{"id":9182,"date":"2012-04-26T10:25:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T17:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9182"},"modified":"2012-04-26T10:25:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T17:25:45","slug":"fia-bloody-misstep-leads-callsfor-sanctions-and-boycotts-against-bahrain-and-f1-sponsors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9182","title":{"rendered":"FIA bloody misstep, leads callsfor sanctions and boycotts against Bahrain and F1 sponsors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain is still rife with human rights abuses, torture and political imprisonments, says Sara Yasin. No wonder the world was “hostile” to its Grand Prix<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s time to stop dealing with Bahrain<\/strong>
\nBy Sara Yasin – 26 April, 2012 – Telegraph<\/p>\n

In the pages of The Daily Telegraph on Monday, John Yates, the former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police now working in Bahrain advising the government on police reform, claimed that “Bahrainis are bewildered by the world hostility”, and by headlines that suggested a serious safety risk to Formula One teams.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, all eyes were on Bahrain, and not for the reason the government had hoped. Coverage of Sebastian Vettel\u2019s victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix was drowned out by a mess of stun grenades, burning tyres, tear gas and Molotov cocktails. Bahrain\u2019s ongoing unrest pushed human rights organisations to call for the race to be cancelled.<\/p>\n

Yates says the F1 teams’ safety was never at risk \u2013 but in the lead up to the race he claimed that live rounds could be used to make ensure their cars could speed around the Sakhir track. Does Yates seriously expect the world\u2019s press to ignore incidents that included a Force India team mechanic narrowly avoiding being hit by petrol bombs during a clash between protesters and police?<\/p>\n

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone and Bahraini officials insisted that the show must go on, saying that sport has nothing to do with politics. Sports journalists were left to cover the violent crackdown on protesters and death of one protester \u2013 Salah Abbas Habib \u2013 on Saturday. His death and the death earlier in the month of another protester are a testament to the failure of reforms in the country.<\/p>\n

Those who defend Bahrain\u2019s government claim it is improving \u2013 acting to protect human rights, regulate policing and create more transparency. But as we saw this weekend, the situation on the ground is deteriorating. The country has been plagued by protests, peaceful and violent. The protesters do not believe reform is coming. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain is still rife with human rights abuses, torture and political imprisonments, says Sara Yasin. No wonder the world was “hostile” to its Grand Prix It’s time to stop dealing with Bahrain By Sara Yasin – 26 April, 2012 – Telegraph In the pages of The Daily Telegraph on Monday, John Yates, the former assistant 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":[2306],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9182"}],"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=9182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9183,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9182\/revisions\/9183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}