Chronicle 2004: The unreported year

January
IRAQ David Kay, head of the US Iraq Survey Group responsible for locating Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, resigns saying he no longer believes the weapons exist. US Secretary of State Colin Powell admits they may never be found.
TURKEY With its application to join the EU in mind, the Government drafts legislation to compensate Kurdish victims of state terror between 1984 and 1999. But it fails to bring to justice those guilty of extrajudicial executions, disappearances and torture.

FEBRUARY
IRAQ Two bomb attacks in Kurdistan kill 101 people on the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha.

MARCH
SAUDI ARABIA The Shura Council announces women will be allowed to vote in municipal elections in October.
PALESTINE Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is assassinated in an Israeli helicopter missile attack in Gaza.
IRAQ Demonstrations marking the first anniversary of the war in Iraq take place in 300 cities around the world.

APRIL
ISRAEL Mordechai Vanunu is released after 18 years in jail for blowing the whistle on the Government’s secret nuclear weapons programme. Israel’s chief prosecutor recommends charging premier Ariel Sharon with corruption for allegedly accepting bribes.
SAUDI ARABIA A suicide car bomb, blamed on Islamic militants, hits the headquarters of the Saudi domestic security forces in Riyadh, killing four.

MAY
SAUDI ARABIA Attempts by commandos to free dozens of hostages held by militants linked to al-Qaeda end in failure, as all but one of the militants escape and several captives are found dead.
TURKEY Political activist Ferhat Kaya is arrested and allegedly beaten for his pursuit of compensation on behalf of villagers affected by a British-financed oil pipeline.
IRAQ Photos of torture and sexual abuse by US troops in Abu Ghraib prison cause worldwide consternation.

JUNE
ISRAEL The Israeli Government approves Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip despite opposition from the extreme right.
IRAQ The US hands over to an interim government with ‘full sovereignty’ but ‘limited authority’.
PALESTINE Marwan Barghouti, widely considered a likely successor to Yasser Arafat, is sentenced to five life terms by a Tel Aviv court for organizing killings and a failed car bombing as well as membership of a banned ‘terrorist organization’.

JULY
ISRAEL/PALESTINE The International Court of Justice in The Hague rules that the wall being built by Israel in the West Bank is illegal.
QATAR The Supreme Court jails two Russian intelligence agents for life for the murder of former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.
PALESTINE Yasser Arafat is forced to sack his cousin as security chief, after his appointment two days earlier led to violent protests against corruption within the Palestinian Authority.

AUGUST
ISRAEL/PALESTINE The Israeli Government approves 600 new houses in the West Bank despite agreeing with Washington not to expand Jewish enclaves on occupied territory. A reported 1,600 Palestinian prisoners go on a mass hunger strike in protest at jail conditions.

SEPTEMBER
IRAQ Security officers storm al-Jazeera’s Baghdad offices after the interim government bans the Arabic TV station from broadcasting.
PALESTINE More than 70 Palestinians are killed and 50,000 trapped as Israeli forces launch an incursion into the Gaza Strip after a Hamas rocket attack kills two Israeli children.
YEMEN Government forces kill the anti-American Shi’a cleric, Hussein al Houthi, and dozens of his supporters, ending a rebellion that cost the lives of up to 600 civilians, rebels and troops.

OCTOBER
ISRAEL Ariel Sharon’s chief aide, Dov Weisglass, claims that the real purpose of the Israeli prime minister’s ‘disengagement plan’ is to freeze the peace process and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
LEBANON The UN Security Council calls on Syria to pull its 14,000 troops out of Lebanon. The call is backed by Algeria, the only Arab member of the Council. The issue unites Lebanese opponents of the Government for the first time since the start of the civil war.

NOVEMBER
IRAQ A study in The Lancet claims that 100,000 civilians have died as a result of the US-led invasion, most of them as a result of coalition air strikes.
UAE Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan dies, aged 86. President since the country’s foundation in 1971, he oversaw a period of rapid modernization but zero democracy. IRAN claims a ‘great victory’ over the US after the UN says it will not punish Iran’s nuclear activities with sanctions. Iran asserts that its nuclear
programme is for peaceful purposes.

DECEMBER
BAHRAIN King Hamad pardons Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja, a human rights activist, who had been sentenced to a year in jail for inciting hatred against the Government.
QATAR The former Emir returns to Doha for his wife’s funeral for the first time since he was overthrown by his son nine years ago.
SAUDI ARABIA Anti-monarchy protesters stage demonstrations in the main cities. Lubna al-Olayan becomes the first woman director of a major Saudi bank. Women form less than five per cent of the workforce.

Iran’s Che? (accompanying photo not available for on-line publishing). An Iranian student hides her face with a picture of jailed dissident student Ahmad Batebi during a pro-reform rally at Tehran University. Batebi was jailed for 15 years in 1999 for demonstrating against the regime by holding up the bloodied T-shirt of a fellow student who was beaten by paramilitaries. The iconic image of him holding the T-shirt aloft has made him the popular face of dissent. That has in turn made it impossible for the reactionary authorities to release him from prison for fear of what might be unleashed. In April Batebi’s family announced that they had given up hope of obtaining a judicial review of the case.

In any case 2004 was a year in which the reform agenda in Iran suffered a major setback. After seven years of greater openness to reform, in February a new generation of hardline conservatives won 149 of the 290 seats in parliament. Reformist candidates were banned from standing in the election by the hardline Council of Guardians, a body of clerics and Muslim lawyers, which considered them disloyal to Islam and the theocracy.

Even here, however, there were bright spots amid the gloom. In May the head of the judiciary issued an order banning the use of torture. It was an unprecedented acknowledgement of the regime’s record of repression but human rights lawyers doubt that torture will be completely banished.

And though Ahmad Batebi remains behind bars, there was exultation in the pro-democracy student movement at the release in July of Hashem Aghajari (accompanying photo not available for on-line publishing). Aghajari, a history professor at Tehran University and a disabled veteran of the 1980-88 war with Iraq, was twice condemned t o death for apostasy after urging people to question religious teachings and not to follow clerical leaders as if they were ‘monkeys’.

His first death sentence came in 2002, sparking the largest student protests for years, but was commuted to a jail term in 2003. In May 2004 the death sentence was reimposed, only for Aghajari to be released on bail to a hero’s welcome some two months later.

FLOWERS FOR LEYLA (accompanying photo not available for on-line publishing). In Turkey there was also joy at an overdue release from prison. The photo shows former Nobel Peace Prize nominee Leyla Zana being welcomed by supporters on her arrival at the airport in Diyarbakir on 13 June. A fervent campaigner for the rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey, she was elected to the Turkish Parliament in 1991 but then tried for treason and imprisoned in 1994 for no greater crime than standing up for the rights of her own Kurdish minority (see her 1996 article in NI 275, viewable at www.newint.org/issue275/tansu.htm). Her release, along with three other imprisoned Kurdish MPs, prompted mass celebrations in the mainly Kurdish southeast. The dissidents' release was clearly connected with Turkey's need to improve its lamentable human rights record so as to gain acceptance by the European Union (EU). Lo and behold, in October, after years of being kept at arm’s length, the European Commission finally opened the door to Turkey’s membership and in December the EU Council of Ministers agreed to begin negotiations for accession.

Back page hope: (accompanying photo not available for on-line publishing) Abbas Suan celebrating with the trophy after his side Bnei Sakhnin won the Israeli Cup in May with a 4-1 victory over Hapoel Haifa in Tel Aviv. It was a landmark victory, for Bnei Sakhnin is a team from an Arab town in Galilee and as such carried with it the fervent support of Israel’s Arab population. The team has no stadium and no commercial backing to match the big Israeli clubs; its players regularly hear the chant ‘Death to Arabs’ from the opposition terraces (especially when playing away at extreme-right hotbed Betar Jerusalem). But its unexpected success has also been welcomed well beyond the Arab community as an advertisement for multiculturalism in a divided country – the team contains Jewish and Christian players as well as Muslims. In addition, the club signed foreign players such as the Nigerian Audi Diok as it ventured forth to represent Israel in European competition before falling to top English side Newcastle United. Football can be ruthless though – half a year on from its Cup success, Bnei Sakhnin is now battling against relegation. A year of two halves, perhaps...

In Russia there was also a football story with political significance in May, when Terek Grozny of Chechnya won the Russian Cup. The club did not even exist four years ago and its success is a propaganda coup for a Kremlin ever keen to restore normality in the war-torn republic. But the club enjoys wide support, even from Chechens opposed to the Moscow-backed regional government and the Cup win sparked huge celebrations in Grozny, which in recent years has had precious little else to rejoice over.