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 |  Subject: Statism in action: Popular Rage Is Met With Violence in Mideast  Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:36 am | |
| The severity of a Libyan crackdown on a so-called “Day of Rage” began to emerge Friday when a human rights advocacy group said 24 people had been killed by gunfire and news reports said further clashes with security were feared at the funerals for the dead.
That apprehension also seized Bahrain where five people died in a brutal assault on a democracy camp in the capital, Manama on Thursday. The violence has pitted a Sunni minority government against a Shiite majority in the strategic island state that is home to the American Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Thousands of Shiites gathered at a mosque in the windswept village of Sitra, south of Manama, on Friday for the funerals of two of the dead, chanting “The people want the fall of the government” before noon prayers.
Defying threats of reprisals in several cities, thousands of Libyan protesters mounted one of the sharpest challenges to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s 40-year rule in a “Day of Rage” on Thursday modeled on the uprisings coursing through the region that have had toppled the authoritarian regimes of Tunisia and Egypt.
Despite Libya’s heavy hand in controlling security and stifling dissent, Human Rights Watch said protests were reported in the capital, Tripoli; Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city; and at three other places. News reports said the protests continued into early Friday in Benghazi.
The report of 24 dead from Human Rights Watch, based on what it said were accounts by “multiple witnesses” was one of the highest so far. The accounts were muted by Libya’s strict media controls, which made independent verification difficult. Unlike in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, the authorities, like those in Iran during protests last Monday, have largely prevented conventional television coverage and the only images to emerge have been on social networking sites. On the ground, a fog of smoke, tear gas and fresh unease descended over cities throughout the region, with demonstrations and rolling street battles lurching in violent new directions as governments fought to blunt their momentum and reassert control of the streets. States imposed curfews and ordered people to stay home, and those who defied the orders risked gunfire or beatings at the hands of security forces, private guards or pro-government crowds.
But across the Middle East, where brutal social contracts have left millions uneducated, impoverished and alienated, existing battle lines between people and their governments appeared to harden, foreshadowing more confrontations in the days ahead.
In Bahrain, five people were killed and hundreds wounded in a harsh crackdown.
Yemen was shaken by a seventh day of demonstrations demanding the removal of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Protesters chanted “There is no state!” and lobbed rocks back and forth with pro-government marchers.
In Iran, a leading opposition figure, Mir Hussein Moussavi, was reported missing, raising fears that he had been detained in connection with this week’s anti-government rallies. The marches, the largest since the 2009 disputed elections, were put down by Iranian security and paramilitary forces. The government called for its supporters to rally Friday; the opposition called for another march on Sunday.
In Algeria, where a major protest has been called for Saturday, state television denounced “foreign interference,” while a prominent political leader, Abdelhamid Mehri, accused the government of not “responding to the hunger for integrity, liberty, democracy and social justice.”
Even in Tunisia, where protests successfully ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali last month, small groups of protesters continued to gather outside various government ministries in the capital, Tunis, demanding the resignation of the country’s caretaker government and the release of family members from prisons.
In Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak stepped down last week, Suez Canal workers in three major cities joined strikes, deepening the economic strains of the widespread labor unrest.
And in Iraq, protest leaders said they would go ahead with plans for a Saturday march in Baghdad, despite a second day of violence marring demonstrations elsewhere in the country.
“Are we expecting violence?” said Kamal Jabar, an Iraqi organizers. “Yes, we’re expecting violence. Are we going out? Yes, we’re going out.”
The Libya protests, which started earlier in the week, grew larger and bloodier as the government unleashed thousands of its supporters in countermarches.
Mohammad Ali Abdellah, the deputy leader of an exiled opposition group, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, said in a telephone interview from London that roads leading to Green Square in central Tripoli had been closed off and that people living nearby had been warned in text messages from the authorities not to join any protests.
In Al Beyda, he said, hospital authorities had appealed for international help to cope with an influx of around 30 or 40 people with gunshot wounds after security forces opened fire on protests that erupted on Wednesday night and continued into early Thursday.
The Associated Press quoted opposition Web sites as saying that security forces had fired on demonstrators, killing several, and that the government was refusing to provide medical supplies needed to treat protesters.
The unrest rippling through Iraq spread on Thursday to the more stable Kurdistan region, where security guards in Sulaimaniya fired on a group of rock-throwing protesters who had been trying to take over the offices of a local political leader. At least one person was killed.
A day ago, security forces in the eastern city of Kut killed three rock-throwing protesters, who had been among hundreds rallying to call for the provincial governor to step down. The shootings prompted the crowd to set fire to the governor’s home and offices.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the provincial government said Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had ordered the governor to resign.
In a news conference, Mr. Maliki took a slightly softer stance toward the demonstrations than his counterparts elsewhere in the Middle East, saying that he was happy Iraqis were exercising their rights to demonstrate.
ANCAPS: ANARCHO-CAPITALISTS |
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