{"id":3729,"date":"2011-10-31T19:15:18","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T02:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3729"},"modified":"2011-10-31T19:15:18","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T02:15:18","slug":"the-arab-spring-and-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3729","title":{"rendered":"The Arab Spring and Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"

POMED Notes: \u201cThe Arab Spring and Bahrain\u201d<\/strong>
\n30 October, 2011 – POMED Wire<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Universal Muslim Association of America (UMAA) hosted a panel discussion entitled \u201cThe Arab Spring and Bahrain,\u201d part of UMAA\u2019s National Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill. Speakers included Husain Abdulla, Director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain; lawyer and activist Dr. Abdulhameed Dashti; exiled Bahraini dissident Al-Sayid Qasem Al-Hashemi; and Human Rights Watch\u2019s Washington Director Tom Malinowski. Mowahid Shah moderated the event.<\/p>\n

For full event notes, continue reading. Or, click here for the PDF<\/strong><\/a>. Abdulla began by noting that while the Bahraini uprising began with simple demands, the government crackdown intensified these desired reforms to calls for regime change. The U.S. administration\u2019s initial reaction urged the Government of Bahrain to not attack peaceful protesters, and the al-Khalifa regime responded by \u201cbacking off,\u201d allowing protesters to camp in Pearl Roundabout and announcing a National Dialogue. Then, Abdulla argued, the White House policy changed from one of support for protesters to regime stabilization. The onus for the shift, he added, was the presence of the U.S. naval base in Bahrain. Now, Abdulla said, the U.S. administration has pursued a policy of \u201cstrongly taking the side of the Bahraini government.\u201d Furthermore, the coverage of the Bahraini revolution differed from that of its regional neighbors because of the close relationship between the U.S. and Bahrain.<\/p>\n

Abdulla asserted that the movement in Congress against the proposed arms sale to Bahrain was sparked by the activism of human rights groups. Support for the joint House and Senate resolutions has been bi-partisan, he added. He also cited the arrival of 29 Bahrainis seeking political asylum in the U.S. over the last two months as testimony that \u201cthere is a serious problem\u201d in Bahrain, and that the U.S. administration must \u201ctalk to our ally.\u201d He suggested allowing peaceful protests as a \u201cgood gesture\u201d from the al-Khalifa government, and concluded by saying that Bahraini oppositionists are facing \u201cmercenaries in Bahrain\u201d as well as \u201cmercenaries in Washington,\u201d referencing the Bahraini government\u2019s contracts with nine lobbying firms. \u201cThe movement in Bahrain is indigenous, and its demands are fair,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dashti then discussed the \u201cdouble standard\u201d the Bahraini uprising faces. Opposition members expected the same level of U.S. support that Egypt and Tunisia enjoyed, but have recieved an unbalanced approach that obscures the \u201clegitimate demands of the Bahraini revolution.\u201d He argued that the government of Bahrain has violated international human rights standards, including the conventions against genocide. The regime\u2019s targeting of the Shia community constitutes genocide, he asserted. International organizations have failed to act. This inaction is caused by U.S. interests in the Gulf as well as the power of Saudi Arabia. He also said that the Bahraini government is \u201cimporting a new population to change the demography\u201d of the country. The U.S., he said, controls the Gulf and Bahrain; thus, he asked Americans to \u201cput pressure on Congress to help the Bahraini people.\u201d …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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POMED Notes: \u201cThe Arab Spring and Bahrain\u201d 30 October, 2011 – POMED Wire On Thursday, the Universal Muslim Association of America (UMAA) hosted a panel discussion entitled \u201cThe Arab Spring and Bahrain,\u201d part of UMAA\u2019s National Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill. Speakers included Husain Abdulla, Director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain; more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1997],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729"}],"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=3729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}