In solidarity

IN A SIGN that anti-war sentiment in the Arab world is gaining new momentum, numerous protests were staged in Arab nations this week ahead of the UN weapons report to the Security Council -- perceived to be a key event in Washington's decision to declare war on Iraq. In Rabat on Sunday, demonstrations organised by the Moroccan National Committee for Support to the Iraqi People, founded in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war by political parties and unions supporting Iraq, called for the implementation of the Beirut Arab Summit resolutions and the activation of a common defence agreement should Iraq be attacked by a US-led coalition.

In other parts of the Arab world, protest has also been building. The Yemeni leadership said that tens of thousands had gathered in Sanaa on Monday, and smaller protests bubbled up in other key regional states, including Egypt, Bahrain, Lebanon, Sudan and Syria. Yemeni protesters delivered a petition to the UN offices in Sanaa calling for an end to aggression against Iraq while UN offices in Damascus, Cairo and Bahrain also saw demonstrations staged outside. Some 10,000 Sudanese marchers were apparently prevented from reaching the US Embassy in Khartoum.

OUTSPOKEN anti-war MP George Galloway warned that the British government could end up with a riot on its hands if a request by the UK-based Stop the War coalition to hold a rally at London's Hyde Park on 15 February was turned down. The group is organising large-scale anti-war protests on that day and has estimated that the crowds could exceed half-a-million. But the Royal Parks Authority turned down the request for a permit, saying that there were concerns both for participants and about damage to the park.

British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell informed Stop the War that a planned march could go ahead but that the rally plans would have to be scrapped. Galloway responded with strong words. "I would want to warn Mrs Jowell: she can either choose between half-a-million people at the rally or half-a-million people in a riot. That is what will surely happen if we tell them that, thanks to the British government, they are not allowed to attend a meeting at the end of the march."

PROMINENT Qatar-based Cleric Youssef Al-Qaradawi has called for a ban on American and Israeli goods but left Britain out of the equation, saying he hoped Britain could still be the moderating force in the US drive to war. The Egyptian-born cleric, known as a moderate voice in political Islam, issued a fatwa about the ban but said that because the majority of Britons were against the war, there was still hope that Britain will "bend to the will of its populace" and pull away from America's hawkish stance on Iraq.

The US-led "war on terrorism", Al-Qaradawi said, is not rooting out terrorism so much as it is "undermining Islam and dismembering the Muslim world". Numerous calls in the Arab world for a boycott of American and Israeli goods have been made since the start of the Intifada in September 2000.

ANTI-WAR activists in the US were in an uproar on Wednesday after it was revealed that the nation's largest cable television company, Comcast, had blocked anti-war ads intended to air in Washington during the State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The cable giant said that the television spot, which features Americans talking about their anti-war views, offered unsubstantiated claims and pulled the ads.

The six, 30-second spots cost the New Jersey-based Peace Action Education Fund, a local anti-war group of about 2,000 based in the quiet college town of Princeton, $5,000 and were meant to reach key decision-makers based in the Washington area. A Comcast statement explaining the decision did not specify what kinds of claims made them pull the ads.

Meanwhile, in Australia, Democrats launched a set of television spots denouncing any plans for Australia to take part in a US-led military attack on Iraq. The ads call on Australians to express their resistance and demand that Australian Prime Minister John Howard pull troops out of the Middle East.

IRENE KHAN, secretary-general of the London-based human rights group Amnesty International, grilled US Secretary of State Colin Powell during the World Economic Forum at Davos on Sunday, asking the Bush administration's leading "dove" to balance the threat from Iraq against the threat to Iraqi innocents in the event of a war. "Military action could easily precipitate a huge disaster," Khan told Powell, noting that the war in 1991 generated a staggering refugee crisis and humanitarian disaster. With the situation in Iraq so fragile after more than a decade of sanctions, Khan warned that the consequences of another war could spiral out of control. She warned against a "ripple effect" in the region, speculating that the Arab-Israeli conflict would be in danger of escalating further.

Khan also underscored the issue of human rights, saying that with the methods of Iraq leader Saddam Hussein well known, fear of internal reprisals are a very real possibility. "Knowing the way Saddam treats his people when he is cornered, it's very possible there could be an internal bloodbath," Khan said. "This is not just conjecture -- it has happened before and it could happen again."