{"id":12747,"date":"2012-09-19T14:02:57","date_gmt":"2012-09-19T21:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12747"},"modified":"2012-09-19T14:46:13","modified_gmt":"2012-09-19T21:46:13","slug":"us-state-department-remain-clueless-and-complicit-on-human-rights-abuse-in-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12747","title":{"rendered":"US State Department remains clueless and complicit on Human Rights Abuse in Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>US urges Bahrain to speed reforms<\/strong><br \/>\n19 September, 2012 &#8211; Al Akhbar<\/p>\n<p>The United States urged Bahrain on Wednesday to speed democratic reforms and hold meaningful talks with opposition groups to ensure stability in a strategic Gulf ally at a sensitive time.<\/p>\n<p>Bahrain must halt the excessive use of force by police and prosecute security forces for alleged crimes linked to mass protests, including torture and deaths of detainees in custody, a senior US official said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A stable, democratic healthy Bahrain, one where human rights issues are dealt with appropriately, is a country that&#8217;s going to be a strong ally and we need that,&#8221; Michael Posner, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told reporters in Geneva.<\/p>\n<p>Washington values the &#8220;strong security relationship&#8221; it has had for 60 years with Bahrain, home of the US Fifth Fleet, &#8220;particularly in light of things going on in the Gulf now&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Posner did not elaborate.<\/p>\n<p>Posner was to hold talks later in the day with Foreign Minister Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa who defended the kingdom&#8217;s record at the UN Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We welcome peaceful expressions of disagreement, but not incitements to hatred and violence which damage the social fabric of a nation,&#8221; Al Khalifa told the Geneva forum, pledging that his government would pursue &#8220;unprecedented reforms&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>But Posner said progress had slowed and there had been no successful prosecutions of anyone involved in cases of torture and deaths in custody. &#8220;The fact is that a number of people, police and others who committed violations last February and March have not been held accountable,&#8221; he said. <a href=\"http:\/\/english.al-akhbar.com\/content\/us-urges-bahrain-speed-reforms\" target=\"_blank\"> &#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D12747&amp;text=US+State+Department+remains+clueless+and+complicit+on+Human+Rights+Abuse+in+Bahrain&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US urges Bahrain to speed reforms 19 September, 2012 &#8211; Al Akhbar The United States urged Bahrain on Wednesday to speed democratic reforms and hold meaningful talks with opposition groups to ensure stability in a strategic Gulf ally at a sensitive time. Bahrain must halt the excessive use of force by police and prosecute security <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12747#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">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":[2463],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12747"}],"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=12747"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12749,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12747\/revisions\/12749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}