On Trial for Tweets, Part 3: Nabeel Rajab

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

From the day he was arrested on June 13, Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, has been kept in solitary detention in conditions so squalid that outside observers have verified the “toilet and shower are unclean, unhygienic, and filled with potentially disease-carrying sludge.”

The start of his trial for comments he posted online has been delayed twice: it was scheduled to start on July 12, delayed until August 2, and then on August 2, it was delayed until September 5. No reason was offered regarding this week’s delay, once again.

A request from his lawyers to release him pending the start of the trial has been rejected. Rajab remains in pretrial custody.
Read More

Today in History: August 6

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In the street, the first thing he saw was a squad of soldiers who had been burrowing into the hillside opposite, making one of the thousands of dugouts in which the Japanese apparently intended to resist invasion, hill by hill, life for life; the soldiers were coming out of the hole, where they should have been safe, and blood was running from their heads, chests, and backs. They were silent and dazed.
 
Under what seemed to be a local dust cloud, the day grew darker and darker.—John Hersey, “Hiroshima,” The New Yorker, August 31, 1946

The United States Of America became the first—and to this date, the only—nation to use a nuclear weapon against an enemy nation in war on this date in 1945. The Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, flew a mission over Japan and dropped a bomb code-named “Little Boy” on the city of Hiroshima.

Hiroshima was selected as a target in part because Tokyo was already “rubble” after a long bombing campaign. Kyoto was also favored. Hiroshima, unlike Kyoto, had a large military district.
Read More

Thanks for the Compliment

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The compliment arrived in the best manner for compliments to arrive: unexpected.

An article posted this morning on the website of the human rights advocacy group Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) used some of my reporting.
Read More