Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Running Down a Protest

Montage of protest and the response by security forces on Friday in Bahrain

See also Egypt Letter: Alaa Abd-El Fattah Blogs from Jail "These Are My Limits"
Egypt Feature: Activists Try to Bridge Digital Divide by Taking "Tweets to the Streets"
Syria Video Special: Another Friday of Protests
Friday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: And There Will Be Marches....

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2030 GMT: An anti-regime demonstration in the Midan district of the Syrian capital Damascus tonight:

1910 GMT: Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the opposition Syrian National Council, has addressed the Syrian people in a televised address tonight. A summary, provided on Twitter:

This crisis has unified efforts of all Syrians....Syria will no longer be like a farm owned by a single family....A new constitution will give rights to minorities, especially Kurds....Power will be in the hands of people, they decide who rule them.

Every drop of blood is one more step on the way to freedom....Those who use violence against their own people are traitors who will fall and lose.

The Syrian National Council is your way to make your voices heard around the world. We are honored by your support....We will not negotiate or compromise.

Regime attempts to buy time will not help them....We have asked the Arab League and UN to protect civilians in Syria....We salute the Free Syrian Army who defended their brothers and their peaceful protests....Syrians will not forget the sacrifices of those who defended the uprising.

We tell people who are undecided, this revolution is yours....Syrians will not forget those who supported their revolutions....The regime of tyranny has fallen, but they are still trying to cling to power.

New Syria is being built today....The future Syria will be coming soon, free, democratic, and without slavery....Long live free Syria.

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Egypt Feature: Activists Try to Bridge Digital Divide by Taking "Tweets to the Streets" (Bohn)

The impact of social media on revolutionary movements like Egypt’s has been hashed out to the precipice of cliché, with scholars still puzzling over how networks online and off contributed to the ousting of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. As Egypt’s transitional period drags on, staggering obstacles lay ahead for the architects of the post-Mubarak Egypt, with Twitter laying bare divisions both within the activists’ ranks and between the relatively small number of activists using the Internet to organize and the “silent majority” on the street. Some of Egypt’s young revolutionaries are still trying to find a way to merge their online presences with street level politics and outreach in time for the approaching parliamentary elections.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Hollow Declarations

See also Bahrain Feature: A New "Martyr"? The Death of Ali Hassan Al Daihi
Middle East Audio: Scott Lucas With Monocle Radio About Al Jazeera
Egypt Letter: Returning to Mubarak's Prisons (Alaa)
Wednesday's Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Catalyst of Alaa's Detention

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1747 GMT: The Bahrain Justice and Development Movement have posted an English-language account of the death of 70-year-old Ali Hassan Aldaihi, allegedly beaten by riot police as he returned home last night.

Aldaihi, the father of the Deputy Secretary General of the leading opposition party Al Wefaq, was found by his son. He was taken to hospital with head injuries but died at 12.30 a.m. after a cardiac arrest.

Aldaihi's home was attacked in September with rubber bullets fired into it.

1637 GMT: So, yesterday the Syrian government enters into an agreement with the Arab League, pledging among other things to withdraw troops and tanks and stop the bloodshed. What happened? A bloody day, with tanks deployed everywhere. Tomorrow, opposition groups are planning to put Assad's pledge to the test, with massive demonstrations scheduled in many locations. Many of our sources are buzzing that we may see protests in Damascus tomorrow. The Guardian's Martin Chulov thinks so too:

Two activists in Damascus said protests were being organised under a premise that nothing had changed. "Tomorrow [Friday] we will see how serious they are," one said. "I think they cannot afford to take the tanks from the streets just yet."

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Egypt Letter: Returning to Mubarak's Prisons (Alaa)

Alaa at Personal Democracy ForumI did not expect that the very same experience would be repeated after five years, after a revolution in which we have ousted the tyrant, I go back to jail.

The memories of being incarcerated have returned, all the details, from the skills of being able to sleep on the floor with eight colleagues in a small cell (2 x 4 meters) to the songs and discussions of the inmates. But I am completely unable to remember how I secured my glasses while asleep. They was trampled upon three times in one day. I realize suddenly that they are the very same pair I had when I was jailed in 2006, and that I am imprisoned, now, pending investigation under similar flimsy accusations and reasons of that incarceration, the only difference is that we have exchanged State Security prosecution with military prosecution: a change fitting to the military moment we are living.

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Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Catalyst of Alaa's Detention

See also Egypt Letter: Returning to Mubarak's Prisons (Alaa)
Libya Special: Creating Armies out of Militias (Sheridan)
Libya Special: National Transitional Council Struggles to Remain the "Good Guys" (Malone)
Syria Special: Should We Treat Calls for a No-Fly Zone Seriously? (Zenko)

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2015 GMT: Egypt's military leaders have announced plans to free 334 people detained since the fall of the Mubarak regime in February.

Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, giving no details of who would be pardoned or when, said the releases would support "continued communication with the great Egyptian people and the youth of the revolution".

Human rights groups estimate that more than 12,000 civilians have been processed by military tribunals this year. This week brought international attention to the detentions with the military court's order to hold blogger and activist Alaa Abd-El Fattah (see separate entry).

1945 GMT: Claimed footage from Al Dair in Bahrain this evening, as protesters chant, "The martyr said, 'I sacrificed my soul to my country'" and "We will sacrifice our blood and souls to the martyrs":

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US Politics Special: A Pizza-Based Foreign Policy Lesson for Herman Cain

Herman, if you must compare foreign policy to pizza-making...keep reading

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Israel and Palestine: Half and Half Pizza

It was supposed to be half and half, but someone mixed all the toppings up! Don’t try to separate them or you’ll burn your hands in the cheese. Let the toppings magically figure out how to migrate to their own side of the pizza before you get involved.

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Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Spark of Detention

2008 GMT: Now Lebanon is now raising the death toll in Syria to 13, citing Al Arabiya.

1915 GMT: The LCCS posts this video, evening protests in Qalat Madeq in Hama:

1908 GMT: A large protest this evening in Daraa province:

Another in Deir Balbeh, Homs:

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Egypt Feature: Activists' Statement on Detention of Alaa Abd-El Fattah

We demand that Alaa Abd El Fattah be freed immediately, that military trials of civilians be stopped and all those sentenced thus far be released or at least retried before civilian courts. We support all of those who similarly refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the military prosecution.

This is not the new Egypt we have fought and died for.

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Tunisia, Libya, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Election, Liberation, Protest

2023 GMT: According to NTC officials, Muammar Qaddafi and his son Muatassim will be buried in a secret location, with Muslim clerics present, likely sometime tomorrow.

2010 GMT: A very large crowd in Dael, Daraa, forms a human "SOS," a call for help:

2005 GMT: Mare, Aleppo:

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Israel Special: How Gilad Shalit Saved Prime Minister Netanyahu

In July, we speculated that --- given the Palestinian application for United Nations recognition, deadlocked negotiations, and collapsed diplomatic manoeuvres ---the Obama Administration might acknowledge Hamas behind closed doors, give Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas a guarantee that Ramallah will never need to recognise a “Jewish state”, and promise a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital in a year. None of that has happened; however, we also noted htat “a sign can be given to Netanyahu that he can be a peace-making hero ahead of Israeli elections. How? The release of Gilad Shalit, the detained Israel soldier, by Hamas.”

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