain: "A Human Rights Crisis"

Arabic, Spanish and French pages are also available.

Excerpts:

The State of National Safety

Since 15 March Bahrain has been under a State of National Safety. This was initially imposed for three months but it may be prolonged with the approval of the National Council. Using its powers under the SNS, the government imposed a curfew in certain areas, initially from 4pm until 4am but now reduced to apply during the hours from 11 pm to 4am. The provisions of the SNS are broadly drawn and vague, and it contains no explicit human rights guarantees. It equips the armed and security forces with sweeping powers, which allow them to ban all public gatherings that are deemed harmful to national security; to prohibit individuals from travelling outside Bahrain if this is held to be in the public interest; and to conduct searches of places and people suspected of transgressing the SNS provisions; to summarily deport foreign nationals considered to pose a threat to national security. The SNS also allows the authorities to close down NGOs, trade unions, social clubs and political associations if they are deemed to have carried out activities considered harmful to national security, including “collaborating” with a foreign state. Further, any publication or broadcast containing information harmful to national security or that questions the political, economic and social systems of Bahrain are to be seized or confiscated.

In addition to these powers, the SNS provides that the armed and security forces may arrest anyone deemed to pose a threat to national security and to strip any Bahraini deemed to pose such threat of their Bahraini nationality and detain or expel them from the country. The SNS established a special court and appeal court – the National Safety Court of First Instance and the National Safety Appeal Court - to try people accused of transgressing the law; the courts are to conduct their procedures in accordance with the provisions contained in Bahraini statute law in relation to investigation, evidence, the conduct of court proceedings and the announcement of verdicts but there is nothing said about human rights safeguards for detainees held under the SNS, including how long they can be detained in pre-trial detention. The final verdicts of these special courts cannot be appealed against in Bahrain’s ordinary courts.
..................


Torture and other ill-treatment and deaths in custody

The renewed crackdown and arrests of opposition activists has been accompanied by an alarming increase in reports of torture and other ill-treatment of people detained in connection with the protests. Methods of torture have included punching with fists, kicking with boots, beatings with wooden batons and in some cases, the use of electric shocks were applied. Hamid Sayyid (real name withheld), a 31-year-old man from a Shi’a village who was detained at the Salmaniya Medical Complex at the end of March, after his release told Amnesty International:

“… 10 people dressed in police and army clothes entered the nursing room while I was alone in the room and beat and kicked me. Immediately after they took me to the police station in the …. village without explaining why they were taking me. Once there they put me in the middle of a room, blindfolded, and several men, I don't know how many, beat me and applied electric shocks on both legs. It hurt so much that after they applied the first shock I fell on the floor because I could not feel my legs. Once on the floor they beat me and kicked me on my head and body. They beat me so hard that I still cannot see from one of my eyes now. They pulled me and repeated the same procedure [electric shock on the leg] two more times. While they were beating me, they insulted me. They told me to confess that the medical workers were hiding weapons in the ambulances and that I took weapons and hid them in the ceiling of the hospital. I said I did not know anything and they kept on beating me. They continued for 30 minutes. They left me on the floor, after maybe 30 minutes a police officer came back and told me that if anyone asked me about the marks I had to say I fell down. Another police officer, higher rank, came in the room, saw me on the floor and I heard him asking the others what had happened and what was all that blood; I heard the others saying they did not know. He took me to a room, gave me water and asked me how many times I had been in the roundabout, I remained silent. Then he let me go and told me not to say I was beaten….”

At least four detainees are known to have died in custody in suspicious circumstances. Hassan Jassem Mohammad Mekki, aged 39, a married man with children from Karzakan, was arrested from his house in the early hours of 28 March. He was initially held in a police station in Hamad Town then transferred to the CID on 29 March. On 3 April the CID contacted his family and asked them to go the Salmaniya Medical Complex. Two of his brothers and his father did so and when they arrived military officers took them to the morgue. They uncovered the head of deceased person lying there and asked the family if they could confirm that the body was that of Hassan. The father and Hassan’s two brothers were in a state of shock but confirmed that it was Hassan. The father was then made to sign a death certificate; it was dated 3 April and gives the cause of death as “heart failure”. No autopsy is known to have been conducted by the authorities in order to arrive at this determination of the cause of death. The body was then taken to the family home in Karzakan for burial; when it was fully uncovered to be washed prior to burial the family reportedly saw marks of beatings and bruises on the neck, legs and the head. However, they are said not to have asked the authorities about these injuries and how they were sustained not to have submitted any complaint for fear of possible repercussions by the security forces.

‘Abdel-Karim al-Fakhrawi, a 49-year-old businessman and member of al-Wefaq, the largest Shi’a political association, died in police custody on 12 April. According to reports, his body bore marks of torture but the authorities have attributed his death to kidney failure.

‘Ali ‘Issa Ibrahim al-Saqer was reported to have died in custody by the Ministry if Interior on 9 April. He had been arrested six days earlier in Hamad Town after he reportedly went to a police station after being summoned to appear in connection with investigations into the killing of a police officer during the March protests. The Ministry said ‘Ali ‘Issa Ibrahim al-Saqer had died in custody while being restrained by police. His body, when returned to his family for burial, is said to have had visible marks suggesting that he may have been tortured. No autopsy or formal investigation into his death is known to have been held to date.

The Interior Ministry also announced the death in custody of a fourth detainee, Zakaraya Rasheed Hassan al-‘Asheri, on 9 April. He was said to have been arrested from his home in al-Dair on 2 April. The Ministry attributed his death to ill-health but in his case too at burial his body is reported to have borne marks indicating that he may have been tortured.

Torture and ill-treatment are prohibited in international human rights treaties such as the UN Convention against Torture, also ratified by Bahrain, and the ICCPR. Bahraini legislation too bans the use of torture. Amnesty International is calling on the Bahraini government to immediately establish an independent and impartial investigation into the deaths in custody that have occurred and into all allegations of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, and to being to justice any members of the military and security forces or other officials, however senior, who are responsible for torture or other abuse of detainees.