Ronald Smith committed a terrible crime back in 1982, but the passage of 30 years has seen him evolve into an utterly different person.  This was not a legal development (he is still guilty), but is the kind of human transformation that clemency was designed to recognize.  Our courts can’t commute sentences based on changes in the hearts and minds of the convicted (that’s not their role), but our executive branch – our Governors and our pardon and parole boards – can.

At the May 2 clemency hearing, the Montana parole board heard all about Ronald Smith’s transformation:  from retired prison officials, a clinical psychologist, a Catholic priest and prison educator, a former probation officer and members of the Smith family.

The psychologist said that Ronald Smith: “has demonstrated significant change in attitude, thoughts and behavior. He is what would be considered a model prisoner in the modern setting.”

A former FBI agent who had interviewed prison officials said that Smith was “uniformly described as a model inmate, respectful and respected.”

A retired prison officer said that, based on his 22 years’ experience with Ronald Smith, his preference would be to commute the death sentence not to life without parole, but to life with the possibility of parole.

The parole board, unmoved by this testimony (and perhaps having already predetermined its decision), recommended to the Governor that clemency be denied… and so the purposeless execution of a changed man 30 years after the fact may still go forward.

Or it may not.  While the parole board argued that “justice is best served” by killing Ronald Smith, the Governor may think otherwise.  And he does not have to accept the board’s recommendation.  Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer can, and should, grant clemency for Ronald Smith.

Russian police detain a gay rights activists during an attempt to hold an unauthorized rally in central Moscow. (ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images)

In the sporting world, countries from the former Soviet Union are used to winning medals. But in terms of gay rights, the only accolades these countries are winning are the wrong ones.

Short of outright criminalizing homosexuality as was the norm during Soviet times, Russia and most of its former satellite states are increasingly violating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) rights. If a 2012 Eurasia Homophobia Olympics were held today, the “winning” countries trampling on the human rights of LGBTI people would be as follows:

Gold Medal: Armenia, for officially (and utterly shockingly) justifying and defending the firebombing of a gay-friendly bar by self-described young “fascists.”

Silver Medal: The Central Asian countries of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for continuing to treat homosexuality (among men) as a crime.

Silver Medal: Belarus, for its authoritarian president’s sinister statement that it’s “better to be a dictator than gay.”

Silver Medal: Russia and Moldova, for making it a crime to spread “homosexual propaganda” (aka organize any public LGBTI event) in several regions and cities, most recently in Russia’s second largest city of Saint Petersburg.

Bronze: Georgia, for not protecting gay marchers from angry counter-protesters, including Orthodox priests, and Ukraine, for failing to stop ultra-right hooligans from putting LGBTI activists at risk and marring the capital’s first-ever Pride parade.

No medals for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, in part, because their competitors are overachievers.

No medals for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. That’s far from a compliment, as LGBTI communities in these countries are so marginalized that there aren’t as many opportunities to publicly violate their human rights as in some of the medal-winning countries.

In lieu of medals and certificates, all participating governments will receive a copy of the Amnesty International Annual State of the World Report 2012, releasing today, where their previous award-winning human rights violations are documented.

Over the past year, more and more citizens around the world have been standing up for their freedom.  Sadly, as chronicled in Amnesty International’s annual State of the World 2012 Report, world leaders have failed to mirror the courage shown by millions of peaceful protesters.  Too many nations have placed self-interest and profit ahead of people’s rights – and even their lives.  The results have been tragic.

Even the United Nations Security Council, which is supposed to be the bulwark of global peace and security, has failed in its response to these popular uprisings, especially in the Middle East and North Africa.  The Security Council’s ramparts have been thinly manned, its response to cries for help too often feeble.  Inaction over Syria has left the Council seeming woefully unfit for its primary purpose: maintaining international peace.

In the case of Syria, Russian and Chinese intransigence has put the credibility of the Council at risk; undermining its core function as a guardian of human rights, and rendering accountability for crimes against humanity elusive.  President Hafez al-Assad’s regime continues to face down protesters with snipers and tanks, arresting and torturing children as young as ten years old.  Yet Russia continues to provide Syria with arms and fails to use its close security relationship – it maintains a naval base at Tartus – to persuade Assad to stop the killing.

China, resolutely opposed to intervention in the internal affairs of other states, except when it suits Beijing, has not exactly been a profile in courage.  China appears stubbornly committed to preventing the Council from acting decisively to quell the violence. It blatantly ignores the lessons it should have learned from diplomatic blunders made in Sudan and Burma.

The other three permanent members of the Security Council, the United States, France and the United Kingdom, have not always been principled in their approach.   The United States remains far and away the world’s largest arms dealer. As we have witnessed in Bahrain, repression of peaceful dissent apparently still qualifies a U.S. friend to the American arms bazaar.

As Russia and China prefer to maintain their special, profitable relations with repressive governments and as the United States and its allies only selectively champion freedom and democracy, how can one expect the international community to step up its game?  It is time to match the courage and authenticity of those standing up for their own rights with resolute, multilateral support.

First, end the hypocrisy. The Security Council should not play favorites, heeding cries for freedom, justice and dignity only when they emanates from “friendlies.” The international community should pressure all abusive governments to rein in their secret police and other security forces and permit citizens to speak, to organize and to redress grievances.

Second, the member states of the United Nations should take their international responsibilities seriously, and not just pursue policies that fill their coffers at the expense of peace and stability.  The United States and other members of the Security Council should lead by example.

Third, global community should invest in systems and structures that are based on human rights and the rule of law   Leaders should strive to build and maintain a system that protects the powerless and restrains the powerful.  Injustice, often fueled by rapacious arms merchants, is the root cause of many of the world’s conflicts.

Tunisia.  Egypt.  Libya. Bahrain. Burma.  The past couple of years have made it clearer than ever that the human desire for freedom and justice is universal.  It cannot be crushed or contained.

If crises bring about opportunities, then we are living in a world of possibilities.

Now is the time for the world’s leaders to show support for human rights in practice, not just words.  Countries cannot long secure their own prosperity while continuing to turn a blind eye to suffering and repression.  As President Kennedy reminded the world nearly 50 years ago, “Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.”

Developing an App to securely capture and transmit photo and video

In a little over a week, I’ll make my way to San Francisco to participate in an innovation event that represents the cutting edge of the promise of science and technology in the fight for human rights.

Colleagues from Amnesty International will simultaneously be convening in Berlin, and in both cities, Amnesty and their partners Random Hacks of Kindness, (with their apt slogan “Hacking for Humanity”) will seek practical solutions to the very real threats that refugees and migrants face in transit in Mexico and the Mediterranean in a two-day “hack-a-thon.”

As an aside, for those wedded to the pejorative association with ‘hack,’ ‘hacking,’ ‘hackers,’ a hackathon event is “a gathering of technically skilled individuals focusing on collaborative efforts to address a challenge, issue, or goal.” In this case, the challenge is significant.

Every year, tens of thousands of women, men and children are ill-treated, abducted or raped as they travel through Mexico without legal permission as irregular migrants. As we’ve tragically seen as people have fled Libya and elsewhere in North Africa, the “Mediterranean takes record as most deadly stretch of water for refugees and migrants in 2011“.

What can we do, in addition to our important work researching, monitoring, and collectively advocating on behalf of those marginalized in the deserts of Mexico, or the turbulent waters off Lampadusa? We can innovate.

This is not Amnesty’s first foray into problem-driven innovation, of course. Years ago, when human rights monitors and others were denied access to places such as Darfur—and likewise denied access to information about the scale of abuses and grave crimes—Amnesty pioneered the use of remote sensing to circumvent government obstructionism or insecurity. In Georgia, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, and North Korea (to name just a few), the solution to access problems had broader and longstanding utility for human rights monitoring.

Mock-up of possible detention alert platform

More recently, and as cell phones and internet access continue to penetrate previously un-networked geographies and communities, Amnesty partnered with IDEO to hold a public challenge to develop practical tools for tackling unlawful detention—a very timely need given the widespread detention and torture in Syria and elsewhere.

There were hundreds of ideas generated in this open challenge. A few of my favorites include Apps that allow individuals at risk to hit an alert button to register when they are in danger, and another that helps people record and upload human rights violations to a secure server using their devices.

Another gem idea coming from the challenge was a web service that can determine if an ‘at risk’ individual expressing themselves or organizing via social media stop registering activity—a indication something has gone very wrong, and feeding naturally into Amnesty’s longstanding work on individuals at risk.

The threats faced by migrants and asylum seekers in the disparate geographies around the expansive Mediterranean Sea and the deserts of Mexico impact some of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters in humanity. Now, in addition to taking actions and organizing locally, individuals with certain technical skills have yet another path toward joining the fight for human rights. If you are such a person, do consider volunteering your time and skill at the San Francisco hack-a-thon (register here) or the one in Berlin (register here). And if you cannot make those (or, like me, you’re not particularly technically skilled), stayed engaged with Amnesty as we continue to push the bounds of technology for good.

As I prepare to join colleagues around the world in San Francisco, and others join in Berlin, I am reminded of the awesome power of not just science and technology, but of the very human and truly global movement that is Amnesty International. And as always, I’m humbled to work with so many dedicated volunteers, donors, staff, and human rights defenders toward a common end.

Amnesty, other NGOs, journalists and attorneys are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Clapper” refers to James R. Clapper, Jr., the Director of National Intelligence.

The issue before the Court is whether we can challenge the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act, which basically allows “dragnet” surveillance of emails and phone calls without warrant and without sufficient independent judicial oversight.

Our argument is that we have standing to challenge the law’s constitutionality because as human rights advocates, journalists and attorneys, we rely on confidentiality in our international communications with victims of human rights abuses, whistle-blowers and government officials–and our work is severely impacted by the law. 

The Obama administration claims that we don’t have standing in the case because we can’t prove that we are impacted—i.e., subject to surveillance. But how can we prove such a thing when the information about who the government monitors is secret and the process of surveillance is designed to be undetectable?

And that gets at the heart of the unconstitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act. The law:

• Violates the First (freedom of speech, freedom of the press) and Fourth (against unreasonable searches and seizures) Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
• Invests the National Security Agency with sweeping power to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and emails.
• Doesn’t include a probable cause or warrant requirement, so its effect is to allow the NSA to conduct dragnet surveillance, not just surveillance directed at suspected terrorists and criminals.
• Doesn’t provide for meaningful judicial review or congressional or public oversight.

But the Supreme Court won’t be considering any of these claims when it hears oral arguments in our case this fall. The Court will only be pondering whether we have the right to bring a case at all. If that’s too long of a wait for you, then join the ACLU’s campaign to fix the FISA Amendments Act and end warrantless wiretapping.

Maher Arar

More than 60,000 people signed a petition delivered to the White House yesterday calling on President Barack Obama to issue a formal apology to US rendition victim Maher Arar.

In September 2002 Maher was traveling home to Canada from a family holiday in Tunis. His flight transited New York’s JFK airport where he was pulled aside by US immigration officials and detained.

Maher was targeted because he had been briefly seen in the company of an individual, Abdullah Almaki, who was a peripheral ‘person of interest’ in a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) investigation. The Canadians shared this titbit of intelligence with their US allies who took it and ran with it.

There doesn’t seem to have been any meaningful investigation of Maher’s relationship with Almaki. In fact, their only connection was that Maher had once worked in a Canadian technology firm with Almaki’s brother.

This was a simple case of guilt by association, even though, it should be emphasized, the Canadian authorities didn’t even have any real evidence against Almaki either.

Maher was held in solitary confinement in New York for two weeks before US officials decided to ‘deport’ him. Maher was a dual citizen of both Syria and Canada who lived in the Canadian capital Ottawa. He should therefore, at very least, have been deported to Canada.

Instead officials arranged for Maher to be rendered to Syria – a regime well-known to the US to employ torture – as a suspected terrorist.

On his arrival in Syria, Maher was immediately transferred to prison where he was held, tortured, and abused for more than a year. He said later of the experience:

“It was so painful that I forgot every enjoyable moment in my life.”

Maher was beaten with electric cables and locked up alone for months in a claustrophobic “grave” measuring just 3ft by 6ft with only rats for company. He broke down under the abuse and falsely confessed to having attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan to make the beatings stop:

“I was willing to do anything to stop the torture.”

Fans of torture should note that even the Syrians don’t seem to have set much store in the confession they forced out of Maher, since they eventually released him in October 2003 stating that they could find no evidence of any link between him and Al Qaeda – or any other terrorist organization. Syrian official Imad Moustapha told reporters:

“We tried to find anything. We couldn’t”

Note the formulation – ‘we tried to find anything.’ Maher recalls being asked the same questions in Syria that he had been asked in New York and drew the inevitable conclusion that US officials had been pulling the strings throughout his detention.

Maher finally made it back to Canada after more than a year in captivity to be reunited with his wife and two young children. He began to campaign almost immediately for justice.

Maher’s case attracted a great deal of interest in Canada, culminating in the establishment of a Canadian Commission of Inquiry chaired by Dennis O’Connor which reported in September 2006:

“There is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada.”

Pretty categorical.

In January 2007 the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to Maher on behalf of the Canadian government and announced that Maher would receive a C$10.5m settlement in compensation for his ordeal.

However, from the United States – the country that detained Maher and which deliberately and willfully rendered him to Syria to be tortured – there has been only deafening silence.

Actually, it’s worse than that.

The Obama administration has actively taken steps to oppose and frustrate Maher’s attempts to gain remedy in American courts for the ill-treatement he suffered as a direct consequence of US actions.

To add insult to injury Maher’s name still appears on the US ‘no fly’ list making international travel for him both extremely difficult and hazardous.

This is quite simply wrong – on both counts.

The United States has an international legal obligation to provide remedy to individuals who are wrongly detained and subjected to abuse.

It also has a moral obligation to make this situation right.

It shouldn’t be a hard decision. If Canada can do it, the US can too.

Instead the White House has chosen a different path. In Maher’s words the Obama administration has preferred

“to turn a blind eye on holding torturers to account.”

Amnesty International is working with our partners in the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) to put pressure on the Obama administration to search its conscience, recapture the spirit of hope and change that imbued the 2008 campaign trail, and actually make amends to someone America has wronged.

You can add your voice to those calling for America to do the right thing by tweeting @barackobama or calling the White House comment line on (202)-456-1111 and highlighting Maher’s case.

It is, quite literally, the least you can do.

Richard Miles was convicted of murder in Dallas in 1996 and released in 2009 after it was discovered prosecutors hid reports implicating other suspects. (Image via texasobserver.org)

Our criminal justice system is less than perfect, a non-controversial fact which is one of the reasons we oppose the use of an absolute and irreversible punishment like execution.

The new National Registry of Exonerations, produced by the University of Michigan and Northwestern University law schools, provides a glimpse of just how imperfect.  It lists almost 900 known exonerations since 1989.  Around 100 of those listed had been sent to death row; the remainder had been sent to prison for everything from homicide to white collar crimes.

The Registry’s accompanying report (p. 84, Table 18), documents another 1,170 exonerations from a group of major law enforcement scandals, mostly involving drug crimes.

This snapshot of known exonerations is revealing.  According to the report summary, the chief causes of the wrongful convictions were faulty or perjured witness testimony and official misconduct, though almost a quarter involved bad forensic science, and 16% of those exonerated had initially falsely confessed.

But the exonerated represent only a portion of the wrongfully convicted.  Plenty of other innocent prisoners are falling through the cracks.  Most counties and states in the U.S. do not dedicate themselves to uncovering convictions of the innocent.  As the report summary states plainly: “It is clear that there are many more false convictions than exonerations.”

Oversight at the same consistently high level nationally, rather than in just a handful of states and counties, would give us a truer picture of the scope of the wrongful conviction problem in our country, and would protect more innocent people from continued imprisonment or even execution.

But the picture painted by the National Registry of Exonerations is disturbing even without more complete information.  It is also not terribly surprising.  We make mistakes. And we will continue to do so.

… the fact that he [Mladic] is jailed and on trial is seen as another victory for international justice and hailed by observers as evidence that — more often than not — war crimes tribunals get their indicted suspects, even if years later.

This is a very optimistic and strong statement regarding the current state of international justice. Is the reason for optimism justified? I absolutely think so.

Let’s recap some of the recent historic events to bolster my argument that time’s up for war criminals:

1. The first conviction of a former head of state for international crimes since the Nuremberg trials: Charles Taylor, Mr. Blood Diamond, was convicted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Special Court for Sierra Leone in late April.
2. Milestone verdict on child soldiers and the ICC’s first verdict: Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese warlord, was found guilty in March of the war crime of using children in armed conflict.
3. The Mladic trial: 17 years after Srebrenica―infamously known as “Europe’s worst massacre since World War II”―Ratko Mladic had his first day in court on May 16. He faces genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Mladic allegedly orchestrated the killing of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995. The completion of his trial could mark a milestone for the survivors, who did not see a verdict against Slobodan Milošević (who passed away while on trial in 2006).
4. The unanimous referral by the UN Security Council of the situation in Libya to the ICC. The vote in February 2011 showed a surprising shift in positions when all 15 members―including non-state parties to the ICC such as the United States and Russia―voted in favor of a referral.

Now, not everything in the land of international justice is rosy. This becomes most apparent with the current situation in Syria. Despite overwhelming evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes, no accountability mechanism has been established and impunity is ongoing. The UN Security Council is not even close referring the situation to the ICC. Unfortunately, the decision to hold perpetrators of international crimes accountable becomes a political decision in this case.

Not surprisingly, politics tends to be a barrier to international justice and certainly remains so in the case of Syria. Related to that, there is a justifiable concern that despite the clear progress, there remains a double standard for accountability. I recommend checking out David Rhode’s current opinion piece in The Atlantic:

At the same time, as people around the globe see war criminals brought to justice, they want to see the world’s most powerful armies held accountable as well. Outside the U.S. and Europe, there is a growing sense of a two-tiered system of international justice. The West puts others on trial for war crimes, the argument goes, while exempting its own forces from scrutiny.

The ICC at Ten: Justice Without Borders

Still, I believe we should be optimistic and the progress that we have seen over the last few years—with the establishment of the first permanent criminal court and the recent verdicts—should not be underestimated. I hope you’ll remember this posting in the future when you’ll (hopefully) read about the capture of ICC fugitives Joseph Kony or Omar al-Bashir.

In order to better track these exciting developments around international justice, we are currently working on a new project that we are planning to launch around the ten year anniversary of the ICC in July 2012. Breaking with past protocol, I decided to give you a little sneak preview of our new site that will map out cases and developments such as the ones described above:

Click to preview interactive map

Please note that this preview is only a first draft. With support from our friends at Development Seed we will have a very detailed site soon, which covers various issues from current ICC cases to data on how much countries are donating to the Trust Fund for Victims. Additionally, there will be opportunities for you to become engaged in the issue and support the global strive for accountability.

I wanted to share this work in progress, in order to first and foremost generate some excitement about this upcoming project. Secondly, I am curious to hear your feedback and ideas you might have. Feel free to get in touch with me or leave your thoughts in the comment section.

PS: A major shout-out to my colleague James Conkling who produced the current ICC map.

Amnesty Ad in Chicago

As the NATO summit gets underway tomorrow in Chicago, Amnesty International USA will host a “Shadow Summit”with leading Afghan women’s rights activists to remind NATO of the conversation it should be having on Afghan women’s human rights.

The shadow summit poster, which features the words “Human Rights for Women and Girls in Afghanistan” and “NATO: Keep the Progress Going!” has generated some controversy over the last few days.  You can guess which sentence triggered the controversy.

Some are asking, is Amnesty now a cheerleader for NATO?  Does Amnesty support the war?  What was Amnesty thinking?!

The shadow summit — and the poster — is directed at NATO, not to praise it, but to remind the leaders who will be discussing Afghanistan’s future this weekend about what is really at stake if women’s rights to security, political participation and justice are traded away or compromised.

We were thinking about the hard won gains Afghan women have made since the fall of the Taliban.  Ten years ago, Afghanistan had one of the worst human rights records in the world in terms of women’s and girls’ rights. The Taliban banned women from working, going to school or even leaving home without a male relative.

Today, three million girls go to school, compared to virtually none under the Taliban. Women make up 20 percent of university graduates. Maternal mortality and infant mortality have declined. Ten percent of all prosecutors and judges are women, compared to none under the Taliban regime.  This is what we meant by progress: the gains Afghan women have struggled to achieve over the past decade.

Afghan women’s groups have been sounding the alarm about being sidelined in key decisionmaking processes and about the prospect of a worsening human rights situation as the Afghan government assumes security responsibility in the country and seeks a political settlement with the Taliban.  In areas still under Taliban control, violence against women is rampant, and a recent statement by the Ulema Council (a council of religious scholars) — defended by President Karzai – warns that women should “respect the right of men to polygamy” and should “not travel without a close male relative.”

As a matter of policy, Amnesty doesn’t take a position for or against NATO.  We didn’t call for the bombing of Afghanistan – in fact, readers who were members or following our work when the bombing started in 2001 will remember that our message was “justice not revenge” and that we went into crisis response mode out of concern for the impact on civilians.

And we’re not calling for NATO to remain in the country.  What we want is for peace talks to be inclusive and reflective of Afghan society, including women, in both the planning and the talks themselves.  We want a constitutional guarantee of equality for women and men, along with benchmarks and robust monitoring for women’s rights.  We want negotiating teams involved in peace talks to include at least 30% women.  We want a trust fund to be set up independently of the government, to be administered by women to protect women’s rights and support civil society. We want justice institutions to be trained on implementing the elimination of violence against women law and other measures to protect women’s rights.

And we want the National Action Plan for the women of Afghanistan to be funded to ensure gender mainstreaming in Afghanistan’s government institutions.  We will release an open letter to Presidents Obama and Karzai detailing these demands prior to the shadow summit.

Is the poster confusing?  Yes, especially as it is plastered all over a city packed with NATO protesters.   But please don’t let that stop you from seeing what the shadow summit and Amnesty’s work in support of Afghan women are really about.

The shadow summit doesn’t just talk about Afghan women’s participation, it reflects it.  Afifa Azim, Manizha Naderi, Hasina Safi and Mahbouba Seraj will be featured panelists alongside Madeleine Albright, Melanne Verveer and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.

It’s our best shot at bringing Afghan women’s voices to the forefront of the NATO Summit.   If you’re in the city, please show up to show your support and then join us for a demonstration at Navy Pier.

A Bahraini man walks past graffiti that reads 'Your weapons will not make us bow' (AFP/GettyImages)

Last week, the Obama Administration announced that the US Government is providing new arms shipments to the government of Bahrain.

Meanwhile, the Bahrain monarchy continues to avoid basic accountability for its ongoing human rights violations.  Not a single senior Bahraini official is publicly known to have been investigated for the many acts of torture, imprisonment, and even killings that have been documented.

In a public statement, US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the military items being given to Bahrain “are not used for crowd control.”  Ms. Nuland also stated that the items sent to Bahrain would not include the “TOW missiles and Humvees” that Amnesty International and other organizations opposed late last year.

In a briefing with reporters, unnamed “senior administration officials” reinforced that message:

The items that we are moving forward with are those that are not typically used for crowd control and we would not anticipate would be used against protestors in any scenario. But sales of items that are sort of predominantly or typically used by police and other security forces for internal security, things used for crowd control, we’re not moving forward with at this time. That would include things like tear gas, tear gas launchers, stun grenades – those sorts of things.

However, when asked by a reporter to specify exactly what arms and military equipment will and won’t be shipped to Bahrain, the officials declined to state definitive details.  They also declined to share what the total value of the arms shipments will be.  The items they did mention being shipped to Bahrain were “excess harbor security boats for the Coast Guard and support for an upgrade for Bahrain’s existing turbo fan engines, which are used in F-16s.”

Unfortunately, an incomplete list is not much better than no list at all.  Such secrecy poses serious problems, because we don’t know what the arms shipments might mean in the context of potentially escalating protests.  Blocking tear gas shipments is a good thing, as is the blocking of Humvees that could be used to transport Bahraini security forces to public protests.  But if we don’t know the full list of what is being sent to Bahrain, it is difficult to independently ascertain whether or not the military arms and equipment being provided truly can’t be used against protestors.

Since protests began on February 25th of 2011, Bahrain security forces have used vehicles to transport the personnel involved in government crackdowns.  Not only that, but Bahraini security forces even used tanks to surround a hospital where doctors were treating wounded protestors.   If there is substantial risk that the Bahraini government could use new US arms to violate human rights, then those shipments should never leave US shores.

Protests in Bahrain are continuing, with today’s latest round involving tens of thousands of Bahrainis.   The latest protests are in opposition to a proposal to bring Bahrain and its major neighbor, Saudi Arabia, into a closer political union.  The Saudi monarchy has advocated for this and is thought to be opposed to political reforms in Bahrain that might fuel similar demands for change at home.  On March 25th of last year, the Saudi government even sent some 1,200 troops into Bahrain on the same day the King of Bahrain reacted to public protests with a state of emergency.

It is difficult to predict where the future lies for Bahrain.  The government has failed to hold itself accountable for ongoing violations of human rights.  Protestors continue to oppose many government policies, and in some cases, have reacted with violence.  And to make matters worse, the US is continuing secretive weapons sales to the Bahraini monarchy.

Follow Sanjeev Bery on Twitter @SanjeevBery and Facebook.