Release My Friend!
\nBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
\nPublished: June 8, 2011<\/p>\n
Dear King Hamad of Bahrain, <\/p>\n
Among those whom you\u2019re imprisoning in Bahrain is a friend of mine. He is an artist, one of the most gentle souls alive, and my deepest fear is that your government may be brutalizing him because of his friendship with me.<\/p>\n
Your Majesty, I\u2019m speaking of Hassan al-Sahaf. Now 57, he studied in Britain and then in Los Angeles, Boston and in Oregon, where my mother taught art history \u2014 and Hassan became one of my mother\u2019s all-time favorite students. That was 30 years ago, but we have remained in touch ever since.<\/p>\n
King Hamad, you present the crackdown on the democracy movement as an effort to restore order. But Hassan is not some teenage firebrand hurling rocks; he\u2019s a slight, graying scholar committed to peace. That\u2019s the pattern: So many of the people in your jails are doctors and intellectuals whose only offense is to dream of democracy. …more<\/a><\/p>\n