Dissent Continues Its Slow Death March

As dissent continues its slow circling of the drain one has wonder how long before life support is needed followed by Hospice? Everywhere one looks be it a country one considers authoritarian or one considered representative repression of open thought continues unabated.

After protests began against the government of Basher-al Assad the usual methods of repression were abandoned in favor of armed assault which has left an estimated 1,300 people dead. Simply throwing people wasn’t enough the Syrian government is literally trying to kill any and all opposition.

Syrian forces open fire at funerals for slain political protesters, a human rights activist says, leaving two more people dead as Syria tries to subdue weeks of demonstrations against President Bashar Assad.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says the two were killed Saturday in al-Kaswa, a suburb of the Syrian capital. Security forces opened fire when the funerals for protesters killed on Friday turned into protests themselves.

Protests in Bahrain began in mid-February styled after those in Egypt when those opposed to the governments ruled occupied Pearl Roundabout. Tolerated at first the government quickly lost patience and sent security services to break-up the protests when that failed the Saudi Arabian National Guard was asked to intervene successfully ending the occupation of Pearl Roundabout. Unfortunately the stifling of dissent didn’t end there as the government not only arrested those believed involved in the protests but the medical staff which rendered aid to those injured in the violent crack down.

Having been born and educated in the UK, I moved to Bahrain in 2009 to marry Ghazi Farhan, a 31-year-old energetic businessman, leaving a respectable job in Cambridge to start a new family life in the land of my ancestors. Little did I imagine that in 2011, when the Arab Spring hit the shores of this island, it would be swiftly nipped in the bud, and would sweep my blossoming family along with it.
On April 12, on his way back from his lunch break, my husband was abducted from his office car park. Blindfolded, handcuffed and taken away by unknown plain-clothed men. Some 48 days later, he was summoned before the Orwellian-named "National Safety Court", a military tribunal. He was charged with participating in an illegal assembly of more than five persons (having visited the Pearl Roundabout) and spreading false information on the internet (referring to a single Facebook comment). Therein began an extraordinary ordeal of Ghazi's military trial and his sentencing.

Medical personal are trained to help the injured no matter who they may me.

A mass trial in Bahrain is under way for 28 doctors and nurses charged in the crackdown on Shiite-led protests calling for greater rights.
Monday's criminal court trial comes just four days before Bahrain's Sunni rulers seek to open talks with opposition groups in the Gulf island kingdom.
But Shiite leaders say authorities must end the protest-linked trials and release detainees before serious dialogue can begin.
The medical personnel are accused of joining the protests that began in February and spreading false information, seen as a reference to speaking to foreign media.
A separate trial began earlier this month for 20 doctors and nurses accused of alleged anti-state plots.

Japan considers its self a bastion of free speech yet how can one have open speech when all Japanese reporters must belong to a press club. Press clubs are controlled by various public and private institutions. Thus they not only control the message but the messenger.

Ten years ago it was illegal to publicly criticize the President of South Korea. Here you have an elected official as chosen by the voters of that country but to be critical of his policies was a crime.