LOCALARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019

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A DIGEST OF PUBLIC OPINION

DIWANIYA‘Sudanese people know their rights’

‘Uprising against despots successful’“IT IS needless to say that the Republic of Sudan has set an ideal example in terms of the success of the peoples revolutions against dictatorships,” columnist and former director of the Culture Department at the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, Waleed Al-Rujaib wrote for Al-Rai daily.

“This happened in the framework of the revolutionary conditions that were engineered to guarantee the success away from illusions which alleged that surmounting coun-ter revolutions or conspiracies shall not end their activities against the revolutionaries soon unless they are immu-nized through awareness or vigilance.

“Recently, the Sudanese Transitional Military Council fi nally signed a constitutional document and the political declaration with the Sudanese Freedom and Change pow-ers to deal with the transitional period in a prelude to shift the county into civilian rule.

“However, this transitional period will last for 39 months and will be followed by general elections to be held under an international, Arab and African supervision.

“I think the most important condition that led to the success of the Sudanese revolution is the fact that the Su-danese have actually realized that the revolution cannot succeed with a single move, rather this success requires steadfastness to encounter the oppression and violence of the dominating class which the latter will not easily or vol-untarily relinquish.

“Apart from the above, this success requires a state of awareness and caution against cheating and formal surren-ders made by the ruling power.

“Furthermore, the revolutionaries had actually succeed-ed in unifying the efforts of the national and civil political parties and organizations in terms of mobilizing the public and enlightening the latter under unifi ed slogans and man-aged to gain the confi dence of the Sudanese people as well as achieving its objectives.

“Meanwhile, such a success can be attributed to the fact that the Sudanese along with its vital pow-ers had used the above conditions to resist the dictatorship that has lasted for several years.

“As a matter of fact, the Suda-nese had realized that the success of the revolution was not a bed of roses, it rather requires a lot of sac-rifi ces and the price to be paid by the Sudanese people was high.

“But certainly, the success was rife with lot of challenges to achieve political stability as well as to ingrain all the democratic principles under which free elections and exchange of the political power can be real-ized and eventually set up the necessary plans and strat-egies good enough to prevent the return of dictatorship counter revolutionaries.

“These challenges were represented by the monitoring of the Islamic parties and the ruling party of the former president general Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and the prepa-rations made to attack the revolution and its achievements and benefi t from what was realized by the people in a bid to restore the rule.

“In the meantime, we would like to point out that the danger still exists, particularly since we know that based on the recent agreement, the chairman of the Military Council General Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan, will be the president of the Sovereign Council.

“This happens although the civilians represent a major-ity on the Sovereign Council, but it is needless to say there are some suspended issues which still impede the partner-ship between the civilians and the military offi cials.

“However, these suspended issues, represent among other things, the powers of the president of the Sover-eignty Council and the appointment of the prime minister since the president of the Sovereign Council reserves the right to sack the prime minister and has the authority to appoint his ministers and this represents some kind of an autocratic rule.

“In other words, based on such a system, the prime min-ister can sack any of his ministers at anytime he wants. There is another implication related to the appointment of members of the judiciary and the attorney-general and so on.

“But in spite of the above, we actually trust vigilance and the awareness of the Sudanese people and their ability to protect the achievements of the revolution, in addition to its ability to achieve all of the objectives of this revolu-tion in terms of founding a civil and democratic rule and eventually purify Sudan from the remnants of the former regime as well as from those who are currently striving to send Sudan back to the dark ages.”

Also:“It is obvious there are a lot of changes taking place

which are aimed at redrawing the political and even the geographical map of the region,” columnist Hamad Salem Al-Merri wrote for Al-Seyassah daily.

“The planning for these changes actually began with the hasty invasion and occupation of the State of Kuwait in 1990 by Saddam Hussein followed by the American oc-cupation of Iraq.

“But the manner of these changes started accelerating with the eruption of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ and the appearance of armed terroristic groups in both Iraq and Syria where these groups formed what is currently called the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (DAESH) in addition to the attempts made by some Western states along with Russia, Turkey and Iran to intervene in the internal affairs of some Arab states such as Egypt, Syria, Libya and Tu-nisia.

“However, some of these governments managed to take the initiative to control the local countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. This happened although some other Arab countries including Syria, Libya and Iraq are still kick-ing the dust of the armed struggle to such an extent, these countries have actually been transformed into an arena for the international military struggle because these parties are struggling to spread their dominion and infl uence on the region.

“Take for example Turkey, which since arrival of the incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the helm of power is seriously attempting to spread its dominion on the region by toying with the emotions of political Is-lamist groups such as ‘the bankrupt Muslim Brotherhood Group’ which is still eagerly looking forward to return to the glory days of the Ottoman State, as such Erdogan has exploited this group to market his thoughts and policies among Arabs.

“In this context, we cite the partisan meeting that was organized by Erdogan on Jan 10, 2019 where the Turkish Anatolia News Agency, had quoted him as saying, ‘We are still clinging to the heritage of our forefathers that ex-ists everywhere from Central Asia, the Depth of Europe and up to Sawakin Island of Sudan.’

“Given the above, we found how the Turkish govern-ment had managed to build military bases inside the Ara-bian Peninsula such as Qatar in addition to Syria and the Iraq along the Iraqi/Turkish borders complete with the lat-est light and heavy military equipment.

“Moreover, Turkey has sent hundreds of soldiers and military equipment and drones to Libya and attempted to transform the Sudanese Sawakin Island on the Red Sea into an integrated military base complete with heavy duty military equipment in addition to soldiers following the signing of an agreement with the deposed president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir.

“However, the Transitional Military Council which had succeeded Al-Bashir has abrogated this agreement and asked Turkey to leave this island and replaced the Turkish troops with Sudanese troops.”

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“After the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate at the begin-ning of the 20th century, the West, which colonized the Arab countries after the Ottoman rule, realized that Islam is a threat to their existence and interests in the region if it is applied properly,” columnist Mubarak Fahad Al-Du-wailah wrote for Al-Qabas daily.

“Therefore, they decided since then to distort this reli-gion, saying it is no longer applicable to modern civilized life. They succeeded temporarily as they spread vice in Muslim countries turning them into poor, backward and ignorant countries.

“When the Arabs revolted against the forced rule of the English, French and Italians in the 1950s, the West rushed to appoint national regimes that met their conditions and requirements. The West gave directives to these regimes to fi ght Islamic consciousness and religious tendency. In-deed, we have seen the liberation of many Arab countries from Western military colonialism, but this colonization did not come out until it ensured it had left ‘national colo-nization’ through the appointed regimes keen on achiev-ing the goals which the West failed to accomplish.

“Secular regimes do not see that religion has a role in public life. These regimes oppressed people, prevented freedom of opinion and speech, and spread fi nancial, ad-ministrative and moral corruption in all aspects of life. However, thank God, the Islamic awakening turned peo-ple back to the religion and Allah. Mosques were fi lled with youths, earlier the mosques were fi lled only with el-derly people!

“Islamic awakening spread religious awareness and corrected people’s understanding of the purposes of reli-gion. It returned the Islamic book to the library, after the circulation of religious books turned into a punishable crime. New names of intellectuals and preachers appeared in the Arab arena. This returned the phenomenon of the spread of the Hijab after it was about to disappear. The situation continued in this way under such unjust regimes, until the people reached their limits and revolted against repression.

“In reaction to the Arab uprising, the West supported the counter-revolutions aimed at putting an end to the dream of the Arab people to lead a life of freedom, dignity and justice. The West managed to bring back some dic-tatorial regimes that continued fi ghting moderate religion and using the example of DAESH as a tool to terrify the people of religion. Actually, these regimes, backed by the West, paved way for normalizing relations with Israel and pushed people away from true Islam which dismisses dic-tatorship and injustice.”

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“We know well that certain centers, directorates and departments intend to launch an electronic war soon,” col-umnist Abdulaziz Khuraibet wrote for Al-Shahed daily.

“These bodies have hi-tech methods and the war they intend to launch will match the bitter reality which has be-come full of lies and hypocrisy.

“We must fi rst defi ne the term ‘cyber terrorism’. It means attack on computers, networks or information stored electronically and aimed at retaliation or blackmail-ing governments, peoples or the international community as a whole and to infl uence them in order to achieve cer-tain political, religious or social goals. Cyber terrorism depends on the use of scientifi c and technical capabilities. Electronic terrorism uses means of communication and in-formation networks for blackmailing, intimidating, threat-ening and causing harm to their victims.

“The world realized the need to fi ght cyber terrorism seriously after an incident that shook the entire world, which prompted 30 countries to sign the fi rst interna-tional convention on electronic terrorism and cyber crime in Budapest in 2001. This was after the attacks in the United States on Sept 11. It took four years to draft the convention against electronic terrorism. This is the fi rst legally binding document against Internet crimes. The convention faced the strongest criticism from some companies and institutions providing Internet access, describing it as ‘killer of freedoms and encourages the doctrine of intervention and contributes to the new era of public surveillance.’

“When the concept of ‘electronic terrorism’ and the need for international control emerged, other tools and concepts related to global terrorism, including ‘electronic fl ies’ spreading in networks and social networking sites surfaced as well. ‘Electronic fl ies’ refer to large number of fake accounts on social media used for illegal purposes including attacking somebody in favor of others. This re-quires international coordination to reach a legitimate and clear way to stop the work and activities of fake accounts. The activities of ‘electronic fl ies’ are no longer limited to spreading rumors and circulating scandals. Their activities exceeded the level where it has become a phenomenon that attracted peoples and worried governments in various countries. This phenomenon is a direct and serious threat to peace, security and human rights.”

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“I hope that the new humanitarian or the emergency human rights activists will not be angry with me. There is a new wave of aggression whose climax no one knows, the wave of the bedoun or the so-called ‘illegal residents’,” columnist Bassam Al-Assousi wrote for Al-Qabas daily.

“First and foremost, the generalization is rejected in any case, and I personally am against the circulation the phe-nomenon of the spread of fake accounts on Twitter, which has begun to bully the state and society, with all the noise they make and vocal space they use.

“Aside from the attitude towards the issue of illegal residents, the causes and the treatments, it turns out that a vast majority of those accounts who take to Twitter have no conscience, not even morality! It is a phenomenon that calls for astonishment indeed, as the follower of these ac-counts with fair and just mind believes that most of them are either offensive to the state and its symbols or spiteful to society and its people because they spread rumors and lies and shouts obscenities.

“I wonder how they demand the citizenship of a country and from the government that they curse day and night. Is it conceivable to claim the right to belong and integrate into the society when you offend? How can you consider yourself part of the component? I do not really know why some of the bedoun look at the state, society, people and Parliament in such a crude manner.

“They are in dire need of the community sympathy and government and parliamentary support. Then they are rac-ist and inhuman and insult the honor of the people?

“The amount of terrorism practiced against all those who supported the bedoun cause, has become intolerable, not from the bedoun themselves, but from all those who fought for their cause.

“The dilemma is that they raise the slogan of freedom of opinion and expression! They demand freedom of opin-ion, but they suppress every opinion contrary to their opin-ion in a strange situation which is diffi cult to understand and explain! As a lawyer, I witnessed and followed many State Security cases which are fi led against the bedoun ‘cheats’ who operate fake accounts on Twitter.”

— Compiled by Zaki Taleb

Al-Rujaib

Kuwait lauds hi-tech securitysystems at Qatar int’l airport

E-gates draw team’s attention

KUNA photoMajor General Mansour Al-Awadhi briefed on modern security systems at Doha Airport.

DOHA, Aug 21, (KUNA): Kuwait Assistant Under-secretary for Ports Affairs in the Interior Ministry Major General Mansour Al-Awadhi praised Tues-day state-of-the-art securi-ty systems used by Hamad International Airport to maintain safety and secu-rity of passengers and civil aviation traffi c in Qatar.

In a statement to KUNA, Al-Awadhi made his remarks after a tour at the airport where he headed a Kuwaiti delegation, expressing pleasure in such experience and thanked Qatari airport offi cials who facilitated the tour.

Al-Awadhi also hailed Qatar’s ex-perience in the issuance of visas and procedures for entry and exit of pas-sengers to Qatar that affected the speed and completion of procedures to pas-sengers’ security.

Al-Awadhi said that the Kuwaiti delegation was briefed during the tour on the modern methods used, including devices, technical and electronic capa-bilities used at Hamad International

Bedoun students admission suspendedKUWAIT CITY, Aug 21: Min-istry of Education has suspended the admission of the Bedoun stu-dents in government schools until further notice, reports Al-Anba daily.

According to informed edu-cational sources, all educational zones have ended the admission procedures for Bedoun students to join in their schools due to high student density. Education-al zones are refusing to receive guardians and asked them to visit the ministry.

Even though Minister of Educa-tion and Higher Education Dr Ha-mad Al- Azmi had given instruc-

tions to facilitate the admission of students of this category within the framework of the applicable by-laws and some students have been admitted after receiving a written approval from the minister, the educational zones are refusing to register the students.

The sources followed up this matter with the Public Education Sector of the ministry and were informed that there are no vacant seats currently in the schools.

They indicated that the min-istry advised the guardians to register their children in private schools “due to circumstances be-yond our control”.

Airport to facilitate the movement of passengers, including the possibility of using them in Kuwait.

He added that the visit comes within the framework of cooperation and ex-change of experiences between the two countries.

He explained that the delegation lis-tened to a presentation on the tasks of-fered by Airport Passports Department

and the technological development ad-opted by the Department on the entry and exit counters of passengers.

The delegation was also witnessed at first hand modern technology ap-plied to electronic gates in the arrivals and departures lounges and a number of advanced devices used that contrib-ute to enhancing security inside the airport and other ports of the State.