Mark 5 Years of Guantanamo by Closing It

Guantanamo or as I called the scandal of Human rights have hosted its first detainee 5 years ago on the 11th of January 2002.

More than 775 detainees have been held in Guantanamo since January 11, 2002. After five years, no Guantanamo detainee have been charged with any transgression, much less a crime. Only some 75 of the 395 prisoners there at the moment are likely to face military tribunals held under a law passed by the US Congress last September.For the rest, there is the prospect of indefinite detention without trial.

So what has happened to the other 305 detainees during these five years?



Hundreds of illegally detained from around 30 different nationalities never faced a court of justice, consulted a lawyer or were even allowed to see their families.
After more than two years of detention, between August 2004 and March 2005, Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), composed of three US military officers, reviewed the cases of 558 detainees. However, the detainees had no access to lawyers or to secret evidence used by the CSRT. The CSRT could use coerced evidence. The CSRTs judged 520 detainees to be "enemy combatants."



What is an enemy combatant? The general definition of an enemy combatant is "a person engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners during an armed conflict." But a September 5, 2006, Department of Defense directive on the Detainee Program added another sentence to the definition of unlawful combatant: "For the purposes of the war on terrorism, the term Unlawful Enemy Combatant is defined to include, but is not limited to, an individual who is or was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaeda forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners."

Hundreds of the detainees were sold to the US by bounty hunters or turned over by rival clan members, while high-level Taliban and al Qaeda operatives with the resources to buy their freedom got away.


According to Amnesty International, in an analysis of 500 detainees, a remarkably low number, only 5 percent, or about 25 detainees, were captured by US forces. Eighty-six percent, or about 430 detainees, were arrested by Pakistani forces or the Afghan Northern Alliance and turned over to US custody - often for a reward of thousands of dollars. The other 9 percent are not discussed in the Amnesty report. Many were sold to the United States to even scores or just for the money. Anyone living in Afghanistan - young or old - was fair game for sale to US forces. The oldest detainee shipped to Guantanamo was 75 and the youngest 10.

Detainees include: men who were arrested in Bosnia and have been cleared of wrongdoing by Bosnian courts; an Afghan who opposed the Taliban and joined the transitional government but was turned over to US forces by a rival clan; and more than a dozen Chinese Uighurs who have been slated for release but cannot be returned to China because they will likely be tortured. They have nowhere else to go and have been refused asylum in the US.



From the day it was hastily opened in 2002, the Guantánamo detention facility became a lightning rod of controversy for the United States. It sits at the center in the struggle between dealing with the threat of anti-American terrorism and the American ideal of providing constitutional protections to the accused.

In building a prison camp on a remote part of the U.S. Navy Base on Cuba's eastern tip, the Bush administration sought to create a legal limbo where detainees -- prisoners captured in the ''war on terror'' -- could be held indefinitely, even without charges.

SHUT DOWN GUANTANAMO

I wish I was there???!

What can I say??? It is really hard to express yourself on your own blog when you know that your close friends read it. Well after 8 days have passed in the new year I finally got the courage to say it. I will say it -no offence- my New Year’s Eve this year s… mmm.... OK if she reads it she will get mad. So lets keep it to I wish I was at the London Eye on New Years Eve. Or I wish I was in Kazakhstan ;)Or even better I wish I went to bed at 8PM :)




Lodon Eye 31 December 2006
(Picture courtsey of Chris Kottler)

It's Cold in Cairo, it is cold....

Lately each day people are whining in Cairo saying oh it is cold, it is really cold!!! Well look at the picture above and try and guess… Where was this picture taken? Actually this picture was shot today in Syria at the town of Bloudan as a wave of cold weather hits the country. Are you still complaining…..

Kids Imitate Saddam's Televised Hanging Death

Yemen:
Being affected by Saddam Hussain's execution shown on television a 14 year old Yemeni boy called Saddam Hussain Al Jakey hanged himself from the tree next to his house last week, and hanged himself. Al Jakeyhad insisted on staying at home alone while the family went out to spend the Eid holiday. When the family came back they found him dead," 08/01/2007 (Gulf News)

Ayman Mansour Al Razmi, 13, also hanged himself imitating Saddam's death in front of his friends at Al Naqilain village 200km south of the capital Sanaa. "After he tied a rope around his neck and the rope was tied to a tree, he stood on a [pile] of stones and when the stones fell from under his feet he was left hanging. 08/01/2007 (Gulf News)

Twenty-year-old Ahmad Faisal Mohammad from the southern province of Al Dhale'e tried to kill himself by firing a Kalashnikov rifle at his neck immediately after watching the hanging on TV. He was admitted to a hospital where he is under intensive care, according to relatives.

Pakistan:
Islamabad, 7 Jan 2007: Depressed over the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain, a 22-year-old Pakistani madrassa student hanged himself, police said here.

On 1 January Mubashar Ali, 9, hanged himself, while re-enacting Saddam’s hanging with the help of elder sister, 10, after tying a rope to a ceiling fan and his neck in his home in central Pakistan.


USA:
Sergio Pelico a 10-year-old Texas boy was apparently mimicking Saddam Hussein's execution when he hanged himself from a bunk bed, police and family members said.



India:
15-year-old from Kolkata, Moon Moon Karmarkar hanged herself from a ceiling fan after watching Saddam’s execution

HISTORIC INSIGHT

640K ought to be enough for anybody.
— Bill Gates, 1981

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
— Ken Olson, president, Chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

But what ... is it good for?
— Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a "C" the idea must be feasible.
— A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year.
— The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
— Thomas Watson,
Chairman of IBM, 1943

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
— Popular Mechanics, 1949

This "telephone" has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
— Western Union internal memo, 1876.

The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
— David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
— H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.
— Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.
— Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
— Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

So we went to Atari and said, "Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you. And they said, "No". So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, "Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.
— Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
— 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy.
— Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
— Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
— Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.
— Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.
— Sir John Eric Ericksen, Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

TUMMY TROUBLE (Male Belly Dancers)

In August 2000 L'Express the French Newspaper published an article about Mousbah Baalbaki, the article was titled the “ Le nombril de Mousbah” (Mousbah’s bellybutton). In that article they stated that he is the only male belly dancer in the Arab world. It seems that this is not the case any more??!!!!

There has always been a tradition of men cross-dressing to emulate women and dance with a feminine flair. They are called Cengi (Syria), Kojak (Turkey), Batcha (Persia), Khaneeth (Arabia), and Khawal (Egypt). Male Belly dancers say that historically as the Middle East has always been a segregated society, at certain times and places in history, it has been seen as improper for women to dance in the presence of men. Female impersonators traditionally have taken their place. But in reality male belly dancing have been performed by eunuchs, dressed effeminately, in Turkish harems. To cut it short male belly dancers were castrated men dancing for women.

Tito Seif Egypt's male Oriental/belly Dancer


Tito dancing on a tabla drum


Tito at the Nile Festival Opening Gala (Stick Dance)

He's starting to shake... He's starting to shimmy... You got to admit, the dude has got the moves. But he also does martial arts stick dancing, which is very, very manly. *cough*

Tarik Sultan


Tarik Sultan answers why a guy is doing this dance?




Tarik dancing with Shisha on his head


Tarik in Cairo July 2005


The gay type:
Zaza Hassan


The Female impersonators:
1- Mark Balahadia:


2- IMO


Sameh El Dessouki - Dance School


It seems that most of Belly Dance instructors are males isn’t that strange?

Not all male dancers in the belly dance world, however, are female impersonators. Some men may develop provocative stage personalities, perform isolated body movements, and demonstrate physical feats of abdominal strength, agility, and flexibility. Sometimes they employ swords, and sticks. *cough* *cough*

Body difference will impact how males and females dance. The different structure of the hips means that certain moves will look different. Women's hips are better built than men's for side to side movement, while men's hips are better for forward & back movement. The downward vertical hip comes out different on a male body. The male’s narrower hip structure makes dance moves more subtle. Some males will enhance their hips with various costume such as hip tassels or trailing veil ends in an effort to make hip work more visible. Males obviously also don't have bosoms, therefore there dance will always suck in my opinion sorry guys. Did I say guys?

Women tend to be taught to be fluid, flexible and graceful. Men do not tend to have the size (yes, voluptuousness can be an asset!) in their hips. They also don’t have breasts (well, not the hot ones anyway!). Male bellydancer therefore tends to have more musculs and may have chest hair, yuck!!!!

This is a real “Belly Dancer” Asmahan the best there is today a woman a real WOMAN


Here is another good females Belly Dancer Lulu Sabongi


Of course we can not talk about Belly Dancing without mentioning the controversial Dina



Bellydancing:
Celebrates Life, Birth and Creativity!
Celebrates Women!
Celebrates Beauty!
Celebrates the Body!

So please please please tell the men to stay away!!!!

2006 in Review

Israeli soldiers stand behind a mobile artillery piece firing from the Zaura area across the Lebanese frontier July 13, 2006. Gil Cohen Magen



A Congolese soldier rests in a cemetery near the office of Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba in Kinshasa November 12, 2006. Goran Tomasevic



Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (front row C) sits with commanders from the Basij Militia in Tehran May 7, 2006. Stringer



A would-be immigrant crawls after his arrival on a makeshift boat on the Gran Tarajal beach in Spain's Canary Island, May 5, 2006. The scene on Gran Tarajal beach was a stark, unforgiving reminder of the desperation that drives people to leave their homes and loved ones and cross dangerous seas for unknown shores. Nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants from Africa have arrived this year in the Canary Islands -- a palm-fringed sunseekers' haven and outpost of Europe off Africa's coast. That's already twice as many as last year. Around 1,000 have died on the way. Picture taken May 5, 2006. To match feature IMMIGRATION SPAIN CANARIES REUTERS/Juan Medina



Cuban President Fidel Castro addresses the audience during an event with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez on Havana's Revolution Square February 3, 2006. Chavez arrived in Cuba on Friday for a 24-hour visit to accept an international award from UNESCO and open the Havana international book fair honoring Venezuela. Picture taken February 3, 2006 REUTERS/Stringer



A Maasai man passes near a zebra carcass near Isinya in Kenya, March 7, 2006. Hundreds of people and tens of thousands of livestock have died from hunger and thirst across a vast region in east Africa, encompassing some of Africa's poorest and most arid zones. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti



A man throws a trash bag holder as cars burn at the end of a student demonstration in Paris March 23, 2006. Rampaging French youths set fire to cars and looted shops in Paris on Thursday, marring protests against a youth jobs law, also known as the CPE, that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, in a conciliatory move, agreed to discuss with unions. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier



A worker at a printing house prepares a photo of former Kosovo president Ibrahim Rugova for the front page of a special edition of a daily publication being printed in tribute to him in Pristina January 22, 2006. Kosovo Albanians began the search on Sunday for a new president to lead the disputed Serbian province into independence negotiations after Rugova died aged 61, leaving no clear successor. PICTURES OF THE MONTH JANUARY 2006 REUTERS/Hazir Reka



A burning Danish flag held by a Palestinian a in front of the Church of Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem February 6, 2006. Fresh protests erupted across Asia and the Middle East over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Monday, despite calls by world leaders for calm after Danish diplomatic missions were set ablaze in Lebanon and Syria. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj




A dead swan is recovered from the river Mur at a hydroelectric power plant in Mellach in Austria's southern province of Styria February 15, 2006. Two swans found dead on this very spot on February 12 were infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, an official at the government Agency for Health and Food Safety said. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader


Andriy Zubenko, an eleven-year-old Ukrainian boy suffering from cancer, wears a mask in a children's hospital in Kiev April 4, 2006. Ukraine prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear disaster, when the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl plant exploded, spreading a radioactive cloud across Europe and the Soviet Union. Thousands of people died from the effects of the radiation and millions more in the region and across Europe have suffered health problems, many of them children. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj



Nepali riot policemen beat pro-democracy activists after they were fired upon with tear gas for defying a curfew in Nepal's capital Kathmandu, April 22, 2006. Riot police clubbed and threw tear gas at tens of thousands of protesters as they shouted anti-monarch slogans while attempting to march towards the royal palace in protest of King Gyanendra. REUTERS/Adrees Latif



A Chilean student is detained by riot police during a protest in Santiago May 10, 2006. Hundreds of students took to the streets to protest against the fare of their annual bus passes. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado



U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair leave the East Room of the White House after speaking to reporters about Iraq in Washington May 25, 2006. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Thursday it was the duty of the entire international community, as well as Britain and the United States, to support the new Iraqi government. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque



U.S. President George W. Bush hands back a crying baby that was handed to him from the crowd as he arrived for an outdoor dinner with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Trinwillershagen, Germany, July 13, 2006. REUTERS/Jim Bourg (GERMANY)




Nuns talk to Spanish assistant bullfighters before the start of a bullfight at Pamplona's bullring on the last day of the San Fermin festival July 14, 2006. REUTERS/Susana Vera (SPAIN)



A Greek soldier stands guard as Greek nationals board the Greek frigate Psara? during a massive evacuation operation in Beirut port July 18, 2006. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis (LEBANON)



Women dressed in ethnic costumes perform in an outdoor production called Impression Lijiang, held on a manmade stage on the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, 3,100m (10,170 feet) above sea level, near Lijiang city in southwestern China's Yunnan province July 23, 2006. About 500 amateur performers from 10 ethnic minority groups took part in the $31-million production by acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou. REUTERS/Jason Lee (CHINA)




Lebanese displaced by the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah cross a damaged bridge by bus on their way to south Lebanon August 15, 2006. Thousands of Lebanese refugees headed home to south Lebanon on Tuesday as a U.N. truce between Israel and Hizbollah held on into a second day and planning got under way for a beefed up U.N. force to deploy in the area. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir (LEBANON)



The 'Tribute in Lights' shines on the skyline of lower Manhattan in New York, September 11, 2006, as the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center is observed. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn (UNITED STATES)



An unexploded grenade lies next to the body of a suspected militant during a shootout in Srinagar October 5, 2006. Police on Thursday shot dead two Islamic militants holed up in a hotel in the heart of Kashmir's main city after a 20-hour gunbattle, police and witnesses said. REUTERS/Danish Ismail (INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR)



A North Korean soldier guards an army installation on the banks of the Yalu River at the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, October 10, 2006. With world leaders roundly condemning North Korea's announcement it had carried out a nuclear test, U.N. Security Council members weighed an arms embargo and financial sanctions on Pyongyang. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause (NORTH KOREA)



Palestinians climb up a ladder placed on the controversial Israeli barrier, as they try to bypass the Aram checkpoint, on the edge of Jerusalem, October 20, 2006. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte (JERUSALEM)


(Courtsey Reuters)

Saddam Slaughtered on “Corban” Day

IT'S HARD to imagine anyone looking at the images of Saddam Hussein standing on the gallows with a hangman's noose around his neck and agreeing with George Bush's crass observation that the execution of the former dictator was an "important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy". The Irony is that When Saddam Hussein looked in disbelief at the over-sized noose that was fitted by masked volunteers around his neck, the man who helped to put it there by invading Iraq and toppling the dictator was soundly asleep at his ranch in Texas. Presidential spokesman Scott Stanzel said Bush was informed of the impending hanging Friday afternoon and went to bed shortly before it took place at 9 p.m. Washington time, with instructions not to be woken up.



Bush stated: “Hussein received fair trial”, then the White House issued a statement praising the Iraqi people for giving Hussein a fair trial. Fair trial?

Human Rights Watch, who observed every day of the process along with another NGO concluded that this was not a fair trial, and the soundness of the verdict is questionable. In this case, they say "the imposition of the death penalty - an inherently cruel and inhumane punishment - in the wake of an unfair trial is indefensible". They criticized the management of the trial, protection given to witnesses, the lack of material given to the defense (making this a "trial by ambush"), and prejudicial comments made by Iraqi politicians.

How can nation building begin at the end of the hangman's rope? Ask most ordinary Iraqis what they thought of Saddam's execution, for the vast majority of people in the country, Shia, Sunni and Kurd alike now themselves too preoccupied with personal survival to care much about his ultimate fate. Since when did execution become synonymous with peace and liberty?




A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said Hussein appeared "totally oblivious to what was going on around him. I was very surprised. He was not afraid of death." The former dictator refused to wear a hood as he was hanged Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said. Hussein's death came in "a blink of the eye" after his executioner activated the gallows just after 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), said al-Rubaie.

In a letter written from his prison cell, Saddam Hussein said: "I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, he will place me among the true men and martyrs," the former leader wrote in the letter. He also urged his country men to unite against enemies.
In my opinion what happened this morning was an assassination, and I think that is how it will be viewed in most of the world. At the dame time this act has achieved the impossible; it has turned Saddam from a criminal into a martyr.

Anyone notice the irony that the US flag is flying at half-mast on the day Saddam is executed!

The White House has always maintained that personal grudges had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq. And yet in September 2002, as preparations for war were well under way, George Bush the younger told a Houston fundraiser: "This is after all the man who tried to kill my dad." Now the personal side of this bitter family saga is over. But even from his unmarked grave, Saddam Hussein will continue to haunt the Bush administration and define the legacy of the 43rd president of the United States.

To view - Saddam's Full Uncensored Hanging - WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC

Saddam Hanged

An Iraqi policeman watches TV coverage of the execution of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.



The order to carry out his death by hanging was signed by Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.


But just a few hours after the execution, Iraq's insurgents struck again - at least 30 people died in a bomb attack in Kufa.

Saddam's life in Pictures

For more than 40 years the name Saddam Hussein has been inextricably linked with that of Iraq. Its president since 1979, his influence on the lives of the people of Iraq, the wider Middle East and indeed, the global stage, has been unrivalled.


Saddam Hussein grew up in the north of Iraq where he joined the Baath Party and took part in an unsuccessful coup which eventually resulted in his being imprisoned in 1963. He and fellow plotters escaped from prison (above) in 1966.



After escaping jail, he was key in bringing the Baath Party to power and by 1975 Saddam Hussein was vice-president of Iraq. Four years later he became president and within days had executed many of his rivals. He’s seen here celebrating his birthday in 1979.


After the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution, Iran-Iraq ties declined, and war began. Despite UN attempts to resolve the war, it continued for eight years. Saddam Hussein is seen here in a propaganda picture of the time, manning an RPG.



During the Iran-Iraq War Saddam Hussein enjoyed US backing from the government of Ronald Reagan. Here Saddam Hussein greets the then US envoy, Donald Rumsfeld.



Saddam Hussein's influence on daily life in Iraq could be found on every street corner as vast numbers of murals were painted and statues erected in his honour.



A number of threats to his life meant he was always accompanied by a mass of bodyguards including Irshad Yassine (above).



Away from home Saddam Hussein travelled extensively, meeting leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev, Indira Gandhi, Yasser Arafat and Cuban President Fidel Castro (above).



Nearer to home he enjoyed close ties with some other Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan. Here he watches as King Hussein of Jordan fires an AK47 assault rifle.



In 1990 he led his troops into Kuwait which plunged Iraq and the Gulf region into chaos. Saddam Hussein is seen here with British boy Stuart Lockwood, one of a number of westerners paraded on television as human shields prior to the US air assault on Baghdad.



A US-led invasion of Kuwait forced Iraq behind its borders and stripped Saddam Hussein of much of the influence he had previously enjoyed. His retreating army set fire to the Kuwaiti oilfields, resulting in a huge ecological disaster.



Throughout the 1990s he remained in power - but under the eyes of the UN inspectors who suspected him of developing weapons of mass destruction.



In 2003, after 10 years of sanctions and stop-start weapons inspections by the UN, the US decided to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power. On the first night of military action, he narrowly escaped a targeted air strike designed to kill him.



Saddam Hussein disappeared after American forces entered Baghdad and was not seen by the world until 14 December 2003, when dramatic pictures of the aftermath of his capture were broadcast.



Post-Saddam Iraq has spiralled into increasing sectarian violence with western forces on the verge of pulling out. Here, near to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, families dig out the remains of their kin who disappeared during Saddam Hussein’s time in power.


In 2006 Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in the killing of some 140 men in the mostly Shia town of Dujail, seized after a failed assassination attempt against him in 1982


On 30 December 2006, Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad for crimes against humanity. Iraqi television broadcast pictures of his last moments. The news reader said his death marked the end of a dark period in Iraq's history.


(courtesy of BBC)