Saudi Arabian protester, second in two days, reportedly shot dead by security forces 10FEB12

THE Saudi Arabian king has condemned Syrian dictator bashir-al-assad for his violence against pro-democracy protesters and then unleashes his own security forces to kill unarmed pro-democracy protesters in his country. mahmoud ahmedinajad was spot on in his ridicule of Middle Eastern leaders who are condemning Syria's assad while never holding free elections in their own countries.
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of Assad’s top allies, warned Arab countries on Saturday not to give aid to the opposition.
Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters in Tehran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ahmadinejad said countries in the region that have never held free elections are trying to write a “prescription for freedom and elections for others” with the help of the United States.
“This is the most bitter and ridiculous joke of history,” Ahmadinejad said"
As an American I am ashamed of my government's hypocrisy in the support provided to the governments of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others in the region as they brutally and violently repress their own people through imprisonment, torture and death. This from the Washington Post, a warning, the videos of the deaths of these two young men are disturbing (click the header to go to the RevolutionEast facebook page).......
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/saudi-arabian-protester-for-second-day-in-a-row-reportedly-shot-dead-by-security-forces/2012/02/10/gIQA7Lml4Q_blog.html

By Elizabeth Flock

For the second day in a row, a protester in Saudi Arabia has been shot dead by security forces during demonstrations, the Lede blog reports, citing activists.

(YouTube) Protester Zohair al-Saad died of gunshot wounds after security forces opened fire in a tiny town north of Qatif, according to an activist Facebook page for videographers, Revolution East.
Video of the protester from that page shows Saad just before he died, as a group of men attempt to stop the bleeding. (WARNING: Graphic images inside.)

Three others were injured in the gunfire, Ahmed Hamad Al Rebh, 46, who maintains the Revolution East page, told the Lede.
On Thursday in Qatif, another man, identified as Muneer al-Meedani, was reportedly killed in clashes with the police. Three others were injured. Graphic video shows protesters trying to stop the bleeding from Meedani’s wounds, too.

A number of disturbing videos have emerged out of Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, including footage purporting to show the abuses happening inside Bremain prison, and protesters running for cover as gunfire sounds:
Saudi police confirmed that a man was killed Thursday, but said security forces had been attacked by masked men and were simply returning fire, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.
Saudi blogger Ahmed Al-Omran didn’t buy this statement:


While Saudi Arabia has managed to squelch protests over political rights from spreading in the country, largely by spending billions on welfare, there are indications those efforts may no longer be working.
On the Revolution East page, activists said protests were planned for Qatif Saturday.
 Video from Bremain prison in Saudi Arabia

Second Protester Is Reported Killed in Saudi Arabia

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/second-protester-is-reported-killed-in-saudi-arabia/?partner=rss&emc=rss 

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

Activists posted video of protests said to be from the city of Qatif on Friday. Several people waved flags of nearby Bahrain, where Saudi forces assisted in a brutal crackdown last year.

Activists in Saudi Arabia said that for the second day in a row, a protester was shot dead Friday by security forces during demonstrations in the country’s oil-rich eastern region.
The state-run Saudi Press Agency confirmed the killing of a man on Friday by security forces following “an illegal gathering,” Reuters reported. The state news report said security officers came under fire and “dealt with the situation by firing back, which resulted with the death of one.”
The violence occurred in a small town north of the city of Qatif, said Ahmed Hamad Al Rebh, a 46-year-old Saudi Arabian activist who maintains a main Facebook page for a network of activist videographers in eastern Saudi Arabia.
The page, Revolution East, included video of the protester, identified as Zohair Al Saad, shortly before activists said he died from gunshot wounds. A group of men can be seen carrying his limp body and attempting to stanch a wound just below his belt as he lay on the ground. Blood can be seen dripping onto the pavement.
[Warning, disturbing video.]
Three others were wounded in the clash, Mr. Al Rebh said in a telephone interview from Beirut. He said he had lived outside Saudi Arabia since early last year for safety.
“In Saudi Arabia there are no rubber bullets, no water hoses, no birdshot,” he said, referring to the less lethal methods used to quell protests in many countries. “There is only live ammunition that is used against peaceful protesters.”
The demonstrations followed the death of another man on Thursday in clashes with the police on a central avenue in Qatif. Graphic video showing gaping wounds on the blood-covered torso of the man, identified as Muneer al-Meedani, also appeared on activist Web sites.
The crackling sound of gunfire can be heard as a small group of men search for cover down an alley near a central intersection in another video said to be from the city on Thursday and posted by Revolution East. One protester carries the flag of the nearby kingdom of Bahrain, where Saudi military forces assisted in a brutal crackdown on large-scale protests last year.
The police confirmed on Friday that a man had been killed the day before in Qatif but said the killing occurred after security officers patrolling in the Al-Shwikah district came under fire by masked men and returned fire, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. The report said four others were wounded. “Security men will deal firmly with all cases and situations that endanger the security and safety of citizens and residents,” the report quoted an unnamed police spokesman as saying.
At least a dozen others were injured in the clashes on Thursday but had not been treated at hospitals, fearing arrest if they did so, activists said.
Though spared the Arab Spring’s revolutionary unrest, Saudi Arabia has dealt swiftly with what few protests have been mounted, mostly in the Shiite-dominated eastern Qatif region. Last March, as waves of unrest swept across the region, Saudi security forces fired on protesters, wounding three. Four people died in clashes there in November, and another was shot and killed by the police last month.
Efforts by King Abdullah to mollify protesters by spending billions on welfare last year have not succeeded in easing longstanding tensions between the country’s minority Shiite population and its religiously conservative Sunni government.
Activists on the Revolution East page called for further protests in Qatif on Saturday.
Mayy El-Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo.

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Saudi police open fire at protest 10MAR11

THE moral and political corruption of saudia arabia is finally being challenged, the question is, what will the American reaction be if the government responds with the same brutality as mubarak or gaddafi? Right now they show every indication they will respond with lethal force and mass arrest resulting in torture and death.

By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 10, 2011; 6:59 PM


DAMMAM, SAUDI ARABIA - Three people were injured when police opened fire during a protest in eastern Saudi Arabia on Thursday, according to a witness and a Saudi official.
The witness, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals by authorities, said police at first fired over protesters' heads but then began shooting directly at them during a march in central Qatif, a predominantly Shiite town in oil-rich Eastern Province.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said police fired over the heads of protesters after demonstrators attacked them, the Reuters news agency reported. He did not say how the injuries were caused but said one of those hurt was a policeman.
At the time of the shooting, "the police were maybe 50 meters away" from the protesters, who were calling for the release of prisoners, the witness said. It was not immediately clear whether the bullets were live or rubber.
"The guy, he goes talking only, and directly the police shot at him by gun, and all the people started running," the witness said.
The witness said he later visited two of the victims in the hospital. An 18-year-old man was shot in the hand. A 24-year-old man was shot in the leg. A nurse told the witness that the third man had been shot in the abdomen.
Larger protests are planned for Friday across Saudi Arabia. Demonstrators are seeking reforms that include a say in government, better economic opportunities and, in the Shiite-heavy eastern area, an end to what protesters call systematic discrimination by the Sunni monarchy.
Shiites are a minority in Saudi Arabia, making up 10 to 15 percent of the population.
The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said at a news conference in Jiddah on Wednesday that the country would not tolerate protests and called for dialogue instead. Earlier in the week, the country's council of senior clerics said public protests were un-Islamic.
That has not dissuaded protest organizers, who plan protests in Riyadh, Qatif and elsewhere Friday, a day of prayer and the largest planned day of protests in the region over the past two months of unrest.
Small protests have been taking place for weeks in Qatif and in nearby Shiite towns. Such demonstrations are highly unusual in the strictly run country.
Officials have been watching with nervousness the unrest in Bahrain, a small island nation that is just a 16-mile drive over a causeway from Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, home to much of the country's oil reserves.
In Bahrain, the Shiite majority has risen up in protest against the Sunni monarchy. Analysts say that the Saudi government worries that the same thing could happen with its own Shiite minority and that it also fears the influence of predominantly Shiite Iran if Bahrain were to be taken over by Shiite leaders.
In Washington, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters that U.S. officials had told the Saudi government and others that the United States supported "a set of universal values" in the region. "And that includes the right to peaceful assembly, to peaceful protest, to peaceful speech," he said.
!Daily Staff writer Perry Bacon Jr. in Washington contributed to this report.