Game's up, Ghannouchi

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

It’s not every day one gets to savor the galvanic, visceral bliss of vindication, so I hope Tunisia’s secularists are making full use of the occasion today. Having argued from the moment of Rachid Ghannouchi’s return from exile that the leader of Ennahda was a sinister fanatic with a deeply illiberal vision for the country – and having been denounced as reactionaries, Zionists and Ben Ali agents for doing so – their fears may finally have proven accurate.

A video uploaded yesterday apparently shows Ghannouchi sitting down with a group of Salafists and recommending ways for them to safeguard and build on the political successes they’ve had so far. An AFP report quotes Ghannouchi telling them “to be patient… Why hurry? Take your time, to consolidate what you have gained […] create television channels, radio stations, schools and universities”. He also urged them to be on guard against the secularists, who “could make a comeback after their failure” in the October elections.

These Salafists are the ideological brethren, don’t forget, of those who assaulted the US embassy in Tunis last month, killing 4 and injuring 46; who smashed up a hotel in Sidi Bouzid chanting “al-sharab haram” (“drinking is a sin”) earlier in the same month; and who Ghannouchi himself outwardly affects to decry as a “[danger] to public freedom”.

Can we at last dispense with the fatuous notion of “moderate Islamism”? As I’ve long argued, the very phrase is an oxymoron; Islamism being extremism by definition. Entrusting the task of warding off theocracy to a man who is himself a theocrat is, one would have thought, an obviously problematic idea. Sadly, however, with almost the entire region now clenched in the hands of exactly such theocrats, it seems we’re doomed to find this out the hard way.

Video: Israeli police beat Palestinian teen

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

A disturbing video surfaced over the weekend showing Israeli policemen inside the Dome of the Rock compound pinning a 17-year-old Palestinian boy to the ground by the neck and punching him on the side of the head.

According to the Palestinian WAFA news agency, they continued to beat the boy, Hasan al-Afifi, until he bled on the ground, while also pepper-spraying his mother until she fainted.

The attack took place during a demonstration inside the compound, known in Judaism as the Temple Mount, in which Palestinians threw stones in protest against an earlier attempt by what Ma’an called “Israeli ultranationalists” to hold Jewish prayers inside it. The label is misleading – the ideology of these fanatics is in fact a fusion of territorial expansionism with heterodox Jewish fundamentalism.

It is, in other words, merely one more trophy in the cabinet of Israel’s ascendant extreme right wing. For decades, Israel’s chief rabbis have forbidden Jews from entering the compound on theological grounds (how, for example, are Jews to perform the mandatory cleansing ritual for entry into the Temple in the absence of the famous red heifer?). Today’s hot-headed settlers and other supremacists have no time for such craven defeatism, and are finding a growing number of rabbis only too happy to sign off on their more muscular approach (as history teaches us well, there is no political movement too sinister for the approval of the men of God).

To see how acutely dangerous this all is, one need only recall that it was Ariel Sharon’s visit to the same site in 2000 that sparked the Second Intifada. Meanwhile, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Israeli Air Force are trading blows in Gaza. Time for a large whisky, I think.

Inside the dungeons: Talking to detained and beaten journalist Rami Aysha

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

On August 30, the Lebanese-Palestinian journalist Rami Aysha was arrested in Beirut’s southern suburbs, after which he was beaten and jailed without charge for almost a month. As NOW Lebanon previously reported, Aysha’s case became something of a cause célèbre, with one press freedom watchdog describing it as the worst violation of its kind in the country for over two years. Following his release last week, NOW spoke with Aysha, who vows to continue his work despite the brutal treatment to which he was subjected.

Firstly, let’s go back to the day you were arrested. Where were you, what were you doing, and what happened?

Rami Aysha: I was near the airport road, by Al Saha restaurant. I don’t agree with the word “arrested” because only the Lebanese authorities can arrest me. The horrifying thing was I was kidnapped by people on a motorcycle amid a traffic jam. They pressed a gun to my back, blindfolded me and abducted me without anyone interfering to prevent them.

For the first three hours I was brutally tortured – they hit me with sticks and guns, placed blades against my throat, and broke my finger. One of them asked me which hand I write with. I lied, telling him “the left,” and then they started hitting it.

Some said it was Hezbollah that arrested you, others such as Al Manar and New TV said it was the army mukhabarrat (“intelligence”). Which is true?

Aysha: I cannot accuse anyone because I don’t know who they were and they didn’t identify themselves. However, I can say it wasn’t the army intelligence. I was handed to them only after three hours.

Tell us about how you were treated after that.

Aysha: At the end of the three hours, still blindfolded, I was pushed against a wall. I thought this was the end, and I started praying. Then, out of nowhere, an army intelligence member came in and said “Don’t worry, I’m army intelligence and I’ll get you out of here,” and asked me to run along a path. I was relieved because he was an official and I was in the hands of the government. Even so, on our way out we were swore at and hit by the others while this man tried to protect me. A belt blow on the back of my head still hurts now.

When I arrived at the army intelligence I was again beaten, though they later apologized and handed me to the military police. I was cuffed, blindfolded, hungry and thirsty from the moment of my detention on Thursday till Saturday night. I don’t blame the commanders in charge of the intelligence or the military police for the brutality, but I do blame their juniors.

There is a rumor that you are the journalist who carried out the famous interview for Time magazine with one of the four Hezbollah members indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Is this true?

Aysha: No, I didn’t do the interview and I don’t take credit for others’ efforts. Time magazine has confirmed this. I was even investigated by former General Prosecutor Judge Said Mirza and was proven to have no involvement.

We also heard that you have worked on several arms smuggling stories before. Can you give some examples of things you’ve investigated?

Aysha: I’ve worked on [Palestinian refugee] camps and many other topics before. I’m an investigative reporter and most of my work is on sensitive issues.

Have you been mistreated while working on stories before?

Aysha: We are in Lebanon, not Europe. I have been harassed many times and even hit before, but this is the first time I was detained.

When you were in jail, your lawyer told us there were no plans to take legal action upon your release. However, you have since said you will “fight in court to prove [your] innocence.” What exactly do you plan to do?

Aysha: I will do my best to get my innocence proven, though the judges are trying to release me with a sufficiency period which in itself convicts me. I reject this move, and will take the issue to the court of cassation [the supreme court of Lebanon].

Will you continue to work as a journalist after all this?

Aysha: Definitely, I will continue my job and mission as a journalist. Let no one think I will stop journalism for a moment.

Agnes Helou contributed reporting.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Gazans reveal shocking Hamas abuses

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

In general, I thought of myself as someone who harbored few delusions about Hamas. Unlike an alarmingly large contingent of self-proclaimed leftists, I’ve never been willing or able to ignore the Islamic fascism that is the lifeblood of the group’s ideology, and that makes ridiculous any notion of it as a “resistance”. I confess, however, that I used to suspect there to be a degree of exaggeration and/or Zionist propaganda in the stories I would read about its moral policing.

Not so anymore. After meeting last weekend in Jordan with a group of Palestinian journalists that included three arrivals from Gaza, I was appalled to discover the reality is worse than I had dared imagine. Without me even mentioning the subject, they would almost tremble with rage as they described the party’s thuggery, palpably relieved at the opportunity to unload an intolerable weight off their chests.

By their account, Hamas’ rule combines the fundamentalism of Saudi Arabia with the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. Unveiled women are harassed by policemen, regardless of their faith. Even the veiled ones are banned from arguileh cafes, as are the songs of Fayrouz and Umm Kulthoum. The men have to wear tops while swimming in the sea, and unmarried couples holding hands on the beach are confronted. Nor can men and women together dance the dabka, that staple of Palestinian and Levantine identity. There is, obviously, no alcohol. Thousands of Christians have fled since the 2007 coup, and public Christian ceremonies are now illegal. “They are building an Afghanistan, step by step,” as Omar put it.

Also banned are unapproved political demonstrations of any kind, as refugees from the Bureij camp found out just last week. Public criticism of the party is unthinkable - merely “Liking” a dissenting view on Facebook can lead to a knock on the door. To be a democracy and/or human rights activist is to risk severe beatings, as the likes of Asma al-Ghul, the 15 March movement and Gaza Youth Break Out can tell you from experience.

As for press freedom, one anecdote from Ahmad gives you an idea. Happening upon a man being thrashed by Hamas forces, Ahmad managed to take a photo but failed to get away unseen. After himself enduring a minute or two of truncheons and boots while refusing to hand over his camera, he felt the tip of a rifle barrel against his kneecap, and heard a voice count “1…” Suffice to say, he never got to see that photo. “Kneecapping”, apparently, is becoming a common method of settling disputes.

All this, of course, inflicted on a people already immiserated by Israeli bombs and blockades. To be sure, Israel is and will always be the ultimate enemy for Ahmad and the others, some of whom lost close family in Operation Cast Lead. But to take what pitiful liberty is left by Israel and strangle it further is entirely Hamas’ own achievement. How “leftist”! How “revolutionary”!

“Omar” and “Ahmad” are, of course, pseudonyms.

Freedom of suppression: Fears for press freedom if alleged Hezbollah attack blows over

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

The release on bail Wednesday of a jailed Lebanese-Palestinian journalist may herald the end of what a local watchdog described as one of the worst violations of press freedom of its kind in Lebanon for years.

Rami Aysha, who has freelanced for international publications including Time, was reportedly investigating an arms smuggling story in Beirut’s southern suburbs on August 30 when he was detained and then imprisoned for almost a month without charge. Though an initial report by Al-Manar television station said Aysha was arrested by army intelligence, a letter received by the Committee to Protect Journalists by concerned colleagues alleged the arrest was in fact carried out by members of Hezbollah, which has a strong presence in the southern suburbs. The letter further alleged that Aysha was “severely beaten” by Hezbollah members, who inflicted on him two black eyes – an account corroborated by Aysha’s brother Ramzi, who visited him in a Byblos prison and reported that he had a broken finger and had been beaten on the head with his own camera. Al-Manar is run by Hezbollah, the press office of which could not be reached for comment.

It took almost three weeks for an official charge to be made against Aysha. On September 19, his lawyer, Saliba al-Hajj, informed the Samir Kassir Eyes (SKEyes) Center for Media and Cultural Freedom that Aysha was accused of attempting to smuggle arms himself – a charge both Hajj and Ramzi Aysha denied when contacted by NOW Lebanon.

Ayman Mhanna, SKEyes’ executive director, told NOW Lebanon that a serious violation has occurred either way. “If Aysha was arrested because of his work as a journalist, then his arrest was totally unacceptable and totally illegal, because there is absolutely nothing in Lebanese law that justifies this. And even if he was arrested for other reasons, what his brother and lawyer said about his beating is also totally unacceptable, and we demand an official, public and transparent investigation and trial of those responsible.”

Lawyer and constitutional expert Marwan Sakr agrees, though he cautions that the legal question hinges on the charges raised against Aysha. “A journalist cannot be arrested for simply doing his job, though he can be sued, let’s say, for defamation. In Lebanese law we have something called ‘crimes by publication,’ but again, one cannot be arrested for these,” he told NOW.

“If, however, a journalist is caught committing a crime – carrying out intelligence work for Israel, for example – then of course he can be arrested,” he added.

Should the charges against Aysha prove false, Sakr says he would have several courses of legal action available to him. “If he has been arrested beyond the normal period of arrest according to the law, he could sue for illegal detention. And if he has been subject to false charges by a third party, then he can sue also for false claims. But this would have to wait until the end of the trial, if there is one.”

However, neither Aysha nor his lawyer appears willing to pursue such a course of action. “Even though we feel that no one has the right to arrest Rami but the Lebanese state, what happened, happened. Unless something new comes up, we will not do anything,” Ramzi Aysha said.

“What can we do against the army and Hezbollah?” asked Hajj rhetorically. “All that we can do in this country is pray.”

Accordingly, Mhanna believes Aysha’s case will have detrimental consequences for press freedom in Lebanon. “Though we at SKEyes have witnessed and reported dozens of violations of press freedom in recent years, there has been nothing as severe as this for at least two years,” he said. “We are shocked that we all had to wait for two weeks before this issue became slightly public, and it’s still not getting the public and media attention it deserves. The idea of arresting a journalist during the course of his work and resorting to physical aggression, regardless of any charge, is unacceptable. And the practice of holding someone for a long time without charges is another thing that needs to stop in Lebanon.”

The case also shines a spotlight on Hezbollah, a party with a history of obstructing press freedom in areas under its control. “Last year we reported at least five cases of journalists being detained by Hezbollah and having their photos deleted and so on, all of which we documented in our Annual Report on Press and Cultural Freedom,” said Mhanna. Indeed, NOW Lebanon has in the past had notes confiscated and been prevented from reporting by Hezbollah members in the southern suburbs.

That such behavior may now be escalating into physical attacks on journalists sets a worrying precedent for press freedom, says Mhanna. “Hezbollah members are in no position to conduct any arrests of any citizens, let alone journalists, and let alone beating them in the process. If we open this Pandora’s Box, then all parties will start conducting these arrests.

“We’ll be back to the law of the jungle.”

Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

The counter-Islamist: Talking to Maajid Nawaz

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

Maajid Nawaz is not your typical democracy activist. For more than 12 years, he was a member of the UK branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a hardline Islamist party that calls for a global Islamic state that would invade and conquer infidel nations, forcibly veil women, and stone apostates and adulterers to death. After serving the cause in Pakistan and Palestine, he was incarcerated for five years in Egypt, where he began to question the ideology.

Upon returning to London, he abandoned Islamism and started the Quilliam Foundation, a think tank countering extremism and promoting liberal democracy, named after the first Englishman to build a mosque in Great Britain. NOW Lebanon spoke to Nawaz, who has just released a memoir, Radical: My Journey From Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening.

The first half of your book tells the story of your transition in the 1990s from an essentially secular, girl-chasing hip-hop fan to a Hizb ut-Tahrir zealot. How did that happen?

Nawaz: The journey involved me suffering from a severe level of violent racism in Essex [in England]; both on the street from groups like Combat 18 and at the institutional level. In those days before the murder of Stephen Lawrence [in 1993], the level of racism in the British establishment was quite entrenched. That led me to feel very disenfranchised from society.

On top of that there was Bosnia unfolding right before our eyes. A few countries away, on the European continent, there was a genocide committed against Muslims. These combined to produce an acute identity crisis within me, which is where these ideological groups step in and push solutions that are black-and-white, which to a teenage mind can seem to make a lot of sense.

You spent five years in prison in Egypt in the 2000s, during which you began to have serious doubts about Islamist ideology. What made you change your mind?

Nawaz: There were two main factors, although I must emphasize it was a process, it wasn’t a sudden light-bulb moment.

First, Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience. I saw people fighting for justice on my behalf who weren’t Muslims, and that had a profound impact on me.

Second were the discussions I had in prison with the “Who’s Who” of political prisoners, from the assassins of Anwar Sadat through the entire Islamist spectrum to liberal political prisoners.

After leaving Hizb ut-Tahrir, you co-founded the Quilliam Foundation, which aims to counter extremist ideology and promote democratic pluralism. How, in practical terms, can that be done?

Nawaz: There’s a grass-roots approach and a policy approach, as I described in my TED talk. We work on both sides. Governments have a role—for instance in choosing their partners and interlocutors—who they engage with. They have to make sure they aren’t unwittingly encouraging extremism. Media, too, have a role to be sure [in making sure] they are not furthering the Islamist narrative through their reporting.

On the other end we try to build up a grass-roots allegiance for democratic values in countries such as Pakistan. To directly compete with groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Lashkar-e-Taiba who are working to recruit young Pakistanis. That is a long-term solution. The Muslim Brotherhood was established in 1928 and it took them until 2012 to win elections in Egypt. You have to start somewhere.

You’ve founded a similar organization, Khudi, in Pakistan. What sort of obstacles do you face there?

Nawaz: Security is a big one. We’re talking about an environment where “secularism” has become an insult and a swear word; where democracy is viewed with suspicion and a synonym for corruption. An environment where people are killed by mobs upon the mere accusation of blasphemy. So we have to be very careful what we say and how we say it. But there are large chunks of the country, especially the youth, who are increasingly disillusioned with the status quo and are turning to our organization.

Turning to the Arab Spring, as someone who was tortured by President Mubarak’s infamous state security, what did the Egyptian revolution mean to you?

Nawaz: It was a cathartic moment, because the ideas of non-violent uprising that led to Tahrir Square were the sort of ideas that were being debated by us in prison all those years before. And in fact some of those involved in starting the intellectual input were my cell-mates—people like Professor Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the famous Egyptian sociologist, and Ayman Nour. So it was a vindication, especially because Mubarak is now in the very same prison we were.

Have the recent electoral victories of Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia been a disappointment to you?

Nawaz: Not really; they were expected. What’s more important in these countries is to have what I call a democratic trinity in place: a firm entrenchment of democratic values, democratic institutions and the democratic process. If those three can be rooted in society it’s more important than any one party or who wins the election.

In “Radical” you write that “If the West […] had intervened earlier and harder” in Bosnia, it might have limited “the spread of Islamism and [Hizb ut-Tahrir].” Does this suggest a reason to intervene in Syria?

Nawaz: It suggested a reason for Libya, because Libya was a very uncontroversial and legal intervention. The problem with Syria is we have to try and be consistent. As Muslims, sometimes we like to have our cake and eat it too. So when we disagreed with the Iraq war, we were the first to shout that this was an illegal intervention and it was Western colonialism, and yet in Syria we are frustrated that intervention hasn’t been possible. I am frustrated about that. The problem without a coalition is that now if states do intervene, it gives other governments like Iran and Russia the perfect excuse to say, “Well this is illegal, we’re backing the Syrian regime.” And that leads to a potential regional war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

I’m sure a lot more can and must be done to help the rebels, but I’m saying it’s simply not analogous to Libya or Bosnia. It’s very complicated—Lebanon is there and suffering from sectarian fallout—so it’s one of these ones that’s genuinely stumped me, because I’m very keen to see the back of the Assads, but I’m not very keen to further entrench Iran, Hezbollah and Russia in the region. I don’t think anyone really has a solution to this.

Do you worry that just as Bosnia turned you to Islamism, today some young Muslims are doing the same because of Syria?

Nawaz: Of course, absolutely. In fact we know that a minority of the fighters in Syria are foreign jihadists. However, I think that those groups would capitalize on it with or without intervention.

Turning to Lebanon, your former Hizb ut-Tahrir leader, Omar Bakri Muhammad, currently resides here. Do you think the Lebanese government should ban him and other Salafist-Jihadists from the country, as the UK has done?

Nawaz: I have absolutely no doubt that he’s involved in ratcheting up sectarianism in the Syrian conflict right now. But he’s a Syrian national, so I don’t think it’s possible to extradite him at the moment.

In general we have to distinguish between extremist thought and calling for violence. Hizb ut-Tahrir is not banned in the UK, and I’ve argued for them to remain legal, while organizations like al-Muhajiroun, which was Omar Bakri’s in London, are banned and I’ve argued for them to be banned. The distinction I make is that groups that directly call for terrorism need to be outlawed, whereas groups that call for extremist thought need to be challenged by civil society.

Finally, might you ever consider extending your activism to Lebanon?

Nawaz: I would love to, but capacity is one of the issues. We are working very hard to build up and expand the Khudi model into other countries. We’ve already started training people in three other countries. It’s a matter of time.

Piety and politics in the Dahiyeh

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon, with Luna Safwan]

One didn’t need to be told where to find Monday night’s rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Long before we reached the arterial Hadi Hassan Nasrallah Street, we saw them: the men, women and children in their tens of thousands, swarming in a single mass through the alleys and sidestreets like a tidal wave washing ashore.

And we heard them. “Libayka ya rasool Allah!” roared a voice several blocks away (the phrase roughly translates as “We’re at your service, Messenger of God!”). Once on the ground in the midst of the marching crowd, we saw the source of the noise: dozens of men on platforms, spaced every few hundred meters apart, reading chants from a prepared sheet through a gigantic set of loudspeakers. “Death to America, death to Israel!” came next, followed by “America, America, you are the greatest Satan!”

So large was the procession – spanning several kilometers and snaking around right-angles – that when Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s voice first sounded, nobody around us realized he was speaking in person from a stage up ahead. They assumed they were listening to a video transmission. For those witnessing the moment of his appearance, of course, it was a different story entirely.

Demonstrators, who did not give their names, offered discrepant reasons for turning up when interviewed by NOW Lebanon, ranging from simple offence at the “Innocence of Muslims” film that has sparked outrage around the Muslim world, to a wish to show defiance against what they see (and what Nasrallah described on Sunday) as an American-Israeli plot against them.

“We are here because a movie insulting Prophet Muhammad is out,” said a man in his early twenties. “We want to send the message to the world that we are here to defend the prophet. We hope for the movie to be banned for the sake of respect for religion.”

“We came to this protest to defend Prophet Muhammad, and also to show Israel that we are here and that we won’t keep quiet,” said a woman of around eighteen. “The movie should be taken down.”

“I came because Sayyed Hassan requested us to come, also out of respect for Prophet Muhammad,” said a man in his fifties. “America should lay off our back. This movie has to be taken down, otherwise things might escalate.”

That refrain was echoed by a woman of around thirty, who told NOW that, “It is requested of every Muslim to participate for this is an insult to Islam. We hope that they take the movie down because if they don’t, something else might happen, something bigger.”

Indeed, in his speech Nasrallah warned that “America, which is objecting and deceiving [others] under [the pretext] of freedom, needs to understand that the complete broadcast of the film will yield very dangerous repercussions.”

Ali al-Amin, a prominent analyst of Lebanese Shiite politics, believes that this threat is essentially empty, being in reality a counter to the violent reaction of the Sunni community. It was “part of the general political rhetoric [in Lebanon],” he told NOW. “The Shiite street seemed as if it were not reacting to the film” as much as its Sunni counterpart, and thus Hezbollah sought to one-up their rivals by “taking stances embellished with threats.”

Amin argues that the demonstration in general was a means of deflecting attention from the ongoing killings in Syria – a view shared by veteran Lebanese blogger Mustapha Hamoui. For Hezbollah, the film arrived “on a silver platter,” said Amin. “Previously, Hezbollah used to take a defensive position, e.g. when justifying the Syria issue. This time, Hezbollah was not required to talk about Syria.” All the same, a number of demonstrators chose to assert a pro-Syrian government stance, waving the red, white and black national flag as well as posters of President Bashar al-Assad.

The calls for “death” notwithstanding, the rally was comparatively civil overall. Unlike other protests against the film in such countries as Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, there was no burning of flags or effigies, and no violence (though two people were reportedly wounded by celebratory gunfire).

However, it remains to be seen what may unfold if the full film is made public. As NOW was leaving the rally, a bespectacled man in his forties approached, speaking a mixture of English and French. “I don’t care about the filmmaker,” he said. “God will give him his own punishment. Listen, Hassan Nasrallah is not a bad guy. Muslims are not bad. We’re not going to attack you first.”

“But if you attack us, we’re going to attack you back.”

Noam Raydan contributed reporting.