Siun

@Jeff Sharlet summed it up today: @JeffSharlet Masked men in all black, wearing strange armor, refuse to ID selves, carrying sticks cld be weapons. Turns out cops have a black bloc, too. Chicago today looks so much like a police state – and feels like it too. On my way earlier to the anti-NATO rally, [...]

It’s very strange to have my home town host NATO and NONATO this weekend. Strange partly since my health limits my ability to be in the streets as part of NONATO and I so miss it. But also odd to have our usual daily routines interrupted by the hyper security state that Rahm and his friends decided we need to protect us from all that dangerous free speech that might take place this week.

A tribunal convened in Kuala Lumpur found George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and five administration attorneys – Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and Haynes – guilty of war crimes yesterday.

The Obama administration. After all, they have now resumed arms shipments to the Bahrain monarchy at the very moment when Al Khalifa announced an even sharper crackdown on pro-democracy protestors.

Zeinab AlKhawaja, whom many of you know from her twitter writing as @AngryArabiya, will face a Bahraini court today and tomorrow on “charges of obstructing traffic and insulting an officer in one case, and insulting at a security officer at a military hospital in a second case.”

ast week at this time, the Bahraini government was “celebrating” their Formula One race by arresting a British Channel 4 television news crew who attempted to report on conditions in the country. The video here is the report they have now been able to file with footage smuggled out when they were deported.

Thousands mourn Salah Abbas Habib who was killed by Bahrain security forces while court delays Al Khawaja appeal on the 75th day of his hunger strike. Meanwhile Obama ignores the monarchy’s attacks on civil rights activists.

Bahrain arrests foreign journalists attempting to cover civil rights demonstrations following F1 race. Ten women also being held for holding photo of AlKhawaja at F1 race, one beaten severely.

As I write this, the F1 teams are preparing to go ahead with their Grand Prix in Bahrain. The race begins at 1200 GMT with activists promising to try to disrupt it. From outside Bahrain, Anonymous is also going after Bahrain as seen in twitter comments at #OpBahrain.

Last summer, the King of Bahrain funded the “independent” Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry to review human rights issues in the country. The report was praised by the King’s American friends – and presented as justification for continued American support of the monarchy.