Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Alastair Sloan
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The price of positive reviews of Bahrain’s sham ‘reforms’
Not much, as British parliamentary records reveal – the ruling Al-Khalifa family shelled out just £5,400 per head for British parliamentary grandees Baroness Scotland of Asthal, Lord Gulam Noon, Hazel Blears MP, Lord Patel of Bradford and Lord Clive Soley to visit the Kingdom in April. I’ve recently acquired a…
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Domestic workers suffer under the enduring kafala system
Tahira’s arm was broken, after yet another vicious assault from her employer. I say “employer” – in reality, Tahira wasn’t being paid. She slept on the floor of the house, with no blanket or mattress, and received only one meal per day. Her passport, from her native Indonesia, had been…
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How money from pro-Israel donors controls Westminster
Around this time last year, parliamentary records show, the retired property developer and hugely generous Labour party donor, Sir David Garrard, had given a modest £60,000 towards the party’s election campaign for 2015. It came in addition to around half a million he had already given since 2003. Fast forward…
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Western trade to Israel is on the rise, is BDS really working?
There is good news and bad news of late for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. On the one hand, companies such as Veolia, willing partners in the occupation, are losing out on mega-contracts. Despite plans to withdraw from Israel, the French company just lost a $750 million contract to…
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A woman fighter pilot doesn’t mean that the UAE respects women
How typical of the United Arab Emirates to turn the bombing of Iraq and Syria into a reputation-laundering propaganda operation. Pictures of Mariam Hassan Salem Al-Mansouri, the first Emirati woman to hold the rank of fighter pilot in the UAE Air Force, have been circulated widely, along with headlines suggesting…
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Inside the secret world of Gulf ‘GONGOS’
Two British human rights workers have finally made it back to the UK following their unexpected stay with the Qatari security services. They were arrested while investigating abuses against migrant workers in the wealthy Emirate. After the usual protestations from Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the men’s own Norwegian employers…
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The media’s failure in Palestine
It is the whistle-blower’s dilemma: follow the official internal complaints’ procedure and risk the truth being buried, or take it straight to the press, and risk improvised prosecution by a bitter government resentful that you did right and exposed its dirty tricks. The forty-three Israeli whistle-blowers of Yehida Shmoneh-Matayim, Israel’s…
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Kuwait feeling the heat over terror financing
Later this month Kuwait is in the dock once more on terror financing. The Financial Action Task Force, a group of super-hero accountants, will be reviewing financial regulations and practices which have seen hundreds of millions let loose from Kuwaiti donors into the coffers of terrorists. Like all super-heroes, these…
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Washington didn’t know about Libya air strikes! Come off it
Did the bomber pilots of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt really act without Washington’s consent when they bombed Libya? It’s extremely unlikely. The Americans have a clear motive to lie, as they have done so brazenly. A joint statement signed by Washington (and Paris and Berlin and Rome and…
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Egypt’s deep-seated culture of sexism
“Don’t worry, women have smaller brains than men.” “It’s in the Qur’an, its God’s right given to men to command women.” “Women overstate the problem, its nothing, they shouldn’t take it so seriously.” These are just some of the comments that I heard sitting with various groups of young and…
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Attacking journalists makes Israel a plastic democracy
I’ve just had the pleasure of spending eight hours in detention at the border between Egypt and Israel, between Tabaa and Israel’s southern-most city, Eilat. My crime at first appeared to be a single male travelling alone into a Middle Eastern country. But once the immigration police realised I was…
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Collaborating with Israeli occupation should be a serious crime…for everyone
Recently, while looking for a film to keep myself entertained, I came across quite an extraordinary piece of modern cinema entitled Iron Sky. It’s broadly about the Nazis… in space. Yes – according to this epic piece of 2012 Hollywood trash, space Nazis have fled to the moon following their…
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Israel is a Frankenstein monster of America’s militaristic society
How does a father explain to his ten year old son, watching the American Super Bowl for the first time, that his country introduces sporting events by a killing machine fly-by? Each year, US Black Hawk helicopters swoop low over the stadium and fighter jets roar through the sky, cutting…
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It is a lie to say that Iron Dome is protecting Israelis from Hamas
A sceptical Philip E Coyle III shook his head at the Israel Defence Forces claim that its “Iron Dome” missile defence system intercepts nine out of ten Hamas rockets. “No military system is ninety per cent effective,” he said. Coyle is amongst a worrying number of Israeli and American defence…
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Don’t be fooled: ‘media watchdogs’ are Israeli propaganda tools
Consider yourself very lucky if you have never heard of “Comment is Free Watch” (CiF Watch), “BBC Watch”, “HonestReporting” and “Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America” (CAMERA). Statistics collected by the Institute for Internet Nonsense suggest that these four blogs account for “ninety per cent of web-based…
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The whys and wherefores of political persecution in Saudi Arabia
Is King Abdullah the most progressive, liberal Saudi monarch to date? Quite possibly, though it’s a limited field and a low bar. Still, thanks to him, seventy thousand Saudi students now study in Western Europe, North America and Australia free of charge. New laws on domestic violence and divorce have…
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The fate of migrant workers in Yemeni ‘torture camps’
A new report from Human Rights Watch revisits the torture camps of Yemen, where the only way out for the tens of thousands of migrant workers interned each year is a ransom payment from back home – and until it arrives, torture, beatings and inhumane conditions. Nearly all of the…
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A renewed Kuwaiti opposition rises to fight corruption
“The battle starts tonight,” Musallam Al-Barrak told several thousand Kuwaitis gathered outside their Parliament building last night. Al-Barrak, the popular ex-Member of Parliament and pro-democracy activist, had promised an innovative mix of investigative journalism with al fresco politics – with a big reveal about corruption amongst Kuwait’s political elite promised…
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China’s complex relations with the Gulf States
Untangling the complex relations between China, Russia, the Gulf states and “the West”is no easy task. Although Beijing and Moscow have long kept a small hand in Gulf affairs, there is growing activity between the four parties – each with differing interests, overlapping activities and sometimes schizophrenic approaches to their…
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Bahraini activists speak out about ‘systematic persecution’ by British government
Human rights groups have claimed Bahraini pro-democracy activists in London are being “systematically persecuted” by the British government, with specific accusations made against Whitehall departments, the Metropolitan Police and a high profile member of the House of Lords. The accusations come as King Hamad of Bahrain, whose family have ruled…
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Britain’s hypocrisy over Gulf links
“Our foreign policy should always have consistent support for human rights…as its irreducible core,” claimed Foreign Secretary William Hague when he took office in 2010. Despite the rhetoric, which echoed that of his Labour Party predecessor, Britain enjoys cosy relationships with several dictators, suppressive regimes and states where human rights…
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Obituary: Bassem Sabry
In memory of an Egyptian commentator and revolutionary On 29th April 2014, aged just thirty one, the Egyptian analyst and writer Bassem Sabry passed away. As is appropriate for a man who spent much of his time blogging, tweeting and exchanging emails – Twitter has mourned his death as publically…
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Who are the ‘political prisoners’ in Saudi and Iran?
Both Iran and Saudi Arabia maintain fairly poor reputations in the Western world for their approach to human rights. While Iran remains isolated through sanctions and is frequently vilified, the oppression of political dissent by Saudi Arabia is frequently overlooked by both their Western allies and the public. Not only…
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Post-coup politics raise tensions between Egypt and Sudan
Relations between Cairo and Khartoum are tense. Although many fleeing the coup have made it to Libya or London, hundreds if not thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members are thought to have fled to Khartoum. The run down to the border is punctuated by military checkpoints, but it is 2000 km…