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For example One of the many crimes committed by the Nazis against the German Jews before the Holocaust or Shoah was the wanton destruction of Jewish Synagogues and religious schools which began in earnest with Kristallnacht.
Mao Tse Tung during the cultural revolution promoted the destruction of religious places of worship and all artifacts related to any religion
In Serbia in the 1990s the Serbian Nationalists in order to rid their land of foreign elements destroyed not only Mosques but also churches that were not Serbian Orthodox and then came Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims and all Jews and Gypsies and all non-serbian Orthodox Christians
The destruction of the Giant Buddha statues in Bimyan Afghanistan by the Taliban government- this initself constituted a crime .
We can also look at cases in Iraq or Afghanistan where US troops or Nato troops targeted Mosques , Minarets, schools etc. the point is whether armed forces hit such places by accident or on purpose.
But of course we tend to forget the Geneva Conventions and the Rule of International Law no longer applies to the USA or any of its allies ie the UK, and Nato countries.
As outlined in the Geneva Conventions directed attacks on civilian istallations including schools and houses of worship or other cultural artifacts are therefore deemed as War Crimes
Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977
PART IV: CIVILIAN POPULATION
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..Chapter III: Civilian Objects
Section 1: General Protection Against Effects of Hostilities
Article 52: General Protection of Civilian Objects
Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2.
"Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.
In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used. Article 53 Protection of cultural objects and of places of worship without prejudice to the provisions of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954, and of other relevant international instruments, it is prohibited:
to commit any acts of hostility directed against the historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples;
to use such objects in support of the military effort;
to make such objects the object of reprisals."
Is Bahrain and its Saudi Arabian ally about to begin the ethnic cleansing of Shiites from Bahrain???
If Bahrain can get way with this then there is no stopping the Saudi's from destroying Shiite communities in Saudi Arabia.
While Bahrain Demolishes Mosques, US Stays Silent by: Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers via Truthout.org, May 8, 2011
Manama, Bahrain - In the ancient Bahraini village of Aali, where some graves date to 2000 B.C., the Amir Mohammed Braighi mosque had stood for more than 400 years — one of the handsomest Shiite Muslim mosques in this small island nation in the Persian Gulf.
Today, only bulldozer tracks remain.
...In Shiite villages across this island kingdom of 1.2 million, the Sunni Muslim government has bulldozed dozens of mosques as part of a crackdown on Shiite dissidents, an assault on human rights that is breathtaking in its expansiveness.
Authorities have held secret trials where protesters have been sentenced to death, arrested prominent mainstream opposition politicians, jailed nurses and doctors who treated injured protesters, seized the health care system that had been run primarily by Shiites, fired 1,000 Shiite professionals and canceled their pensions, detained students and teachers who took part in the protests, beat and arrested journalists, and forced the closure of the only opposition newspaper.
Nothing, however, has struck harder at the fabric of this nation, where Shiites outnumber Sunnis nearly 4 to 1, than the destruction of Shiite worship centers.
The Obama administration has said nothing in public about the destruction.
Bahrain — and its patron, Saudi Arabia — are longtime U.S. allies, and Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.
...Shiites have long complained of bias and discrimination here, despite massively outnumbering the entrenched Khalifa dynasty, whose prime minister, Sheikh Khalifa ibn Salman al Khalifa, 75, has held the office for the past 40 years — a current world record.
In mid-March, the government, after a month of protests, abandoned dialogue with moderate Shiites and Sunnis and invited Saudi Arabia to dispatch some 1,500 troops to help quell the unrest. The government imposed a state of emergency and began a crackdown on dissent. Among the first government acts after Saudi troops arrived was the destruction of the iconic Pearl Square, the traffic circle where demonstrators had camped out for weeks.
The government even recalled the half-dinar coins that featured the roundabout.
Most ominous is that hate speech of the sort that preceded the 1994 Rwandan genocide is now allowed in public. The pro-government English language Gulf Daily News last Sunday gave prominence to a reader's letter that compared Shiites to "termites" that should be exterminated.
"The moral is: to get rid of the white ants so they don't come back . . . " said the letter, signed only, "Sana P S."
Bahrain television has carried the canard that the Shiite sect allows its followers to lie, implying that what they say can't be trusted.
...Critics argue that the Egyptian military was right in line with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen in their use of U.S.-made tear gas, tanks and other types of equipment to brutally crack down on anti-regime rebellions.
"In the Middle East you’re seeing tear gas, water cannons, shotguns, firearms and armoured vehicles being used to disperse protests and for law enforcement or internal security operations that in some cases have involved lethal force," Helen Hughes, a researcher with the UK-based Amnesty International told IPS
Some critics have gone so far as to cynically suggest that West's arms industry is using the intervention in Libya to showcase its newest products it has for sale ...
"For example, even to get membership into NATO some countries have to in effect upgrade their military to a certain level," Anup Shah, creator of the website Global Issues told IPS. "So for some Eastern European countries who are joining NATO from a pure economic perspective it’s like a boom to the military industrial complex as they’ll have a new source of nations to sell arms to."
Iranians in support of the Shias in Bahrain are planning to send a flotilla to bring more international attention to the plight of the people of Bahrain protesting for reform.
Iran activists traveling in flotilla to Bahrain in support of ‘oppressed people’ by Dina Al-Shibeed at Alarabiya.net, May 11, 2011
also see: Bahrain revolution http://liveword.ca/bahrain/
In defiance of Gulf Arab States, Iranian activists are getting ready to send a flotilla to Bahrain next week to show their solidarity with the “oppressed people” of the majority Shiite country, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
The head of the Shiite Iran’s Islamic Revolution Supporters Society, Mehdi Eghrarian, said the vessels will depart for Bahrain from the Southern Iranian port of Bushehr on Monday.
Mr. Eghrarian said the flotilla would represent an act of condemnation of Bahrain’s minority Sunni rulers for violently cracking down on a Shiite-led protest movement that began in mid-February.
If the Iranians do indeed organize the flotilla, they would run the risk of encountering armed resistance from Bahraini and GCC-supported naval vessels. That, in turn, would raise the specter of a confrontation in the Gulf. And the situation would also pose questions about the role of the US Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain.
The Shiite-led protesters in Bahrain are demanding a constitutional monarchy and protesting against the political naturalization of Sunni foreigners. Such naturalization, they say, is a way to tilt the kingdom’s demographics to reflect a Sunni majority, which the Shiites argue is far from Bahrain’s demographic reality.
Last month the Gulf States postponed without stating a date the Arab League Summit in Baghdad due to Iraq’s backing of opposition protests in Bahrain.
...The Bahrain uprising has created tremors elsewhere in the region.
Shiites in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon have shown solidarity with the Shiite-led Bahrain opposition.
In March, Bahrain expelled dozens of Shiite Lebanese for alleged ties to Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after endorsement by the GCC to undertake such expulsion.
The Gulf Arab countries in the current summit meeting in Riyadh continued their denunciation of Iranian intervention.
Bahraini King Hamad al-Khalifa has promised to lift a state of emergency on June 1 after imposing the measure in mid-March. Demonstrators want the king to introduce a constitutional monarchy that gives majority Shiites a fair representation in government.
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The Arab Spring as such is being crushed in some nations by the use of arms sold to these repressive regimes by the USA and other nations involved in the arms industry.
So the question arises to what extent are countries such as America's and other nations committed to lasting peace when they are also dependent for a large portion of their income on the selling of arms to the various Middle East repressive regimes.
To free market procapitalist Americans and other Western Nations arms sales and profits appear to trump human rights and reform every time.
Even president Obama like US presidents before him is reluctant to criticize America's arms industry
Once again the question arises about U.S. hypocrisy and double dealing in the Middle East as the current administration make empty speeches about freedom , democracy and human rights while supporting the most repressive regimes in the Middle East by way government funding and arms sales and defending these repressive regimes arguing that the USA, NATO, the United Nations has no business interferring with internal domestic affairs.
Meanwhile it appears repression and oppression by governments is good for the arms industry and what would America do if governments around the globe began settling disagreements by peaceful means so the US has an interests in keeping these regimes in power.
Arab Spring Comes in Western Arms by: Simba Russeau, Inter Press Service, May 7, 2011
Cairo - Global spending on arms in 2010 were an estimated 1.6 trillion dollars, with governments in the Middle East dishing out more than 111 billion for weapons - raising questions as to whether Western arms suppliers circumvented international treaties by exporting to repressive regimes.--
Last year, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Egypt accounted for over 75 percent of U.S. arms sales - with Saudi Arabia ordering more than 60 billion dollars in weaponry, making it the leading buyer.
"There is no doubt that the intersection of arms sales and human rights is a sticky one, and late last year the [Government Accountability Office] GAO reported that the U.S. Defence and State Departments haven’t always documented their reasons for such sales consistently," Laicie Olson, senior policy analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington told IPS.
According to reports, the U.S. is the leading supplier of conventional arms to the Middle East, surpassing Russia - which is the world’s second largest arms supplier - by nearly 20 percent.
Large defence contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin are some of the major profiteers - these companies and their employees depend on arms sales for a significant portion of their revenue.
However, in a region that is said to be one of the most militarised in the world, human rights advocates claim that the U.S. continues to circumvent legislation like the Leahy Amendment, which prohibits U.S. arms sales to governments that fail to curb grave human rights violations.
Countries like Saudi Arabia whose human rights record in regards to migrant domestic worker abuse, women’s rights and upholding a juvenile death penalty have come under particular scrutiny.
Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 PART IV: CIVILIAN POPULATION
Section 1: General Protection Against Effects of Hostilities
Chapter I: Basic Rule and Field of Application
Article 48: Basic Rule
In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.
Article 49: Definition of Attacks and Scope of Application
"Attacks" means acts of violence against the adversary, whether in offense or in defense.
The provisions of this Protocol with respect to attacks apply to all attacks in whatever territory conducted, including the national territory belonging to a Party to the conflict but under the control of an adverse Party.
The provisions of this Section apply to any land, air or sea warfare which may affect the civilian population, individual civilians or civilian objects on land. They further apply to all attacks from the sea or from the air against objectives on land but do not otherwise affect the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict at sea or in the air.
The provisions of this Section are additional to the rules concerning humanitarian protection contained in the Fourth Convention, particularly in Part II thereof, and in other international agreements binding upon the High Contracting Parties, as well as to other rules of international law relating to the protection of civilians and civilian objects on land, at sea or in the air against the effects of hostilities.
Chapter II: Civilians and Civilian Population
...Chapter III: Civilian Objects
Article 52: General Protection of Civilian Objects
Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2.
Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.
In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used.
Article 53 Protection of cultural objects and of places of worship without prejudice to the provisions of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954, and of other relevant international instruments, it is prohibited:
to commit any acts of hostility directed against the historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples;
to use such objects in support of the military effort;
to make such objects the object of reprisals.
Article 54: Protection of Objects Indispensable to the Survival of the Civilian Population
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