{"id":12466,"date":"2012-09-11T09:11:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T16:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12466"},"modified":"2012-09-11T09:11:51","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T16:11:51","slug":"bahrain-never-heard-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12466","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain? Never Heard of It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain? Never Heard of It<\/strong>
\nby Kelley B. Vlahos – 11 September, 2012 -AntiWar<\/p>\n

News that a civilian appeals court in Bahrain upheld the harsh prison terms \u2014including several life sentences \u2014 of 13 \u201cArab Spring\u201d activists last week, drew rapid fire from the human rights community. Their \u201ccrimes\u201d \u2014 organizing largely peaceful protests to demand social and economic reforms from the ruling monarchy in 2011 \u2014 had branded them convicted traitors and terrorists, the kind of appalling injustice that American patriots had fought against more than 200 years ago.
\nBahraini security forces during the 2011 uprising.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s court decision is yet another blow to justice and shows once more that the Bahraini authorities are not on the path of reform but seem rather driven by vindictiveness,\u201d said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director of Amnesty International\u2019s Middle East and North Africa Program.<\/p>\n

Bahrain\u2019s Shia population took to the streets in February 2011 amid the wave of social and political uprisings across the Arab World. Unlike Egypt, Tunisia or even Libya, however, the Sunni Al Khalifa royal family \u2014 which has ruled the oil rich country (and the Shia majority) for two centuries \u2014 has managed to emerge unscathed. Instead, Bahrain has thwarted and suppressed its popular movement without fully engaging in the reforms it\u2019s promised. Making it worse, the major mainstream coverage of the Bahraini story \u2014 including the brutal crackdown against protesters, their arrests, alleged torture in prison, the \u201cdisappearing\u201d of activists and even doctors who have helped the wounded, the nighttime raids in Shiite neighborhoods \u2014 has been sporadic at best to non-existent.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to wonder why. This week, a pair of stories by Glenn Greenwald (here and here) have re-engaged a debate about how western financial interests coupled with so-called \u201csmart power\u201d strategy in the region, has left the reform movement in Bahrain far behind. This only reinforces the longstanding accusation of American hypocrisy \u2014 preaching the goals of liberty for all humans, but only when it suits.<\/p>\n

Feeble American Response<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his acceptance speech before the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, President Obama had very little to say about foreign policy, and even less to say about global human rights. He did make one sweeping nod to the people-driven freedom movements that have marked the last two years of his presidency:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe historic change sweeping across the Arab World must be defined not by the iron fist of a dictator or the hate of extremists, but by the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people who are reaching for the same rights that we celebrate today.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise he didn\u2019t say more about the Arab Spring \u2014 his administration has not taken a clear approach to any of it. Rather it has offered a patchwork of official responses, ranging from full-on military assistance for anti-government forces in Libya, to a more tolerant, wait-and-see position with others, particularly in Egypt. There, U.S. officials condemned the violence against the protesters in Tahrir Square, and supported reforms in spirit, but were forced to contemplate a future relationship without their reliable dictator-friend, Hosni Mubarak, and with an Islamist party that says it won\u2019t kowtow to U.S. influence. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bahrain? Never Heard of It by Kelley B. Vlahos – 11 September, 2012 -AntiWar News that a civilian appeals court in Bahrain upheld the harsh prison terms \u2014including several life sentences \u2014 of 13 \u201cArab Spring\u201d activists last week, drew rapid fire from the human rights community. Their \u201ccrimes\u201d \u2014 organizing largely peaceful protests to more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2681],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12467,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12466\/revisions\/12467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}