{"id":4860,"date":"2012-01-10T11:00:03","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T18:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4860"},"modified":"2012-01-10T10:59:08","modified_gmt":"2012-01-10T17:59:08","slug":"british-embassy-protests-in-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4860","title":{"rendered":"UN Office Protests in Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain protests draw thousands to UN office in Manama<\/strong>
\n10 January 2012 – BBC<\/p>\n

Several thousand people have held a protest outside the United Nations’ offices in Bahrain’s capital, Manama.<\/p>\n

The demonstrators chanted “Down, Down, Khalifa” – a reference to long-serving Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman al-Khalifa, activists said.<\/p>\n

They also carried banners urging the UN to “intervene to protect civilians”.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said that police allowed the peaceful demonstration to proceed without interference, while a police helicopter hovered overhead.<\/p>\n

One activist told the BBC: “Today the police were good. They didn’t close off roads, they didn’t attack us as they usually do with tear gas and stun grenades.”<\/p>\n

Observers say the police might have behaved with restraint because of a rare public rebuke by the United States last week over police tactics and the beating of a well-known human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab.<\/p>\n

The US state department said the facts of the case were in dispute, but that it was very concerned “about frequent reports of excessive force”.
\nRestraint<\/p>\n

Bahrain’s ruling Al Khalifa family are Sunni Muslim, while the majority of the Gulf state’s population – and those attending anti-government protests – are Shia Muslim.<\/p>\n

The prime minister has held his position for more than 40 years. He is the uncle of the king, Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa, and is widely considered to be a hardliner.<\/p>\n

Longstanding Shia resentment over discrimination in the kingdom helped trigger months of unrest last year.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s rally outside the UN’s offices was organised by several opposition political parties, including the main Shia movement, al-Wefaq, and the secular Waad party, which is headed by a Sunni, Ibrahim Sharif.<\/p>\n

Mr Sharif is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for plotting to overthrow the state, a charge which independent observers have said is without any merit.<\/p>\n

Al-Wefaq and Waad have refused to take part in national reconciliation discussions ordered by King Hamad in the wake of a damning report by a panel of international human rights experts in November.<\/p>\n

The report, commissioned by the king, is seen as an attempt to defuse tensions between the government and predominantly Shia protesters that saw at least 35 people die.<\/p>\n

The committee was chaired by a distinguished Egyptian human rights lawyer, Professor Cherif Bassiouni.<\/p>\n

His report documented numerous and systematic human rights abuses by the government against its citizens, including excessive use of force by police and torture in custody.
\n…more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain protests draw thousands to UN office in Manama 10 January 2012 – BBC Several thousand people have held a protest outside the United Nations’ offices in Bahrain’s capital, Manama. The demonstrators chanted “Down, Down, Khalifa” – a reference to long-serving Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman al-Khalifa, activists said. They also carried banners urging 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":[2317],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4860"}],"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=4860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4862,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4860\/revisions\/4862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}