Bahrain imprisons poet, tries politicans

Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in the Bahraini capital of Manama on Saturday, June 11, 2011.NEW: Two former opposition lawmakers plead not guilty to trying to overthrow the governmentNEW: They will remain in custody until their next hearing, an official saysA poet is sent to prison for reading a work criticizing the government, activists sayA human rights activist says the trials do not meet international standards

Manama, Bahrain (CNN) -- At least two former Bahraini opposition lawmakers went on trial Sunday, as a military court sentenced a 20-year-old poet to a year in prison.

Matar Matar and Jawad Fairooz were charged with "spreading malicious lies in an attempt to overthrow the government," an official in the Information Affairs Authority told CNN.

Both men pleaded not guilty and will remain in custody until their next hearing, said the official, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Mubarak. He said their lawyers have been given more time to prepare their cases.

Both men were seized May 2, family members said.

The trials come after the small, strategically important Gulf kingdom was swept by protests earlier this year as part of the Arab Spring demonstrations.

The legal proceedings began Sunday without prior notice, according to a Matar family member who asked not to be named for security reasons.

Fairooz's lawyer only found out the charges once he appeared in court Sunday, the defendant's brother Jamsheer Fairooz said.

Jawad Fairooz said he was being treated well and looked to be in physically good condition but had "aged 10 years -- his beard and hair have both gone white," his brother said.

Matar, 35, was taken from his car by armed men in masks on May 2, according to a relative. He represented the biggest constituency in Bahrain, with approximately 16,000 people.

Elected to the lower house of Parliament in October 2010, Matar resigned along with other Wefaq lawmakers earlier this year to protest the government crackdown on demonstrators. Wefaq is a Shiite party, the predominant religion in the kingdom whose rulers are Sunni.

Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab said the trials are "not (of) an international standard," saying the defendants had "not only (had) no access to lawyer but even their families (were) not informed they were being taken court."

Meanwhile, poet Ayat al-Qormozi, 20, was found guilty of assembling at Pearl Roundabout, the epicenter of anti-government demonstrations in the kingdom earlier this year. Additional charges included speaking out against Bahrain and the king.

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights said she read a poem criticizing government policy at the Roundabout.

Mubarak, the government official, said Bahrain had freedom of speech, but that there were limits.

"Freedom of speech in this country has its boundaries and cannot touch on the leadership, and cannot call for the overthrow of the government," he said.

Her poem, he said, "caused incitement and hatred to his majesty the king and to the prime minister" with lines such as "we are people who kill humiliation" and "assassinate misery."

Amnesty International called the charges "unfair" in a statement after the sentence.

"By locking up a female poet merely for expressing her views in public, Bahrain's authorities are demonstrating how free speech and assembly are brutally denied to ordinary Bahrainis," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Al-Qormozi had been detained since March 30, after her father led security forces to her in the face of threats to his other children's lives, a family member said.

She alleges that she received electrical shocks to her face and was beaten with a hose while in detention, according to the relative, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

Her mother and father were the only family members allowed in court, the relative said, adding that a lawyer was present with her.

Bahraini security forces went to her house around midnight a few days before she was detained, but she was not home, the relative said.

The security forces broke things in the house and told the family they would return the following day for her. They returned the next night but she was still in hiding, the relative said.

The family member said security forces then took two of the poet's four brothers and threatened them with guns in their faces. The father, fearing for his family's lives, took the security forces to her. The family was assured that she would not be harmed, the family member said.

Bahrain's government declined to comment on the specifics of al-Qormozi's case, but said: "All detention centers conform to the conditions set down under international human rights regulations and the detainees are treated as innocent until proven guilty."

Thousands of Bahrainis protested their government Saturday in a rally organized by the Wefaq party.

Unafraid, pro-reform demonstrators hit the streets with their faces uncovered, said a journalist at the scene who was not identified for security reasons.

Rajab, the human rights activist, put the turnout at "no less than 10,000," while police put it at 4,000, the national news agency said.

Rajab said the march went off peacefully, with no security forces present.

It was the second such protest since the government last week lifted emergency laws that were imposed in mid-March, allowing a crackdown on political leaders and journalists.

Bahrain's ruling royal family -- Sunnis in a majority-Shiite nation -- accuses protesters of being motivated by sectarian differences and supported by Iran.

Ali Salman, the secretary general of al Wefaq, told the large crowds that he supports the government's offer of dialogue but said he could not endorse it fully until the conditions for such talks were clear.

Bahraini Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa pledged cooperation from the government "to reach national consensus so as to ensure a better future for the kingdom," the state-run Bahrain News Agency said.

Crown Prince Salman, who met with U.S. officials in Washington Wednesday, thanked President Barack Obama for his backing of a national dialogue in Bahrain.

Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, and the United States has been concerned about the instability in the Persian Gulf island state.

CNN's Nic Robertson and Jenifer Fenton contributed to this report.

CNN

ECB tries to squash 'fruitless' EU plans for Greece (AFP)

FRANKFURT (AFP) – European Central Bank executives struggled last week to parry European Union plans to aid Greece via potentially risky schemes that could see Athens declared in default on its sovereign debt.

ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet, vice president Vitor Constancio and chief economist Juergen Stark argued that any moves that obliged private investors to take part in a Greek bail-out were fraught with danger.

Stark called Friday in Frankfurt for an end to what he said was a "really fruitless discussion" on private sector involvement.

"The real issue is the (reform) programme for Greece and to implement the programme in full," he stressed.

Trichet warned Thursday of the dangers of a "selective default" that could wreak havoc across the 17-nation eurozone.

And Constancio added a final note of caution. The idea of a concerted, or orderly reduction on the amount of money Greece owed -- known as a haircut in financial markets -- was "definitely a very dangerous path", he said.

Even a mooted rollover of bonds by private creditors, which the ECB does not intend to do with the Greek debt it owns, would not necessarily resolve the Athens' debt crisis, the ECB executives said.

International ratings agency Moody's, for one, said it might still be considered a default if it was not clearly voluntary on the part of creditors.

Stark warned that new bonds might not qualify as collateral against ECB loans.

Governments and other policy makers shaping the new Greek bailout base efforts on "the underlying assumption that the ECB would continue to accept" rolled-over Greek debt as collateral for its liquidity operations, Stark said.

But he warned: "This remains to be seen."

A refusal would leave the commercial Greek banks, which own much of the country's debt, dead in the water -- for many of them are already dependent on the ECB for funds.

Any collapse of the Greek financial sector could threaten countries such as Ireland and Portugal, which are also struggling with heavy debt and have accepted international bail-outs.

EU leaders are nevertheless pushing ahead with plans to involve private investors in the next rescue plan for Greece.

It has already benefitted from an initial package worth 110 billion euros ($160 billion) backed by the EU and International Monetary Fund.

EU president Herman Van Rompuy said Friday that he was confident a new aid package for Greece could be agreed by the end of June.

The upcoming EU summit on June 23-24 is shaping up to focus primarily on another rescue for Athens, which is said to need 90 billion euros more.

In recent days, attention focused on an initiative likened to a 2009 deal in which investors simply rolled over maturing bonds. But the European Commission now suggests the Greek deal could go even further.

"We have also examined the feasibility of a voluntary debt rescheduling or reprofiling, of course on the condition, extremely important, that this would not create a credit event," said Amadeu Altafaj, spokesman for EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn.

Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said a new rescue package should be a combination "of funds coming from the country's planned privatisations, the voluntary participation of the private sector and possible loans" from eurozone countries.

In Berlin, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said eurozone finance ministers would create a working group to find a way to involve private investors in any new aid.

A second rescue plan was "inevitable", he told German lawmakers.

But it should establish "a fair distribution of risks between the taxpayer and private creditor", to signal "that you cannot simply dump the risk on the taxpayer".

Constancio insisted that it was the responsibility of EU governments to "find the mechanisms that do not create the type of risks that we are concerned about".

Finally, Trichet repeated a call for stronger eurozone economic governance, a long-term project that would require capitals to relinguish some sovereignty to ensure a stronger future.

"We should ourselves 'learn to think (more) continentally'," Trichet told a conference of analysts and other ECB observers, quoting Alexander Hamilton, a US founding father who established that country's first national bank.

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