{"id":8237,"date":"2012-04-03T08:29:41","date_gmt":"2012-04-03T15:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=8237"},"modified":"2012-04-03T08:53:02","modified_gmt":"2012-04-03T15:53:02","slug":"bahrain-improving-human-rights-one-cracked-head-at-a-time-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=8237","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain improving human rights one cracked head at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBahrain: Crushing Pro-Democracy Protests. American and British Police Chiefs Step Up State Repression Top Western appointments allegedly aimed at improving human rights\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

29 March, 2012 – by Finian Cunningham – Global Research
\nTwo 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

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\nTimoney left sips coffee while villages being attack with chemical gas<\/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 [1].<\/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.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, Bahraini state forces have killed some 50 people; thousands have been maimed, wounded and detained, many of the latter tortured. Proportionate to its population, such state violence is comparable to what Washington and London have loudly denounced the Libyan and Syrian regimes for \u2013 indeed mounting a military invasion of the former and threatening to do so in the latter \u2013 under the guise of \u201cprotecting human rights\u201d. By contrast, there is hardly a word of denunciation from Washington or London towards the Bahraini regime, which hosts the US Navy\u2019s Fifth Fleet. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain: Crushing Pro-Democracy Protests. American and British Police Chiefs Step Up State Repression Top Western appointments allegedly aimed at improving human rights\u2026 29 March, 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 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":[582],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8237"}],"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=8237"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8243,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8237\/revisions\/8243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}