Middle East - still protesting as spring arrives in 2011

The western media has been more quiet about the continuing protests in the Middle East. It's not over in Libya by a long shot. Crazy Ghadafi is still thinking he can crush his people and continue the status quo. Here's hoping the rebels win! Hopefully the no fly zone helps the rebels.

More than a month of daily protests calling for political freedoms and an end to corruption have presented President Ali Abdullah Saleh with the  biggest challenge to his 32 years of running Yemen. Sadly here much as in Libya, they are shooting to kill protesters.

Things aren't better in Bahrain where the Saudi's are helping the Sunni Bahraini government to push back the Shiite rebels and Qatar looks like it may help as well. Thankfully the Kuwaiti's aren't sending troops but doctors to help out the injured. The government has also taken down the monument in Manama's Pearl Square because it had become the symbol of the protesters.

In Iraq, the people are protesting in support of the Shiite people of Bahrain and against King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi's feel the Saudi's are puppets of the US and are afraid that the clashes in Bahrain will fuel sectarian violence throughout the region.

In Algeria President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has promised all sorts of political reforms while security forces blocked planned protests in the capital Algiers. The Algerians keep trying to set up protests but keep being blocked. 

In Iran  thousands of people in Tehran marched in support of  the protesters in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen.

In Jordan there was a peaceful protest in Amman, to demand constitutional reforms and to dissolve the government. King Abdullah II is hinting there could be early  elections in Fall 2011.

As for Saudi Arabia, they are also preventing all protests and the majority Sunni country has sent troops in it's Shiite areas to prevent any protests from starting there either. But the rulers are on edge. It's just a matter of time really before the Saudi people take to the streets like the rest of the middle east. 

Egyptians turned out in droves at polling stations to vote in a constitutional referendum in their first taste of democracy after president Mubarak was forced to relinquish his 30-year grip on power last month after mass protests. 

In Lebanon, yesterday you have the head of Hezbollah, Nasrallah, who held a rally to support protests across the middle east with the exception of those going on in Syria  and Iran. Last week it was thousands of Lebanese marching at Martyr's square to demand the disarming of Hezbollah.

There's even protests in Dakar, Senegal for change.  Dissent has been mounting in the moderate West African nation, where the 80 something president wants to run for a 3rd term. Someone else who should retire and let someone younger rule the country.

Then there's Syria, which undoubtedly holds one  of the worst human rights record in all of the Middle East, where people were killed protesting yesterday. They sealed off the city where the protests are happening.  President Bashar Assad claims that Syria is immune to the cries for change that have already toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.  I'm not so sure. The people there are so poor and oppressed they have nothing to lose. I can't believe Syria is still under a 1963 emergency law which bans demonstrations.

Here's something amusing. This morning in my email I had a message from the Embassy of Canada in Damascus, Syria. It was telling me things are looking dangerous in Syria and if I don't need to be there, to not be there.

Why they emailed me? Each time I travel to the Middle East I register myself to the Canadian site for people who travel abroad with my specific dates of travel. I had registered in September 2010 specifying I was going to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.   There have been protests in Lebanon and Jordan in the past months and no one sent me any warnings. Hell I've been to Lebanon 5 times and registered on the site each time. All sorts of events have occurred in Lebanon since 2007 and never was I sent an advisory about Lebanon!

Which points out how EVERYONE knows how bad things can get in Syria - when my government will give me travel advisories against Syria just because I've been there once. My husband would agree. Syria scares him. Anyone who knows my husband knows he does not scare easily. After all he lived close to 30 years in Lebanon and through the civil war. [Dunno why they call it civil war, there is nothing civil about it]