18 Mar 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
Liverpool John Moores University has threatened to sue a Conservative MP after he criticised its relations with the Libyan regime, Index on Censorship has learned.
Robert Halfon MP, whose grandfather was expelled from Libya in 1968, has been vociferous in his opposition to the Gadaffi family, and particularly its ties with UK universities.
London School of Economics director Sir Howard Davies resigned earlier this month after it was disclosed the school had taken £1.5 million from the north African state.
LJMU does not deny that it has had dealing with the Libyan regime, saying in a statement that “everything that we have done has been delivered transparently, at the invitation or with the encouragement and the support of the FCO (through the British Ambassador) and the British Council.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron said this week that Universities should ask “some pretty searching questions” about relations with Libya.
On Monday, the coalition government published its draft libel reform bill, which proposes to protect expression of “honest opinion”.
18 Mar 2011 | Index Index, minipost
A Turkish court rejected an application for the provisional release of reporters Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener on Thursday. They were arrested on 3 March during raids relating to the alleged Ergenekon plot. They will now be imprisoned pending trial on the charge of belonging to a “terrorist organisation”.
18 Mar 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Mohammed Jamjoom, a CNN correspondent, was expelled from Bahrain on Wednesday after reporting on the violent crackdown by security forces on the main protest camp in Manama. The authorities gave no reason for the expulsion, and other CNN journalists remain in Bahrain.
18 Mar 2011 | Uncategorized
Index on Censorship has been alerted to this urgent news from the Bahrain Human Rights Society:
Ali Abdulemam, known by his nickname “the blog-father” for setting up the first free uncensored online forum in Bahrain for political and social debate, is today missing from his home and his family are unable to establish contact with him.
His uncle described the scene last night when 50 heavily armed policemen came to arrest him, just a few weeks after he was released as a part of concessions to placate Bahraini protesters. He had been accused of being part of an “organisational cell” and was known as one of the 25, who were arrested for plotting to overthrow the government.
At around 1.15am on 18 March the housing complex in Aali where Ali rented a flat from one of his cousins awoke to hear the metal gate outside being riddled with bullets.
Around 50 masked and heavily armed security personnel then proceeded to break down the wooden door of the house. Ali’s cousin, his cousin’s wife and daughter were asleep in the ground floor flat. They burst in on them before the wife or the daughter had a chance to cover up and demanded to know where Ali was while pointing a gun at their faces.
They replied that Ali and his wife had not been home for three days and they had no idea where he was. Incensed that their repeated questions were not yielding any results, they trashed the house and then moved up a floor where there were two more flats and kicked the doors in.
One was Ali’s flat that had been vacated a few days ago in response to the growing threats, and the other belonged to another family who had nothing to do with the situation. The other family were also not there and it is believed that Ali may have hinted to them to stay with relatives.
After tearing the flats apart and breaking everything they could, they filled a large suitcase with every kind of camera, hard drive, video recorder or DVD that they could find. They then returned to the terrified occupants of the ground floor and repeated their demands, this time threatening to take the daughter instead.
The father and mother said they would take their daughter only over their dead bodies. After a short stand-off the police backed off, possibly realising that the family really had no idea where Ali or his wife and children were. They had left the house three days previously for a secret location, but had been phoning family members to reassure them of their safety. Now the lines of communication are dead and the family have no idea if he is in Bahrain or if he managed to get out of the country, or if the police have caught up with him.
Other attacks and arrests are also reported in Bahrain. In a release today, the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International is “deeply concerned” about the reported re-arrest of academic and human rights activist Dr Abdul-Jalil Alsingace on 16 March 2011 following a violent crackdown on peaceful opposition protestors in the capital, Manama.
