As Law prepares to attend Manchester United’s latest Soccer School in Manama, the Bahraini capital, the New York-based organisation Human Rights First claimed yesterday that Dr Fatima Haji had been beaten and electrocuted by security forces after she asked the Premier League leaders if they would hold a minute’s silence for a teenage boy killed in the 2011 uprising.
Law’s daughter Diana, the former United head of press, told Telegraph Sport last night that she was “worried” by the claims and would be seeking further reassurance about her father’s visit, which comes amid heightened tensions in the country ahead of next Sunday’s Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix. Last year’s race was marred by scores of anti-government demonstrations.
Brian Dooley, director of Human Rights First, alleged that Dr Haji was subject to brutal interrogation by the Bahraini authorities in April 2011 after she appealed to the club to honour the memory of Ahmad Shams, the 15-year-old shot dead by police still wearing his United shirt.
According to Dooley, Dr Haji, a rheumatologist at Bahrain’s Salmaniya medical complex, said: “I was blindfolded and handcuffed with my hands behind my back, and beaten. A man asked me: ‘What is your relationship with Alex Ferguson?’ I was shocked and figured out they had gone through my emails. A female officer hit me on the head on both sides at the same time – she was wearing what I later found out was a special electrical band on her hands, and she electrocuted me a couple of times. I felt a shockwave through my head. It was very painful and the whole world was spinning.”
Dr Haji is said to have deleted her original email to United, realising that it could have proved incriminating amid Bahrain’s drastic security crackdown, only for police to arrest her on April 17, 2011, and discover United’s reply when they accessed the messages on her computer.
“As they had responded to my email the police thought I somehow knew someone at Manchester United,” she said, in Dooley’s account.
Dooley, speaking from Washington last night, said: “I think Manchester United should be aware of what happened, both of the boy who died wearing the shirt and the Fatima connection. It would be helpful if Denis Law could meet her.
The club should know what went on, that she was tortured at least partly because of her perceived association with United. The Bahrain authorities are very sensitive to their international reputation, and the idea that a major international player like United might think ill of them clearly mattered to them deeply.”
Along with 18 other doctors, she spent weeks in custody for treating injured protesters, and was sentenced to five years in prison before being acquitted on appeal last April. Three of her co-accused remain incarcerated, with Bahrain’s human rights record again due to be thrust into the spotlight by next weekend’s grand prix.
In this context, the timing of Law’s visit on United’s behalf could hardly be more politically sensitive. United did not respond to several requests for comment yesterday.
Anger as Denis Law’s trip to Bahrain for Manchester United goes ahead. Denis Law has flown to Bahrain to visit a Manchester United soccer school after seeking Foreign Office advice over the controversial trip to the Gulf state in the wake of a female doctor being tortured for raising the issue of human rights abuses with the club: here.
Tension has increased ahead of next weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix as anti-government demonstrators chanted ‘Your race is a crime’ while clashing with police who fired tear-gas and sound bombs: here.
Since large numbers of people are in this category, time is being spent on compiling a list of the ‘most dangerous’.
These are to be got out of the way for a number of days by house arrests, or illegal jailings, in fact kidnappings.
Troops from the SAS and Special Boat Service will be in the vanguard of the security operation, that signifies that the gloves are coming off in the struggle to smash the NHS and the Welfare State.
Special targets of the operation are Irish Republican and left-wing groups.
Detectives are monitoring social media, internet forums and Blackberry messaging networks in the expectation that attempts will be made to halt the funeral.
Yesterday afternoon, PM Cameron put himself forward as the heir of Thatcher and her chief mourner.
Minute’s silence for Margaret Thatcher: Hillsborough group says tribute would be ‘insult to fans’; former sports minister warns silence would backfire: here.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers says the silence ahead of their game at Reading on Saturday is for the victims of the Hillsborough disaster and not for the former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher.
Reading chairman Sir John Madejski has called for football to mark the death of Baroness Thatcher with a one-minute silence but the Premier League and Football League will not be asking clubs to organise tributes.
Rodgers says remembering the people who died at Hillsborough is “the only remembrance there should be” and it will give Reading an opportunity “to show their support for the families and the 96 supporters who are no longer here”.
April 2013 – A contrast of London’s historic funerals between those evoking love and admiration and those provoking mass hatred and disquiet.
The City of London is no stranger to large scale funerals for persons who have impacted greatly upon the Country’s historic events.
Back in the latter part of 1648, thousands of people marched on foot whilst others rode on horseback as they followed the funeral cortege of the great leveller leader Thomas Rainsborough. He had been assassinated a week before (30th October) at Doncaster, many levellers believing that Cromwell was implicated. They followed the procession going via Islington, St Pauls, Cheapside and through the East End to Wapping where he was interred. He had been the leader of the physical force New Model Army levellers, the Parliamentary naval Vice Admiral and had been a great Civil War commander. The followers wore ribbons of sea green (his own regimental colours) and black. From that time, sea green has been associated as the colour of incorruptibility. Indeed, French Revolutionary leader Robespierre was called the ‘sea green incorruptible’. There was nothing but affection for the deceased shown at this historic event.
Moving on in history, another great funeral took place in January 1806. The naval hero Admiral Lord Nelson had been killed at the battle of Trafalgar on October 21st 1805. Fatal casualties would normally have been buried at sea but in this case, his comrades decided to preserve his body in a barrel of brandy. His ship, the Victory arrived at Portsmouth on December 4th. The preparations for a state funeral were by then underway and the proceedings reached their peak over the days of 5th to the 9th of January 1806. The body was taken up the Thames on one of Charles the Second’s state barges and was eventually interred in St Paul’s Cathedral. Thousands of admirers flocked to the events. A monument to the hero, Nelson’s Column was constructed between 1840 and 1843 and is, of course, sited in Trafalgar Square.
We can compare these two outpourings of natural grief with the imminent event in London next week. Here, the forces and police are being deployed in huge numbers in the Capital and along the route in order to prevent hostilities aimed at the cortege. Already, the secret services are drawing up lists of those to be arrested and prevented from getting anywhere near this exclusive ‘Establishment’ function. Because there are so many hostile parties from throughout the World to the historical memory of the deceased, this is going to prove a very complicated operation. The cost of all the surveillance, logistics and event is going to be huge. The great insult to the British working class is that they are being asked to fund most of this (at a time of supposed austerity). Rarely in World history can we say that military might has been used to prevent a County’s inhabitants from venting their fury at a leader who left office such a long time ago! The irony is that some of this fury will be on public display in Trafalgar Square!
Easington Labour MP Grahame Morris told today why he would join an emotional ceremony next Wednesday to mark the destruction of 1,400 local miners’ jobs under vicious Thatcherite policies.
Mr Morris was among a large group of around 100 Labour members who disobeyed party whips and refused to attend today’s gruesome hours-long Commons session to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher.
While the Establishment will bring London to a halt next Wednesday with an obscene Thatcher funeral spectacular, Mr Morris will be preparing for a special event to mark the 20th anniversary of the closure of his local Easington pit.
The event in Easington Colliery Working Men’s Club is expected to be a moving occasion, with sad memories of the pit jobs massacre mixed with emotional highs as Thatcher’s victims enthusiastically toast her demise.
Closure of the pit with the loss of 1,400 jobs under the post-Thatcher Tory government in 1993 devastated the local community.
Mr Morris said that the effects of coalfield and industrial closures in East Durham were “absolutely dire.”
He declared that it would have been “hypocritical” for him to attend the Commons today in view of the disastrous consequences of Thatcher’s policies for people in his area, including his own family.
Durham Miners chairman Alan Cummings, who will be hosting next Wednesday’s event, told the Star today: “I hated the woman. I think she was evil.”
The special recall parliamentary session today turned into a ghoulish ruling-class theatre of the absurd, in which the venomous and destructive Thatcher was portrayed as a great national figure.
Yawning gaps on the Labour benches took the shine off the event as Prime Minister David Cameron declared that “she made this country great again.”
Labour leader Ed Miliband jumped up on cue to describe Thatcher as “a great and towering figure” even though he “disagreed with much of what she did.”
One of the few dissenting voices was Labour MP David Winnick, who recalled that Thatcher’s “highly damaging” policies “caused immense pain and suffering to ordinary people.”
He accused the Prime Minister of hijacking Thatcher’s death for political gain.
Mr Cameron was using the parliamentary session as “a platform for his party’s ideology, not just eulogy,” complained Mr Healey.
Miners’ MP Ian Lavery also stayed away, declaring: “I feel very personally about what Thatcher did to my family, my friends and my colleagues, not to mention the people I represent in Parliament.”
Another deliberate absentee was left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn, who declared that the coverage of Thatcher’s death by most of the media was “beyond absurd.”
Parliamentary authorities announced that MPs returning from overseas visits for the Commons tribute to Thatcher would be able to claim up to £3,750 in travel expenses.
Next Wednesday’s costly ceremonial funeral for Thatcher in St Paul’s will be backed by a huge mobilisation of police and armed forces.
The processional route to the cathedral will be lined by personnel from army, navy and air force, with various military bands performing.
The coffin will be draped in a Union Jack and borne on a gun carriage drawn by six horses, while guns will be fired at one-minute intervals from beside the Tower of London.
After a full year, the miners were defeated but Thatcher did not have long to savour her victory as Prime Minister. Her pigheaded imposition of the poll tax moved a people weary of the politics of greed to revolt. She became an embarrassment to her party and they brutally cast her aside.
When we say we celebrate her death, we are reflecting the deep and lasting bitterness of our mining communities – and felt across the entire working class – at the ravages of her brutal policies which destroyed the lives and prospects of so many people.
Even today, we see the legacy of her policies in the continued vandalism of the Tory-Lib-Dem coalition, this time aimed at dismantling the Welfare State.
Thatcher infamously said, “There is no such thing as society”. She was the person who did her best to wreck it. We are the people who will rebuild it.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013)
The former UK Prime Minister who held office from 4 May 1979 until 28 November 1990 died 8 April 2013. To her family our condolences.
The legacy of what the Conservative Government did to British Industry under Thatcher is not one to be proud of if you really did want the best for the people.
Of course Thatcher was the symbol of “free enterprise” and set out to serve those whose interests were profit for the few.
The coal mining industry is not on its own in suffering the decimation of a world class industry in the name of the “free market”.
Thatcher lived long enough to see her beliefs demolished when the “free market” collapsed and came running to the State for support.
Unlike the Banks who gambled, cheated and were bailed out – Coal mines were closed and communities were left to suffer.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher is gone but the damage caused by her fatally flawed politics sadly lingers on.
‘I was sexually assaulted & tortured to extract false confession’ – Bahraini medic
Mar 30, 2013
In Bahrain, 21 doctors have been cleared of involvement in illegal anti-government protests. The medics have spent more than a year and a half behind bars, for, as they say, treating injured demonstrators. Dozens of health workers along with opposition activists have been arrested and charged, since the uprising began more than two years ago. Doctor Fatima Haji faced similar charges to the acquitted medics, and she told RT what she had to go through during her confinement.
By Brian Dooley, Director, Human Rights First’s Human Rights Defenders Program:
This Saturday Manchester United legend Denis Law is going to Bahrain to promote the 2013 Manchester United Soccer School (MUSS). Law’s appearance comes just one week before the Formula One race will take place in Bahrain. “The visit is set to happen during a significant time in Bahrain’s sporting calendar and is aimed at further strengthening Bahrain’s profile as a major host of sporting activities by raising its international profile,” says the event’s sponsor, telecom operator VIVA.
While Law is there promoting the school, it might be nice if he went to see the family of Ahmad Shams, the 15-year-old boy who was shot by the police, according to his family, while wearing a Man United shirt in March 2011, or popped in to see Dr. Fatima Haji, one of the medics in Bahrain who was tortured and interrogated about her connection to Man United.
Ahmed Shams was playing soccer with his friends near his home in Sar on March 30 2011, his family told me, when he was killed by security forces. Around 5:30 p.m. in a quiet area, two groups of security vehicles appeared, nine in all. When the boys playing saw them, they ran, and the police started shooting rubber bullets at them.
They say Ahmed was hit by a “sound bomb” cartridge on the back of his head. He continued running, but was caught and beaten by the police. His father took him to a relative’s house and then to the American Mission hospital. While being examined by a doctor, his family says security troops came and took him to the main Salmaniya Hospital, where he died, still wearing a Manchester United shirt.
A commission of inquiry into what happened during the crackdown on protestors ordered by the Bahrain government found that “No autopsy was conducted and no formal cause of death has been recorded,” and that “The MoI [Ministry of the Interior] has failed to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding this death.”
It was hard for me to look at the Man United posters on Ahmed’s bedroom wall when I visited his house a few weeks after he died. I am also a Man United fan, and have been since May 1968 when I was five and watched George Best on the TV take it round the Benfica keeper in the European Cup Final. I had pictures of Best and Denis Law on my bedroom wall. Ahmed had Rooney and the rest of the team on his.
In the days after his death, some people in Bahrain wrote to Man United asking if they might hold a minute’s silence before one of their games in tribute to Ahmed. An ambitious ask, but people sent emails to the Man United account making the request. One of them was Dr. Fatima Haji, a rheumatologist in Bahrain’s Salmaniya Medical Complex, and a Ryan Giggs fan. Along with dozens of other medics she was arrested after treating injured protestors and tortured in custody. But her interrogation was a bit different; she had written the email asking for the minute’s silence and then deleted it, knowing it might be incriminating. When she was arrested on April 17 her laptop was taken too, and a few days later — with tragic efficiency — Man United responded to her email, which her interrogators then saw.
I was blindfolded and handcuffed with my hands behind my back, and beaten. A man asked me ‘What’s is your relationship with Alex Ferguson?’ I was shocked and figured out they’d gone through my emails. A female officer hit me on head on both sides at the same time — she was wearing what I later found out was a special electrical band on her hands and she electrocuted me a couple of times — I felt a shock wave through my head. It was very painful and the whole world was spinning. I was beaten again on the head.
Haji says she was questioned over and over again about her connection to Manchester United: “because they’d responded to my email the police thought I somehow knew someone at Manchester United.” She spent several weeks in custody and was tried with 19 other medics in a military court. She was sentenced to five years in prison and then acquitted on appeal in June 2012. Three of her co-accused are still in prison.
None of this was Man United’s fault, but the club and Denis Law might want to know about what happened to Ahmed and Fatima, and say something about it.
While writing this blog post, I find that the Bahrain Center for Human Rights Internet site is not working. Just a technical problem; or another case of Internet censorship by the Bahraini regime, by attacking the Bahrain Center for Human Rights server, which is not in Bahrain itself, I think?
Racism in association football (known in the US as soccer) is the abuse of players, officials and fans because of their skin colour, nationality, religion or ethnicity. Some may be targeted (also) because of their association with an opposing team. However, there have been instances of individuals being targeted by their own fans.
Mr Hopper told the Star: “We support this petition. We feel that with more and more information about di Canio coming to light, his position is completely untenable.”
On demanding the return of the Monk Wearmouth pit banner, Mr Hopper said: “Our banner represents the Durham miners’ long struggle for the rights of the working class – rights which were annihilated by fascism in Germany, Italy, Spain and Chile.
“The appointment of di Canio is a disgrace and a betrayal of all who fought and died in the fight against fascism, including miners from Wearmouth and indeed all of County Durham.”
Pressure mounts on Sunderland and Paolo Di Canio with calls for clarification on fascist views: here.
Sunderland’s new manager Paolo Di Canio is believed to have attended the funeral of an Italian fascist linked to a terrorist bombing that killed 85 people: here.
Contract to replace fired Martin O’Neill is for 2.5 years
The Associated Press
Posted: Mar 31, 2013 5:34 PM ET
Last Updated: Mar 31, 2013 6:48 PM ET
Sunderland took a gamble by hiring Paolo Di Canio as its new manager on Sunday, empowering the inexperienced and outspoken Italian with the tough task of ensuring the relegation-threatened team retains its Premier League status.
The appointment came a day after Martin O’Neill was fired following a poor run of results and sparked immediate controversy, with former British politician David Miliband resigning from his positions as vice chairman and non-executive director of the club because of Di Canio’s openly fascist leanings.
Di Canio had a colorful playing career in the top divisions of Italy, England and Celtic, marked by sublime goals and headline-grabbing antics — notably when he pushed a referee to the ground after being sent off while playing for Sheffield Wednesday in 1996.
Then there was the straight-arm salute — adopted by the Italian Fascist regime in the early 20th century — that he performed in front of the fans of his Lazio team in 2005, earning him a ban, a fine and condemnation by FIFA.
“I am a fascist, not a racist,” Di Canio said at the time, and he has praised Mussolini in his autobiography, calling the former Italian leader as “basically a very principled, ethical individual” who was “deeply misunderstood.”
Di Canio has limited managerial experience, with his only previous job ending at third-tier English club Swindon last month after a turbulent 1 1/2 years in charge. It is a big call by Sunderland owner Ellis Short at this stage of the season. …
[David] Miliband, who contested the leadership in 2010 of the Labour party in Britain, stood down within minutes of the 44-year-old Di Canio’s appointment.
“I wish Sunderland AFC all success in the future,” Miliband wrote on his website. “It is a great institution that does a huge amount for the North East and I wish the team very well over the next vital seven games. However, in the light of the new manager’s past political statements, I think it right to step down.”
A moving new play recounts the story of one of Britain’s first black football players whose pioneering life was blighted by racism
Walter Tull was only the second black professional footballer to play in the football league when he made his debut for Tottenham Hotspur in 1909.
Subjected to unprecedented racism both on and off the field, he was shamefully dropped by a Spurs management unwilling to support their gifted player.
Snaffled up by the shrewd Herbert Chapman, Tull went on to play 110 games for Northampton Town.
On hearing the cynical call to defend the empire from one of Kitchener‘s recruiting sergeants, Tull immediately enlisted in the 1st Football Battalion.
Yet despite incredible bravery, racism dogged Tull’s military career. He died in France in 1918 but even in death his colour debarred him from receiving the Military Cross.
Phil Vasili’s moving play follows the extraordinary life of Tull from childhood in an orphanage to his cruel death on the battlefield of the Somme.
Vasili mixes fact and fiction by speculating on a relationship between Tull and his landlady Annie Williams, a radical suffragette and anti-war activist.
There is no evidence to support that this actually took place but it is an interesting device to explore discrimination and class politics in the turbulent years of the early 20th century.
Ciaran Bagnall’s clever set design transforms the stage into an arena, creating both a theatre of war and a theatre of dreams and, in eschewing costume and props, director David Thacker gives a nod to 1970s agitprop theatre.
Like Tull, actor Nathan Ives-Moiba turns in an exceptional professional debut as the troubled young footballer and there is a sympathetic portrayal of the great Herbert Chapman by John Branwell.
In a moving closing speech, he expresses the belief that Tull will pave the way to a better life for future generations of black footballers.
7 adorable animals that interrupted sporting events [Updated]
These enthusiastic cats, dogs, and squirrels weren’t content to remain on the sidelines
1. The marten who wouldn’t go quietly
Just as FC Thun and FC Zurich were starting their Swiss Super League soccer game on Sunday, a wild [pine] marten — a small, ferret-like animal — ran onto the field, brazenly bobbing and weaving through the players, managing to evade capture, and finding refuge in the stands. But it wanted more, and soon after play resumed, the stubborn little star zipped across the field once again. Zurich defender Loris Benito made an impressive jump and tackle, grabbing the marten with both bare hands, but was bitten on the finger. … The animal almost got away again, but Zurich’s gloved goalkeeper Davide Da Costa managed a one-handed grab of the surprisingly speedy critter and successfully sent it off the field. Watch the exciting episode below.
2. The dog who stole a golf ball
During the Dunhill Links in Scotland last October, a spunky pooch appeared out of nowhere, temporarily stealing the game’s spotlight and golf ball. Just as golfer Paul Casey was about to line up for a putt, the small mutt ran onto the 12th green, picked up the ball, and ran off. “I’ve heard of alligators jumping out of the water at unsuspecting hackers,” says Shane Bacon at CBS Sports. “But man’s best friend? Nah, not when we’re out on the links.”
Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
3. The squirrel who ran across home plate
In a 2011 playoff game between the Phillies and Cardinals, a wayward squirrel skipped across home plate just as Philadelphia’s Roy Oswalt threw a pitch. Despite Oswalt’s best protest, the home plate umpire ruled the pitch a ball, and the tiny guy darted away.
4. The stray cat who interrupted a soccer match
Last year, an English Premier League match between Liverpool and Tottenham was momentarily halted when a stray cat trotted out onto the pitch. It wasn’t until multiple security guards surrounded the confused feline that play was able to resume.
5. The dog who tried to run with the big boys
Cats aren’t the only ones who like football. In 2011, this Jack Russell terrier ran out onto the field to try and commandeer the ball in an international rules football match, tripping up more than a few players in the process.
6. The cow who interrupted a Polish soccer game
Yet another soccer game was put on hold this fall when a tiny cow ran out onto the field with his presumed owner in tow, winded and ragged. This time, though, players took things into their own hands, chasing the spotted animal back from whence it came.
7. The squirrel who invaded the U.S. Open
At last year’s U.S. Open, a plucky squirrel put a screeching halt to the action when it bolted out onto the court. “The poor thing’s scared now,” said a concerned announcer. Luckily, it didn’t take long for the furry critter to escape to safety.
This article — originally published on Oct. 5, 2012 — was last updated on March 11, 2013.
The Bahraini royal dictatorship are not the only dodgy people greenwashing … err … “footballwashing” their tainted human rights record. The Bahrain rulers do that by bribing the British army … and British football.
Sign the petition here to demand that university president Mary Jane Saunders reverse her decision! Click here for the full letter. (And special thanks to the ACLU, Nation Inside, Cuéntame, and Grassroots Leadership for partnering with us on this action!!)
An e-mail by Robert Greenwald and Jesse Lava says:
GEO Group gave $6 million to name the stadium. What kind of message is this move sending to students? Saunders says the GEO Group is “a wonderful company” that she’s “very proud to be partnered with.” Yet this same group has faced lawsuit after lawsuit for its abysmal conduct. Staff members have sexually assaulted incarcerated children, prisoners have lived surrounded by feces, and multiple inmates have died due to the company’s corner-cutting and indifference. Students should NOT get the message that this is OK. That’s why our Beyond Bars campaign has partnered with the ACLU, Cuéntame, the Nation Inside, and Grassroots Leadership to take action.
The Geo Group is wholly owned by notorious British mercenary corporation G4S, aka Securicor.
This is a music video by British punk band Crass, of their song Securicor (another name for G4S corporation). Lyrics are here.
Gulag Nation USA: 2.3 Million Inmates, Forced Labor, Rancid Food — and It’s Making the Corporate Overlords Wealthy: here.
Britain: Prison staff blast report calling for privatisation: here.
How politically independent is the “independent think tank” Reform, which claims that profit-driven private companies are better at running prisons than the public sector and that all jails should face privatisation? Here.
The All Whites‘ victory over Bahrain in the 2009 World Cup qualif[i]ers could be among games being investigated by European police in a global match-fixing sting.
It emerged on Tuesday that about 680 suspicious but as yet unspecified matches, including World Cup qualifiers, are being probed.
New Zealand Football is in the dark as to whether the Bahrain fixture is among those under suspicion.
