Belarus faced condemnation from European and UN leaders Aug. 5 over the arrest of Ales Beliatsky, head of the human rights group Vyasna (Spring) who was detained outside his home after months of police pressure and charged with crimes punishable by seven years in prison. Beliatsky was ostensibly arrested on tax evasion charges, but his organization had been closely monitoring the regime's response to ongoing "social network" protests in Belarus. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Belarus "to guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Beliatsky and all human rights defenders in Belarus." (AFP, Aug. 5)

Jim Lobe on InterPress Service informs us that Israeli pundit Caroline Glick was among those cited in the manifesto of accused Oslo bomber Anders Behring Breivik. Now Glick has a screed in the Jerusalem Post of July 28 with the oxymoronic title "Breivik and totalitarian democrats." In it, she acknowledges that she was cited by Breivik, and frets that this demonstrated commonality of ideas is being used to discredit opponents of multiculturalism:

The Israeli troll-o-sphere appears to be abuzz with ghastly cheerleading for the Oslo attacks. J.J. Goldberg notes the phenomenon in a July 24 comment for The Forward: "Judging by the comments sections on the main Hebrew websites, the main questions under debate seem to be whether Norwegians deserve any sympathy from Israelis given the country’s pro-Palestinian policies, whether the killer deserves any sympathy given his self-declared intention of fighting Islamic extremism and, perhaps ironically, whether calling attention to this debate is in itself an anti-Israel or anti-Semitic act."

Media reports have noted that accused Oslo bomber Anders Behring Breivik indicated through his online spewings that he is a fan of professional Islamophobe Pam Geller, who led the protests against New York's "Ground Zero Mosque" last Sept. 11. At the time, we noted the irony that the same pseudo-left hucksters (especially Workers World Party and its satellites) that organized the counter-protest against Geller's thugs ironically shared in demonization of the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosova with such right-wing mosque-opponents as Terry Jones and Glenn Beck. Now, as paranoid pseudo-left hucksters line up to charge (on no evidence) that Breivik is a Mossad agent, it emerges that he was actually motivated by... rage at NATO's bombardment of the Serbs! This from AP, July 25:

Gee, that didn't take long. Conspiranoid cranks claim (on no evidence) that Mossad was behind the Oslo terror attacks, providing an opportunity for the right-wing Israeli press to tar "anti-Zionists" as conspiranoid cranks. Arutz Sheva, far-right organ of the settler movement, swoops in on the kneejerk spewings of two perennial faves of the conspiracy set. The first is Wayne Madsen, a self-proclaimed former US military analyst, who plays an utterly specious connect-the-dots game to link accused Oslo bomber Anders Behring Breivik to Israeli intelligence...

The blood was not even dry from the July 22 coordinated bomb blast and shooting rampage in Oslo that left at least 94 dead before Britain's The Telegraph was asking in a headline, "Oslo explosion: Is al-Qaeda behind this?" Among their specious arguments was that jihadis are still miffed over the Danish cartoon affair and are too dumb to tell one Scandinavian country from another (perhaps in the same manner that Muslim-hating thugs in America beat up Sikhs). The screed remains live on The Telegraph's website despite the fact that the accused perpetrator, one Anders Behring Breivik, appears to be a homegrown right-wing extremist in the style of Timothy McVeigh—except, this being Europe in 2011, with a special Islamophobic twist...

International solidarity actions will be held July 16 with a protest at Bilbao's city hall to stop the imminent eviction and demolition of the Kukutza III Gaztetxea community center to make way for a housing development. The Kukutza III Gaztetxea community center has been squatted by local Basque youth and activists for 13 years, housing numerous artists and hosting such musicians as Manu Chao and Fermin Muguruza. Although the property had long been effectively abandoned, the owners now plan to demolish the building for what the community center calls "speculative interests." The Bilbao city government has turned down proposals to buy the property to save the community center. Kukutza III Gaztetxea urges supporters to "organize solidarity demonstrations in your towns and cities." (Kukutza III Gaztetxea, Le Journal du Pays Basque, Urruña/Urrugne, July 15; El Correo, Bilbao, July 14)

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on July 8 rejected two appeals from Swiss Muslims challenging Switzerland's ban on construction of minarets. The court ruled that the appeals were inadmissible because the complaints failed to meet the requirements of Article 35 Section 3 and 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Specifically, the court found that since the appeals were only meant to challenge a constitutional provision in a general manner in Switzerland, the applicants had failed to show any specific injury. Supporters and opponents were not surprised by the ECHR's decision. Hafid Ouardiri, one of the challengers, characterized his failed challenge as a necessary step and was encouraged by the court's statement that the Swiss courts "would be able to would be able to examine the compatibility of a possible refusal to authorise the construction of a minaret with the European Human Rights Convention."