You may have noticed that for the past eleven months France, along with Britain and the United States have been putting pressure on middle-eastern governments like Libya and Syria over human rights abuses such as shooting protesters with live ammunition. Well on Monday (11/7/11) pro-government protesters held demonstrations outside the US and French Embassies in Damascus, Syria. The French soldiers guarding the French Embassy responded to these demonstrations by shooting the protesters with live ammunition.
Elsewhere in the region protesters are back on the streets of Egypt. This is because the NATO war against neighbouring Libya along with the military commitments and refugee crisis it imposed on Egypt has caused Egypt's revolution to slow and possibly be de-railed completely. What is causing the Egyptians to panic now is the looming Parliamentary election which is scheduled for September 2011 which will decide how the Presidential election will be carried out in October/November 2011. Although I lack the language skills to get fully across all the arguments involved it is insane that the Egyptians would even consider holding this election in September. That's because it will co-incide with the United Nations vote on whether to grant statehood to Palestine which is one of the most inflammatory and complicated issues the region has ever faced. Therefore it would be much better for the Egyptians to postpone the Parliamentary election until after September to allow the global picture to calm down and the regional picture to become clearer.
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