I was just doing a little searching around the Wikis and came across the page for US President Barack Obama. A political page brings out the worst in biased editors, and this page has not bucked the trend. However, it also has an army of people watching it on both sides of the debate.

Keeping Pages NPOV

We all know that there are plenty of pages with biased statements. Look no further than topics surrounding ongoing violent conflicts and you will find plenty of racism and hatred sprinkled in with the facts on the ground.

The only controversial pages that I have seen kept in a relatively NPOV state are ones surrounding highly debated issues with a lot of passion and visibility on both sides. Keeping the debate very active is the key to success. While in some controversial topics only a handful of editors are watching (if you are active in one of these topics, you know the usual suspects by name), others have so many people watching that we can’t help but be factually honest and accurate.

The Obama page has over 70 pages of discussion archives and the main article includes noteworthy topics. Even some of the most controversial topics, where people like Rush Limbaugh spread anti-Obama hatred, have been handled well. For example, discussions of accusations of Obama’s religious views are noted and include both sides of the debate, but end with the facts.

Where NPOV Fails

People are often not even aware of their biases. And just because something is the “most common phrase” does not mean it is not loaded. Just 50 years ago, someone would not look at you twice for calling a black person a “nigger,” but we all know that we not an NPOV term. The same goes for terms like “Israeli Occupied Territories,” which are, in fact, disputed territories. But, that topic has been beaten up many times on this blog and many others.

As a general rule, fewer editors leads to more bias. The more eyes and traffic a topic has, the more likely we are to see plenty of edits keeping things in balance. One page with regular biased statements that are seldom fixed right away is my old high school. It is an athletic powerhouse in the region and has many detractors. Just head to the history page for Cherry Creek High School to find plenty of vandalism and hatred. Then look at how long it took to be corrected.

You Are Part of the Team

Don’t forget that you can always go in and fix a problem. If you are certain that your edits are factual and well sourced, you can confidently make changes that will be in the open encyclopedia indefinitely. Just beware of the trolls and edit warriors that might be waiting to do battle with you over the truth.

Highly Edited Articles Highlight Potential Bias is a post from: Wikibias

The modern state of Israel is often criticized for a variety of actions, some of which have been deemed reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The most discussed comparisons include a perceived use of concentration camps, the following of Lebensraum, and many other actions by both the Nazis and Israelis.
Many critics of the comparison believe that the concept itself of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is antisemitic regardless of the substance of the comparison. Other critics refute the stated similarities as false or exaggerations.

The article was deleted a day after its creation, but I managed to pull a few screenshots to demonstrate just how easy it is to promote bigotry on Wikipedia:

Israel and Nazi Germany, Wikipedia-style. is a post from: Wikibias

From an anonymous tipster:

Administrator Malik Shabazz apparently thinks legitimate criticism of the user Carol Moore is a “personal attack,” and reverts any criticism of her antisemitic posts on site.

Evidence

Does it create a hospitable environment if Wikimania is held in a country that probably would make it very difficult for Arabs and Muslims to enter for the conference? Not to mention anyone suspected of being critical of Israel, including on Wikipedia? If editor members of this project (Jewish and gentile) considered “antisemitic” because they include negative information on the state of Israel or its most aggressively politicized supporters were excluded from entering Israel for the conference, while those considered pro-Israel were permitted, wouldn’t that be relevant? Something tells me those who are critical won’t even bother going to the conference.

Carol provides no proof that Arabs or Muslims would have difficulty accessing the conference. Previous Wikimia events have taken place in nations ruled by ruthless regimes, like Egypt. Why Carol failed to protest the lack of rights for Arabs then is a mystery. Or is it?

It is obvious she cares very little about the rights of Arabs and Muslims. Her concern is limited to Israel. And administrators like Shabaz have allowed her to propagate these views without warning or punishment.

Administrators protect anti-semitic statements made by Wikipedia edtors. is a post from: Wikibias

At least two of the hijackers of Air France Flight 139 “two Germans from the German Revolutionary Cells—Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann” have their own articles for their involvement in this affair.

In light of that, how can editors justify not giving this pilot his own article? Notorious is okay but heroic is not?

Michel Bacos Deletion Alert is a post from: Wikibias

Note: Guest post from anonymous messenger. Content has been edited.

On January 2, 2011, editor Greg L, who appears to regard himself as a “great mind,” decided to rewrite the article on Nation, asserting “It’s time to start over on this article.”

Entering the discussion with the self-title of “experienced editor“, Greg L provides his adult assessment of the article:

As an experienced editor, I know crap articles when I see them. This one is beyond hope, with POV-pusing, Original Research, and zilch for citations. It is beyond hope. Just throw it away and build a new one from scratch with more contributions from experienced Wikipedians and less from I.P.s out to change the world by soap-boxing here. Seriously; just toss this one and start fresh.

While the “crap” version might have needed some polishing, it is hard to argue the original version is inferior to the gutted edition that exists today.

The article has been essentially reduced to a platform for the Palestinian cause with no mention of other nations.

50,000 users visited that page on a single day in June.

Wikipedia. Where anyone can rewrite the history of the world.

Nation and Wikipedia is a post from: Wikibias

Discussion.

Full article

Islamization of Jerusalem Deletion Alert is a post from: Wikibias

A discussion has emerged suggesting an alternate title to the article “2001 March Itamer attacks.”

One editor argues:

Itamar killings → Fogel family massacre. The latter has become by far the most common name for this event. Google hits:
Fogel family massacre: 404,000
Itamar massacre: 149,000
Itamar attack: 86,000
Itamar killings: 39,000
March 2011 Itamar attack (title as of this writing)

“It goes without saying that Fogel family massacre is more recognizable, natural and precise than the alternatives, as there have been several “attacks” and “killings” in Itamar, and the distinguishing characteristic of this incident is the targeting of a particular family. The current title, “March 2011 Itamar attack”, besides being unknown outside of Wikipedia, is simply awful: long, awkward and vague”

Convincing, yes? No, says Owain the 1st.

“I see your dishonest agenda thanks and now so can everyone else.Have to be in quotation marks? LOL..bit of a joke that is.Obviously in google searches it is far far more well known by Itamar murders..which is what is was murders.Itamar attack comes in at 2 million hits.”

For starters, using Google hits as a parameter to determine notability is flawed. Rarely should it be considered reliable in content disputes. However, the definition and precedents set by events characterized as massacres serve as a far more persuasive outline in judging future disputes. The brutal slaughter of the Fogel family cannot in any moral honest manner be described as an “attack.”

Those who are reading this and don’t quite understand the realities of the Fogel murders…see for yourselves.

Before.
Note: Not safe for work. Graphic photos cited:
After.

Attack, incident, or massacre? How to describe the killing of Jews on Wikipedia. is a post from: Wikibias

This article was deleted by Wikipedia administrators.

Note: Wikibias received a hard copy of the article by an anonymous editor before it was deleted and made inaccessible from Wikipedia. This is the most recent draft of the article available prior to its deletion.

Apartheid in Saudi Arabia refers to the systematic discrimination practiced by the Sunni dominated government of Saudi Arabia against the country’s citizens Shia citizens, against non-Muslims, and gender apartheid against Muslim women, as alleged by human rights groups and critics of Saudi Arabia’s's policies.

The mission of the Saudi Human Rights First Society is dedicated to “abolishing all discrimination in Saudi society on the basis of gender or religious belief” by peaceful means. On its home page, the HRFS cites a January 2008 “Country Summary” by Human Rights Watch describing “Saudi law and policies that discriminate against women, foreign workers, and religious minorities, especially Shia and Ismaili Saudis.”

The Human Rights Watch ”World Report 2008 describes “Human rights conditions” in Saudi Arabia as, “poor” and describes “Saudi law and policies (that) discriminate against women, foreign workers, and religious minorities, especially Shia and Ismaili Saudis.”Human Rights Watch, [] Jan 30, 2008. The Human Rights Watch report was replicated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In 2011 Human Rights Watch reported that:

“Authorities (in Saudi Arabia) continue to systematically suppress or fail to protect the rights of nine million Saudi women and girls, eight million foreign workers, and some two million Shia citizens.”

Definition of apartheid

In 1973 the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. The ICSPCA defines the crime of apartheid as:

inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group … over another racial group … and systematically oppressing them.”

In 2002 the crime of apartheid was further defined by Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as encompassing inhumane acts such as torture, murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, or persecution of an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other grounds, “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”

Apartheid status of Shia

Numerous authors, scholars, human rights organizations and commentators have condemned Saudi discrimination against Shia Muslims by comparing the Kingdom with .South Africa under apartheid.

Vali Nasr, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of “The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future”, considers that “For Shi’ites, Sunni rule has been like living under apartheid.”

According to Fr. Patrick Bascio, anti-Shia apartheid is embedded in the law. The traditional Shia practice of designating Descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib by means of a surname or honorific is banned on official documents and identity cards.

Importation of Shia religious books is banned on peril of imprisonment or whipping. Public celebrations are forbidden to use Shia religious songs. As is the public celebration of Nowruz.

Mohammad Taqi has written:

“The Saudi regime is also acutely aware that, in the final analysis, the Shiite grievances are not merely doctrinal issues but stem from socioeconomic deprivation, as a result of religious repression and political marginalization bordering on apartheid.” Amir Taheri quotes a Shi’ite businessman from Dhahran as saying “It is not normal that there are no Shi’ite army officers, ministers, governors, mayors and ambassadors in this kingdom. This form of religious apartheid is as intolerable as was apartheid based on race.”

Saudi Arabia is often accused of practicing apartheid against its Shia citizens.

Mohammad Taqiwrites that “The Saudi regime is also acutely aware that, in the final analysis, the Shiite grievances are not merely doctrinal issues but stem from socioeconomic deprivation, as a result of religious repression and political marginalization bordering on apartheid.”

Testifying before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Ali Al-Ahmed, Director of the Saudi Institute, stated:

Saudi Arabia is a glaring example of religious apartheid. The religious institutions from government clerics to judges, to religious curriculums, and all religious instructions in media are restricted to the Wahhabi understanding of Islam, adhered to by less than 40% of the population. The Saudi government communized Islam, through its monopoly of both religious thoughts and practice. Wahhabi Islam is imposed and enforced on all Saudis regardless of their religious orientations. The Wahhabi sect does not tolerate other religious or ideological beliefs, Muslim or not. Religious symbols by Muslims, Christians, Jewish and other believers are all banned. The Saudi embassy in Washington is a living example of religious apartheid. In its 50 years, there has not been a single non-Sunni Muslim diplomat in the embassy. The branch of Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University in Fairfax, Virginia instructs its students that Shia Islam is a Jewish conspiracy.

Amir Taheri quotes a Shi’ite businessman from Dhahran as saying “It is not normal that there are no Shi’ite army officers, ministers, governors, mayors and ambassadors in this kingdom. This form of religious apartheid is as intolerable as was apartheid based on race.”

Apartheid status of women

Saudi Arabia’s practices with respect women have been compared with racial apartheid and have been referred to as “gender apartheid”.

The legal restrictions imposed on Saudi women make the comparison compelling to many observers, who argue that women face legal restrictions on where they can travel, what they may study, what kinds of jobs they are permitted to hold, access to the legal system, and their right to political speech.

Muslims living in the West have been particularly critical of the Saudi apartheid policies towards women. Journalist Mona Eltahawy argues that

“Saudi women are denied many of the same rights that ‘Blacks’ and ‘Coloreds’ were denied in apartheid South Africa and yet the kingdom still belongs to the very same international community that kicked Pretoria out of its club.” Ali Al-Ahmed, the executive director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs (formerly the Saudi Institute) in Washington told CNN that “If blacks today were in South Africa not allowed to vote, we would be crying and screaming. There is not much difference between South African apartheid against the blacks and the Saudi apartheid against women.”

Writing in the ”Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy”, Professor Valorie Vojdik described the Saudi system as “a form of gender apartheid… requiring female military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia to comply with traditional Muslim gender norms. The case of Colonel Martha McSally, a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force sued the Department of Defense when American servicewomen were required to wear the abaya while in Saudi Arabia drew particular attention to Saudi apartheid practices.Professor Vojdik argues that military regulations that required female personnel leaving base to conform to Saudi apartheid laws that prohibit Muslim women
from driving vehicles off-base, specify that they must ride only in the back seat, and wear the enveloping abaya.

To Vojdik, these regulations “raise critical questions about the nature and meaning of gender in the United States military – a masculine institution historically hostile to the presence of women. The regulations on their face treat female military personnel differently than male personnel. But the regulations are not merely “double standards” that violate the principle of formal equality. As this essay argues, the regulations are better understood as an institutional practice that
construct and regulate the boundaries of gender in the military. A symbolic form of gender apartheid, the regulations construct female military personnel as women rather than warriors.

Speaking of the apartheid status that was forced on her and other American servicewomen in Saudi Arabia and, now, in Afghanistan, Colonel McSally asked, “If we were called into South Africa during apartheid, would we put our African-American soldiers in separate quarters? She has asserted that American military leaders would not “have dared encourage African-American troops to submit to local customs if they had been ordered to deploy to South Africa under apartheid.”

Andrea Dworkin referred to these practices simply as “apartheid”:

Seductive mirages of progress notwithstanding, nowhere in the world is apartheid practiced with more cruelty and finality than in Saudi Arabia. Of course, it is women who are locked in and kept out, exiled to invisibility and abject powerlessness within their own country. It is women who are degraded systematically from birth to early death, utterly and totally and without exception deprived of freedom. It is women who are sold into marriage or concubinage, often before puberty; killed if their hymens are not intact on the wedding night; kept confined, ignorant, pregnant, poor, without choice or recourse. It is women who are raped and beaten with full sanction of the law. It is women who cannot own property or work for a living or determine in any way the circumstances of their own lives. It is women who are subject to a despotism that knows no restraint. Women locked out and locked in. Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women has also been described as “sexual apartheid”.

Colbert I. King quotes an American official who accuses

Western companies of complicity in Saudia Arabia’s sexual apartheid:

One of the stil untold stories, however, is the cooperation of U.S. and other Western companies in enforcing sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other U.S. firms, for instance, maintain strictly segregated eating zones in their restaurants. The men’s sections are typically lavish, comfortable and up to Western standards, whereas the women’s or families’ sections are often run-down, neglected and, in the case of Starbucks, have no seats. Worse, these firms will bar entrance to Western women who show up without their husbands. My wife and other U.S. government affiliated] women were regularly forbidden entrance to the local McDonald’s unless there was a man with them.”

Azar Majedi, of the Centre for Women and Socialism, attributes sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia to political Islam:

Women are the first victims of political Islam and Islamic terrorist gangs. Sexual apartheid, stoning, compulsory Islamic veil and covering and stripping women of all rights are the fruits of this reactionary and fascistic movement. Political Islam has committed countless crimes both where they are in power, like the Islamic Republic in Iran, the Mujahedin and the Taliban in Afghanistan, in the Sudan and in Saudi Arabia, and where they are in opposition, as in Algeria, Pakistan and Egypt. Terrorising the population is the policy and strategy of this force for seizing power.

According to ”The Guardian”, “[i]n the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, sexual apartheid rules”, and this sexual apartheid is enforced by ”Mutaween”, religious police, though not as strongly in some areas:

The kingdom’s sexual apartheid is enforced, in a crude fashion, by the religious police, the mutawa. Thuggish, bigoted and with little real training in Islamic law, they are much feared in some areas but also increasingly ridiculed. In Jeddah – a more laid-back city than [[Riyadh]] – they are rarely seen nowadays.

Apartheid status of non-Muslims

Leading western and Christian voices have called Saudi treatment of the resident Christian community, and refusal to admit non-Muslims to citizenship forms of apartheid. Andrew C. McCarthy a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, describes “Saudi Arabia’s official policy of apartheid” as being grounded in Saudi belief is “a right to brutalize non-Muslims in order to ensure that an Islamic territory remains Islamic, and a right to purge non-Islamic influences from the Arabian Peninsula.”

According to Khaled Abu Toameh, Saudi Arabia is

“Often described as a ‘glaring example of religious apartheid’” because “Although Saudi authorities allow Christians to enter the country as temporary workers, they don’t permit them to practice their faith. Items and articles belonging to religions other than Islam are prohibited. Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is considered apostasy, a crime punishable by death. Saudi Arabia does not allow non-Muslim clergy to enter the kingdom country for the purpose of conducting religious services. Christians, and other non-Muslims, are prohibited from entering the cities of Mecca and Medina.”

Alan Dershowitz writes that “Saudi Arabia openly practices religious apartheid. It has special roads for “Muslims only.” It discriminates against Christians, refusing them the right to practice their religion openly. And needless to say, it doesn’t allow Jews the right to live in Saudi Arabia, to own property or even (with limited exceptions) to enter the country. Now that’s apartheid with a vengeance.”

Public worship by Christians is illegal and the posession of holy objects related to non-Muslim faiths is prohibited; banned objects include crucifixes and [[Bibles.

Celebration of non-Muslim holidays, including Christmas, is illegal.

Conversion from Islam Apostasy to Christianity is illegal and converts are subject to the death penalty.

See also:
Apartheid in Bahrain censored
Arab Apartheid?

Administrator responsible for deleting the article: Postdlf

Apartheid in Saudi Arabia – censored by Wikipedia is a post from: Wikibias

This article was deleted by Wikipedia administrator Postdlf

”Apartheid in Bahrain” refers to the systematic discrimination practiced by the Sunni dominated government of Bahrain against the Shia majority of the country’s citizens, as alleged by human rights groups and critics of Bahrain’s policies.

In 1973, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly: “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group … over another racial group … and systematically oppressing them.”

In 2002 the crime of apartheid was further defined by Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as encompassing inhumane acts such as torture, murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, or persecution of an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other grounds, “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”

The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights has called for reform of Bahrain’s regime of “sectarian apartheid.

Origins of the apartheid system in Bahrain

The majority of the population of Bahrain are Shia Muslims. Among the Shia are the Baharna, the ancient, indigenous people of the land. Other Shia have arrived more recently. The ruling Al Khalifa family arrived in Bahrain from Kuwait at the end of the eighteenth century.

In Chapter 1 of his book, ”Reaching for Power:The Shi’a in the Modern Arab World,” (Princeton University Press, 2006) Yitzhak Nakash, Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University the Shia of Bahrain, the indigenous people of the island, describe the in invasion and conquest by the Al Khalifa family in 1783 as illegitimate, and the family’s rule as an illegitimate occupation of Shia land. They allege that the Al Khalifa have failed to gain legitimacy in Bahrain and that the family and its Sunni supporters have established a system of “political apartheid based on racial, sectarian, and tribal discrimination.”

According to Vali Nasr, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of “The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future”, the Sunni élite treats Shi’ites as an underclass, limiting them primarily to manual labor and denying them a fair share of state resources. “For Shi’ites, Sunni rule has been like living under apartheid.”

Operation of the apartheid system in Bahrain

Time Magazine describes the “apartheid-like policies of a ruling Sunni minority over a Shia majority” and the Christian Science Monitor describes Bahrain’s apartheid policies as:

a form of sectarian apartheid by not allowing Shiites to hold key government posts or serve in the police or military. In fact, the security forces are staffed by Sunnis from Syria, Pakistan, and Baluchistan who also get fast-tracked to Bahraini citizenship, much to the displeasure of the indigenous Shiite population.

According to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights “In spite that the Shiites are a majority exceeding 70%, they occupy less than 18% of total top jobs in government establishments. In several government ministries and corporations no Shiite is appointed in leading jobs.”

Jobs in the police and armed forced are reserved for Sunni. Sunni Muslims from favored tribes are admitted to Bahrain as citizens to fill these jobs.

Legal restrictions on residence

Shiites and “some Sunnis of Persian origins”, are banned form residing in the city of Riffa. Only the ruling Sunni Muslims are permitted to live there. Teh city is “almost free” of Shia.

Demographic apartheid

The Bahraini government has made systematic efforts to alter the demographic balance of the majority Shiite country by promoting immigration of Sunni Muslims and granting them citizenship

According to Dr. Saeeid Shahabi, a London-based journalist, commentator and political analyst and member of the Bahrain Freedom Movement “there is the problem of political naturalization. The ruling family — similar to the Apartheid regime in South Africa, where you had a minority ruling a majority — wants to change the demographic situation of the country.”

Condemnations of the Baharaini apartheid system

According to the Bahrain Freedom Movement|Voice of Bahrian, UNHCR resolution (Ref: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/L.8):

“Questions of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including policies of racial discrimination and segregation and of apartheid, in all countries,” is a “resolution condemning the government of Bahrain.”

In the 1997 book, ”Routine abuse, routine denial: civil rights and the political crisis in Bahrain”, Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch, reported that the apartheid practiced against the Shia by the government appeared to be “worsening.” Iranian Press TV describes the systematic descrimination against the “indigenous people” of a policy of “sectarian discrimination, segregation and apartheid.”

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and other scholars, authors and commentators have accused the treatment of the .Shia majority by the Sunni government of Bahrain of similarity to apartheid South Africa.

Particular criticism has been leveled at the fact that Bahrain’s “apartheid” system “bars 70 percent of the population from serving in the army.” Bethany Breeze [] “A silent apartheid in Bahrain,” April 1, 2011, University of Idaho Argonaut.

Nicholas Kristof wrote that:

The language of the ruling party sounds a lot to me like the language of white South
Africans — or even like the language of white southerners in Jim Crow America… There’s a fear of the rabble, a distrust of full democracy, a sense of entitlement.”

Irshad Manji condemned as apartheid countries in which the “Sunni Muslim minorities control the Shia majorities.” According to Shibil Siddiqi of the Centre for the Study of Global Power and Politics at Trent University, “Bahrain is virtually an apartheid state.”

Ameen Izzadeen writing in the Daily Mirror asserts that:

After the dismantling of the apartheid regime in South Africa, Bahrain remained the only country where a minority dictated terms to a majority. More than 70 percent of the Bahrainis are Shiite Muslims, but they have little or no say in the government

This has resulted in a system that Ben Cohen calls “apartheid” because “Bahrain is a society where inequality is ethnically rooted, and then buttressed by the denial of civic and political freedoms.”

Writing in the ‘International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice’, Professor Staci Strobl of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice om the describes the demonstrators as “protesting an apartheid system that denies them opportunities equal to those of their Sunni neighbors.”

It has also been asserted that the apartheid policies may negatively impact Bahrain’s economic poiiton as a center for banking and trade in the Gulf. In 1997 the Guardian suggested that “if Bahrain is to preserve its reputation as a financial and service center in the Gulf, then the government must begin to forge a new national consensus and end the apartheid against the Shi’ites”

Calls for a Boycott

In 2010 the Al-Wafa Islamic Movement, Haq Movement and Bahrain Freedom Movement called for a boycott of the October 23 election to the Bahraini Council of Representatives on the grounds that participation would be “tantamount to accepting the unjust sectarian apartheid system.”

Note: Wikibias received a hard copy of the article by an anonymous editor before it was deleted and made inaccessible from Wikipedia. This is the most recent draft of the article available prior to its deletion.

External links:

* Bahrain Centre for Human Rights webpage
* Voice of Bahrain/Bahrain Freedom movement webpage

Apartheid in Bahrain – Censored by Wikipedia is a post from: Wikibias

This article was deleted by Wikipedia administrators.

Note: Wikibias received a hard copy of the article by an anonymous editor before it was deleted and made inaccessible from Wikipedia. This is the most recent draft of the article available prior to its deletion.

The Palestinian Authority’s treatment of the Christians, Jews, women, gays and the refugees of 1948 has been compared by United Nations investigators, human rights groups and critics of Israeli policy to South Africa’s treatment of non-whites during its apartheid era.

Public figures including Khaled Abu Toameh, Victor Davis Hanson, David Bedein and Alan Dershowitz have characterized the Palesitnian suthority of practicing “apartheid.”

Crime of Apartheid

In 1973, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. The ICSPCA defines the crime of apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group … over another racial group … and systematically oppressing them.”

In 2002 the crime of apartheid was further defined by Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as encompassing inhumane acts such as torture, murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, or persecution of an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other grounds, “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”

Apartheid against Christians

It is against the law share the Gospel with a Palestinian.

Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard University charges that “Hamas is notorious for its anti-Christian apartheid.” Under the Hamas-led government, anti=Christian apartheid has included bombings and attacks by gunmen on Christian individuals and institutions.

Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh describes the treatment of Christians living under the Palestinian Authority as a system of “apartheid”.

Apartheid against Ahmadi

Apostasy (conversion form Islam to another religion) is against the law in the Palestinian Authority. Penalties include forcible divorce (dissolution of the marriages of apostates) and the death penalty. Members of the minority Ahmadi Islamic sect are threatened with the death penalty due to court rulings that the sect is heretical.

Believers living in both the Palestinian Authority controlled West Bank and in Hamas controlled Gaza have been stripped of their property by legal action, beaten and had their property destroyed by thugs.

In Hamas-controlled Gaza

Alan Dershowitz accuses the Hamas government of Gaza as practicing “apartheid… against women, gays, Christians.”

Apartheid against Jews

The Palestinian Authority has been accused of being “an apartheid, racist, Palestinian state which openly and proudly states its intention of being Judenrein.”

Alan Dershowitz describes the Palestinian Authority’s policy statements that “‘no Jew’ will ever be allowed to live in a Palestinian state” as “apartheid”. Accusations that “apartheid” exists in “the territories currently occupied by the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority and the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip” on the gorunds that the “Palestinian Arabs ban all Jews from living amongst them” and “Arabs found to have sold property to Jewish purchasers are summarily executed – often in the public squares and streets of Palestinian Arab settlements. And on the grounds that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has declared that:

“I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land.”

Since its inception in 1994, the newly constituted Palestinian Authority, created by the PLO, has prepared the rudiments of a Palestinian State, modeled on the rules of Apartheid and institutionalized discrimination:

1. The right of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents to return to Arab villages lost in 1948 will be protected by the new Palestinian state.

2. While 20% of Israel’s citizens are Arabs, not one Jew will be allowed to live in a Palestinian State

3. Anyone who sells land to a Jew will be liable to the death penalty in the Palestinian State

4. Those who murder Jews are honored on all official Palestinian media outlets.

5. Palestinian Authority maps prepared for the Palestinian State depict all of Palestine under Palestinian rule

6. PA maps of Jerusalem for the Palestinian State once again delete the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem

7. Recent PA documents claim all of Jerusalem for the future Palestinian State.

8. The right of Jewish access to Jewish holy places is to be denied in the new Palestinian State.

9. The Draft Palestinian State Constitution denies juridical status to any religion except for Islam.

10. No system which protects human rights or civil liberties will exist in a Palestinian State.

If that is not a formula for a totalitarian apartheid state of Palestine, then what is?

Apartheid against Women

Alan Dershowitz and other commentators accuse the Hamas government of Gaza of practicing “apartheid… against women.” Victor Davis Hanson extends this accusatio to the Palestinian-ruled territories generally.

Apartheid against gays

According to the International Lesbian and Gay Association, Palestinian Authority law prohibits sexual relations between two men.

Alan Dershowitz and other commentators accuse the Hamas government of Gaza as practicing “apartheid… against… gays.”

Apartheid against the Palestinian refugees of 1948

The Palestinian Authority, most residents of which were residents of Jordan or Egypt until the 1967 War; since it became self-governing under the Oslo Accords of 1993, the Palestinian Authority has been accused of practicing apartheid against the Palestinian refugees of 1948 living under its jurisdiction.

If you want to use the term “apartheid” to characterize some aspect of Middle East politics, then Balata is a good place to apply it. It is the Palestinian Authority’s answer to Soweto. The PA does not permit the children of Balata to go to local schools. It does not permit the people of Balata to build outside the one square kilometer. The people of Balata are prevented from voting in local elections, and the PA provides none of the funds for the necessary infrastructure of the camp — including sewers and roads.

Sol Stern characterizes Balata as a

Quasi-apartheid welfare ghetto. The Palestinian Authority does not consider the residents of Balata citizens of Palestine; they do not vote on municipal issues, and they receive no PA funding for roads or sanitation. The refugee children—though after 60 years, calling young children “refugees” is absurd—go to separate schools run by UNRWA, the UN’s refugee-relief agency. The “refugees” are crammed into an area of approximately one square kilometer, and municipal officials prohibit them from building outside the camp’s official boundaries, making living conditions ever more cramped as the camp’s population grows.

See also:
Apartheid in Bahrain censored
Arab Apartheid?

Administrator responsible for deleting the article: Postdlf

Apartheid in Palestine – Censored by Wikipedia is a post from: Wikibias