A R A B I C A ارابيكا
By Kristen Gillespie
SYRIA: TORTURE
This disturbing video shows Syrian security forces beating a man named Loay Amr, who was teaching school in Saudi Arabia. He returned home to the village of Houla, near Homs, and was captured, beaten and killed. The soldiers force him to repeat an oath of loyalty to Bashar al Assad as an officer places his foot on the man's throat. A second clip, of Amr's tortured body, is graphic.
SYRIA: SNIPER
Dozens of videos from Syria said to be filmed on Friday were uploaded to YouTube. Here, in the village of Talbisa near Homs, a group of men watch a wounded boy lying in the street. They fear going into the street to pull him to safety because of government snipers on the rooftops. The men, who seem to be posted around the street, shout to each other, with one saying, "he is dying in the street – he's dying!" The boy struggles to move, but cannot. At 4:10, the sniper begins firing, and at 4:25, hits his target. The boy dies.
BAHRAIN: ACT TWO
In Bahrain, authorities are trying to suppress protesters who were subdued earlier this year after the small kingdom imported soldiers from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. An example of one of those protests, in Feburary, is here. Young protesters have begun returning to the streets, filling roads into Manama, the capital, earlier this week to create traffic jams and attempting to hold sit-ins. In this video, three officers use batons to beat a young man who is already lying on the ground. They leave him and drive off. The woman filming the scene from a nearby window tells her children, who want to run out and help the young man, "leave them, leave them."
In another act of civil disobedience, four young men wearing Bahraini flags hammer a protest banner to a wall in Sitra, a suburb of Manama. Five police cars arrive at the scene and take the banner down as the camera films from a distance.
UNITED STATES: ARAB MATES
iKhitba.com (iEngagement in Arabic) is a website "for Arab-Americans searching for marriage with a life partner." The Arabic-language site notes that "Arab-Americans are having a hard time finding a suitable mate. The goal of this site is to find a life partner in a safe and respectable manner." Potential suitors can search for mates aged 18 to 60.
Sep 23, 2011
photo credit: illustir
