{"id":4912,"date":"2012-03-21T11:25:16","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T18:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4912"},"modified":"2012-03-21T11:30:35","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T18:30:35","slug":"king-hamads-barney-boys-pillock-and-dibble-step-up-for-a-round-of-good-ol-colonial-thuggery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4912","title":{"rendered":"King Hamad’s, “barney boys”, Pillock and Dibble, step up for a round of good ‘ol colonial thuggery"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAHRAIN: AMERICAN AND BRITISH POLICE CHIEFS STEP UP STATE REPRESSION<\/strong>
\nJanuary 8, 2012 – by Finian Cunningham -Global Research <\/p>\n

Two former police chiefs from the US and Britain have brought discernible Western \u201cexpertise\u201d to the Bahraini force only weeks following their appointments \u2013 a surge in repression and state terrorism.<\/p>\n

Former Miami police chief John Timoney and his British counterpart, John Yates, formerly commander at London\u2019s Scotland Yard, were assigned last month by Bahrain\u2019s royal rulers to \u201coversee reform\u201d of the Persian Gulf kingdom\u2019s security forces. Officially, the appointment of the American and Briton was to bring Western professional policing to the Bahraini force and specifically to upgrade the human rights record of Bahrain\u2019s ministry of interior and National Security Agency.<\/p>\n

The assignments were announced by King Hamad Al Khalifa following a report by an international commission of inquiry into widespread human rights violations in the US-backed oil kingdom since pro-democracy protests erupted there last February.<\/p>\n

As reported earlier by Global Research, the inquiry report and the subsequent appointment of the US and British police chiefs appeared to be a public relations exercise to burnish the tarnished image of this key Persian Gulf ally of Washington and London.<\/p>\n

However, only weeks into their jobs, the Western commanders appear to have been given a remit that goes well beyond public relations, namely, to sharpen the repression against the pro-democracy movement.<\/p>\n

Human rights activists and several political sources say that state forces have dramatically stepped up violence towards protesters and targeting of the Shia community generally. The diminutive island state of less than 600,000 nationals is comprised mainly of Shia muslims (70 per cent) who are ruled over by a Sunni elite installed by Britain when the kingdom gained nominal independence in 1971. American and British government support for the unelected Al Khalifa monarchy is viewed by the majority of Bahrainis as being at odds with their claims for democratic rights. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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BAHRAIN: AMERICAN AND BRITISH POLICE CHIEFS STEP UP STATE REPRESSION January 8, 2012 – by Finian Cunningham -Global Research Two former police chiefs from the US and Britain have brought discernible Western \u201cexpertise\u201d to the Bahraini force only weeks following their appointments \u2013 a surge in repression and state terrorism. Former Miami police chief John 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":[2326,2327],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912"}],"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=4912"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7617,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912\/revisions\/7617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}