Bahrain regime publishes list of 20 wanted for “terrorism”
Bahrain publishes list of 20 wanted for “terrorist” attacks
16 May, 2012 – Lebanon Now
Bahrain released on Wednesday a list of names of 20 people wanted by the authorities over “terrorist bombings” in which policemen and civilians were wounded, state news agency BNA reported.
Investigation has shown that the 20 “committed terrorist crimes by making and using homemade bombs and carrying out criminal acts which have caused injuries among civilians and policemen and have terrorized citizens and residents,” BNA said.
The list, which BNA said was published with the consent of the attorney general to facilitate their arrest, urged all citizens to provide authorities with information on the 20 accused.
The statement did not specify which “bombings” it was referring to. But Bahraini authorities repeatedly denounce what they say are “terrorist acts” against security forces trying to disperse Shia-led protests in the kingdom.
On May 5, the Interior Ministry said four policemen were wounded in a “terror blast” in a Shia village.
A similar explosion in another Shia-populated village also left four policemen wounded in April.
The tiny Gulf kingdom’s Shia majority claim marginalization and disenfranchisement by the Sunni regime, and have for months been calling for political and social reforms.
Amnesty International says around 60 people have been killed since the anti-regime protests first erupted in February 2011.
May 16, 2012 No Comments
Stonewalling democracy in Bahrain
West stonewalling democracy in Bahrain
29 March, 2012 – By Ismail Salami – PressTV
The West blatantly pontificates about democracy in the Middle East and North Africa and shuts its ears to the excruciating cry for social justice in Bahrain. To crown it all, it provides the regime with every means to carry out its brutality and crackdown.
Google Bahrain and you will see how inexcusably the popular uprising in the Persian Gulf sheikhdom is being blacked out by the mainstream media and how discriminatingly the Western leaders ignore the vociferous demands of a nation for democracy and social justice.
Bahraini protesters are arrested and systematically tortured on a daily basis. The head of a fact-finding mission set up by the Bahraini government to investigate reports of torture has said Manama uses the systematic policy of torture against protesters.
Cherif Bassiouni said on November 2, 2011 that he had found 300 cases of torture during his investigation.
“It is not possible to justify torture in any way, and despite the small number of cases, it is clear there was a systematic policy,” Bassiouni said in an interview with Egyptian daily Almasry Alyoum.
“I investigated and I found 300 cases of torture and I was helped in that by legal experts from Egypt and America,” he added.
Brian Dooley of Human Rights First gives a painful account of the ordeals the Bahraini protesters arrested by the Bahraini forces. He also talks about teenage boys severely beaten by the Saudi-backed forces:
“They beat us until they got tired, then other policemen would take over and beat us more,” said one boy.
On March 22, 2012, Bahraini activists released a footage detailing the rape of a child at the hands of the Saudi-backed forces in Bahrain. The footage which was enough to chill the spine and curdle the blood showed a handcuffed child with his pants down. He was badly beaten. He was left unconscious with his hands tied behind his back. He was discovered lying in a street in the village of Sanabis, outside of Manama.
Kangaroo courts are rampant in Bahrain. In a 94-page report titled No Justice in Bahrain: Unfair Trials in Military and Civilian Courts in February 2011, the Human Rights Watch blasted the grotesquely Kafkaesque trials in the country, saying such trials were crass and politically motivated.
“Grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW.
“The government should remedy the hundreds of unfair convictions of the past year by dropping the cases against everyone convicted on politically motivated charges and by adopting effective measures to end torture in detention,” he noted.
The group also demanded Western countries to suspend all military and security-related sales to the regime until the government fully addresses the violations. …more
March 29, 2012 No Comments
Wating on justice
February 15, 2012 No Comments
King Hamad, “democracy? human rights? no, let them suffocate on gas” – my how very Nazi of you King
Bahrain: Dialogue With Teargas?
By William Fisher – The Public Record – December 19th, 2011
Aerial views of protesters clashing with police during an uprising earlier this year. Photo: Yana Kunichoff/Truthout
Some mainstream media are suggesting that the Bahraini version of The Arab Spring is over. Crushed was the word used by one of the mainstream US newspapers.
But the Sunni King of the tiny oil-rich country, Hamad-Bin-Isa-Al-Khalifa, says the independent report he commissioned is being implemented. The report concluded that peaceful demonstrators were being attacked by soldiers, arbitrarily arrested, taken to prison and tortured. The King has, unexplainably, accepted the report’s findings and promised to work with the people on long-overdue reforms. He is seeking patience from his majority Shia subjects.
But these subjects – at least what appears to be a substantial proportion of them – have run out of patience. They have been shot at, killed and wounded, arrested and tortured since March. They have no faith in the King’s reforms. They think he’s stalling to buy time. They are telling a very different story.
Their story is about peaceful demonstrations being broken up by security forces with live fire in addition to tear gas, batons and water canon. Their story is about continuing middle-of-the night home invasions by security men, threatening whole families, arresting the men, and taking them away to an uncertain future. Their story is about sick people in jail not getting adequate medical attention and prisoners being routinely tortured. Their story is about thousands of teachers, doctors and nurses being fired from their jobs. Their story is about thousands of students expelled from the university.
These Bahrainis will be satisfied with nothing less than the abdication of the King, the removal of his family from the most senior government posts, a new constitution and an election to create a parliamentary democracy. The King has won no trust from this group. Their mantra here, as it was for Mubarak in Tahrir Square in Egypt, is: The King Must Go!
There are other Bahrainis, however, who appear willing to attempt to participate in a dialogue with the Royals to determine for themselves whether His Majesty is serious about real reforms. But thus far, there has been virtually no action taken by the Government to begin creating any sort of dialogue.
So while the Royal family and its government remain unified and determined, a small divide has opened among two factions of protestors. How this will play out over time is unclear. But time appears to be on the side of the King, in whose name security forces, backed by the presence of troops from Saudi Arabia, appear prepared to continue their brutal crackdowns on dissidents. …more
December 19, 2011 No Comments
The Pearl’s Pillars
“Hope you are well. I don’t know if you heard, but my father was beaten until he was unconscious then arrested with two of my brothers in law. We still don’t know where any of them are.”
The Pearl’s Pillars
by Maryam Al-Khawaja
Five arms stretched from the ground
Each palm embraced the pure limp bodies in shrouds
Their reflection was a wide glow in the dark night
Shining down on the peaceful crowds
Five arms stretched from the ground
Each palm held a cry of “Allahu Akbar”
Held a revolutionary song
Held a poem of defiance
Held a scream for freedom
Five arms stretched from the ground
Palms covered with a grave of flowers
Fingertips pointing towards the heavens
A mother’s tears celebrating a wedding’s last hours
Five arms came down with vengeance
But heroes stood their ground
Flowers in hand
Bullets were the only answer they found
She stood there
Flag held high
The red splattered blood on the earth
As the remaining white screamed “I am peaceful!”
Five arms stood no more
Like the fresh buds of spring
Arms emerged from every futile earth
Rising above lands
Diseased with money and power
The red seeped through the earth
With the cries of the martyrs’ children
The ground shook
And the throne broke
King came down on his knees
In the air echoed the crown prince’s pleas
“I promise you words
Words worth your blood
Come now, don’t delay
Come to dialogue I say
Hand in hand
Pull me out from the quicksand
And in this dark hour
Help me stay in power”
The young voice drowned his pleas
Thus into hiding he fleas
“Accountability, accountability,
You have lost your credibility
When your army shot our sons
Using U.S. made guns”
So the tribe caught her
and beat her with knives and swords
Then showered her with stones
As they cried to the world
“Stone her she is sectarian
She eats at Lebanese restaurants
And owns Iranian rugs
Our unarmed tanks she hunts
No we swear those are not our thugs”
And foreign hands played the melody to their cries
As they spread propaganda and lies
Plays of deceit
Created by their playwrights
“You are Shiaa
Every year
We discover and foil your plan
Of overthrowing our clan
In the restaurant you were trained
And the rug in conspiracy we framed
Close down the restaurant
The rugs tear to bits
Quickly quickly
Before they discover our fibs”
Slowly but surely
From beneath the rubble
A fist emerged
“Do what you will
My voice you cannot kill
My land I will never betray
And from the path of righteousness I will not stray
I stand against every foreign intervention
While you invite them to kill and put my people in detention
My determination will not heed
Nor will your plays succeed
For I am not Shiaa
Nor am I Sunni
I am forever only Bahraini!
May 17, 2011 No Comments
Bahrain Regime Expands Genocidal Purge of Pro-democracy Citizens
Bahrain: New attacks on democracy movement
Sunday, April 17, 2011
By Ash Pemberton
The Bahraini government has ordered the dissolution of two opposition political parties. The move is part of its crackdown against the pro-democracy movement that broke out in February.
The al-Wefaq and al-Amal parties were ordered to dissolve for “threatening peace”. The order is in response to their involvement in the protests that called for the removal of the Khalifah royal family, which has ruled the country for more than 200 years, the April 14 Washington Post said.
Four people were killed in police custody after authorities launched a campaign of mass arrests, CNN.com said on April 13. At least two of those killed showed signs of torture.
Human Rights Watch said at least 430 people have been arrested in the crackdown.
The Bahraini government has also attacked media organisations critical of the crackdown. Three editors of the Al-Wasat newspaper have been charged with publishing “fabricated news” and “false pictures”.
The crackdown began on March 15 after troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded Bahrain to assist the government’s failing efforts to stop the protests.
More than 30 people were killed and hundreds injured since the protests began on February 15.
The US has remained silent about the repression. Bahrain has long been a key ally for the US, due to its strategic position in the Persian Gulf. It also hosts the US navy’s fifth fleet and a US airbase. …source
April 17, 2011 No Comments