Abdulhadi Al Khawaja receives a life sentence

This morning Abdulhadi Al Khawaja and seven other political prisoners in Bahrain were sentenced to life in prison by a military court. Several others recieved sentences of up to 15 years in prison. The BBC report that "the authorities claim that they plotted to overthrow Bahrain's Sunni rulers "by force and intelligence with a terror group colluding with a foreign country" - in an apparent reference to Iran."

The Guardian reports today that "The defendants punched their air with their fists and shouted 'peacefully' as their sentences were handed down, according to relatives." Later, "Khawaja then shouted: 'We will continue our struggle' ... His daughter, Zainab, was forcibly removed from court by female guards after she cried out 'Allahu akbar' or 'God is great'."

Bahrain may have been pushed back out of the headlines as a result of media overkill, Syria, Libya and any other number of this year's big news stories. But this verdict and its speed is a stain on Bahrain's conscience and shows that they continue to willingly punish their own people. The verdict, the proceedings and the prosecution itself are a disgrace. I can't help but think of the situation of these individuals as they sit in their cells tonight thinking about the months and years ahead, and their families at home facing the same truth. And besides the bleak immediate future of these individuals, how bleakly does this bode for the future of Bahrain, under a system that deems it appropriate and necessary to rule like this?

Below is the text of Front Line's statement.

Front Line, the Dublin based International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders deplores and condems the life sentence passed against the organisation's former Protection Coordinator for the Middle East and prominent member of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Abdulhadi Al Khawaja.

Today's verdict and the fact that the trial took place before a military court whose procedures fall far short of internationally recognised fair trial standards underlines the determination of the Government of Bahrain to secure a conviction at any cost” said Mary Lawlor, Executive Director of Front Line in Dublin today.

Abdulhadi Al Khawaja and the 20 other defendants were tried before the State of Safety Court which has consistently refused to address repeated and credible allegations of torture in pre-trial detention and during the trial itself. “This trial was a total legal charade and followed the brutal arrest and torture of Abdulhadi Al Khawaja for exercising his legitimate rights to freedom of expression and association by campaigning for democracy and human rights in Bahrain” said Ms Lawlor.

Front Line is concerned by the increasingly hard line being taken by the Bahrain Government. The targeting of members of the medical profession, including three doctors who are graduates of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the harassment of anyone who speaks about human rights abuses to the media is of particular concern.

“For the forthcoming national dialogue to have any serious hope of success the Government of Bahrain must attempt to restore trust as a vital pre-condition. The first step to creating trust is the immediate and unconditional release of Abdulhadi Al Khawaja and all other human rights defenders currently in detention including blogger and founder of Bahrainonline.org Ali Abdulemam who is being tried in absentia”, she added.

10 things to like about Kosovo (and it's honey)

To make up for my own sore lack of blogging in recent times, I came across this piece by another blogger based in Pristina today and thought it was a great little analysis of 10 things to love about this funny little place. Perhaps it's fair to say that some of this top ten are equally things that might drive you completely bonkers (I don't find the wind-up plastic dogs on Mother Teresa Street particularly endearing) but this is a great little round-up of many of the quirky little things that I haven't gotten around to writing yet about Kosovo. Also some great pictures which make Kosovo (and especially it's food) look great.

Kudos to the talented Ms Claire C, whom I met my first week here and later discovered to be a blogger extraordinaire. She recently relocated, Kosovo's loss clearly being Ireland's gain.

If that whets your appetite, I also recommend having a look at the lovely One Hundred Days of Honey. It's a shorter and more recent blog intending to only give you a brief glimpse of Kosovo, but it's a great read for anyone interested in a quirkier and less development-and-politics, meat-and-potatoes view of the Balkans. And I'd insist that everyone should be interested in it's writing about food - there are some recipes here which make me want to stop everything and run home and start cooking. I recently had the privilege of meeting its author at the launch of her lovely book about Kosovo, Travels in Blood and Honey, where she was kind enough to sign my copy while plying us with homemade baklava. I've lately adopted a habit of spending some time on my balcony in the last hour of the day's sunlight, reading about her adventures becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo and learning local recipes.

Finally, if you do want the more traditional political round-up on Kosovo, you can't do worse than MTCowgirl.

Kosovo

I haven't been very productive this month in describing Kosovo. So perhaps the simplest observations are those I've had during a few weekends of day tripping around the country, to Mitrovica, Prizren and Novo Brdo.

Zvečan

Novo Brdo

Kosovo can be startlingly beautiful. Hilltop fortresses - in particular at Zvečan and Novo Brdo - offer amazing panoramic views of vast tracts of open empty countryside, rolling hills, green fields. Except that such views also demonstrate two common problems: pollution and decay.

Novo Brdo

The fortresses are not only ruined but are entirely unprotected, unfenced and unpoliced, and seem to be actively crumbling. I literally saw pieces of masonry fall down hillsides as daytrippers scrambled and climbed over the monuments, which were often scrawled with graffiti and usually strewn with litter. These are amongst Kosovo's oldest and most precious structures, but they literally decay before your eyes.

The problem of pollution is perhaps even more pressing (or depressing). I can't claim to have seen much of Kosovo, but abandoned industrial plants seem to be everywhere, no matter how isolated or rural the area. The infamous dirty coal-powered electricity plant at Obilic pumps vast, filthy clouds of smoke across Pristina and the surrounding area, but at least it's put to productive use. Most of the industrial facilities I've seen are long-closed, many presumably since the collapse of the socialist state, others since the conflict. They look as if they were not so much shut down as literally abandoned: as if someone simply closed the door at the end of a working day and never came back. Debris, waste materials and scrap usually lie around and outside the buildings; doors hang half open; shards of glass still remain in the window frames. Most of these plants are indistinguishable - there's no way to guess what used to be produced here.

Perhaps more tragic is the human pollution and decay which accompanies them. Novo Brdo's only urban area, for instance, is an abandoned mining town, consisting of nothing more than three small apartment blocks, a tiny grocery shop in a construction which looks like a portacabin, and a single, shiny new building which was constructed to house the local municipality. The municipality building is bigger than the single school and is the only building in this tiny little collection which doesn't look as if it's rotting from the inside out. Since the mines closed the former employees have remained in the apartment buildings, subsisting on who knows what. Seeing the kind of socialist-style housing blocks which are patently designed for a utopian urban environment - the kind which surround every city in Eastern Europe - decaying in the middle of verdant, uncultivated countryside dotted with industrial waste, surrounded by rough yards where chickens peck the dirt and the occupants grow small patches of vegetables in order to get by, was one of the more bizarre and heartbreaking sights I've seen since I arrived.

Kosovo also differs from Bosnia however in terms of how the recent troubles and conflict here manifest themselves. In Bosnia the signs of recent war are brutal and in-your-face brash: bullet holes on walls across Sarajevo, collapsing buildings, the circular marks from shells. Here however, the buildings which look like they've just seen the end of the war mostly are not the result of damage of the 1999 conflict, but of the ethnic conflict which has followed it and which still takes place on a continual basis. Most of the houses which appear bombed have in fact been looted: such houses were generally abandoned by ethnic minority owners such as Kosovo Serbs, who were displaced due to overt violence (such as during serious rioting in 2004) or as a result of the low-level but constant, daily thrum of intimidation, hostility and aggression which continues between the communities in Kosovo. Their homes, once they had left, were systematically dismantled by the remaining residents who take not only any useful materials such as windows, doors and even the bricks, but in effect destroy the displaced persons' links to their old home. The houses in the photo below are in Prizen, in a neighbourhood which used to be predominantly Serb but which today is quickly succumbing to trees and bushes.

But finally, on a lighter note, my favourite signs on Kosovo's roads. Yes, the international community is far more apparent and obvious here than in Bosnia, particularly in terms of the military presence. It's still common to see convoys of NATO trucks, ambulances and armoured personnel carriers on patrol. In most countries, bridges carry a sign stating the weight limit for passing trucks and heavy vehicles, but in Kosovo every bridge carries a second sign with the designated weight limits for tanks. Makes me giggle, every time. Though perhaps really, not all that amusing.