By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

It is nine years now since the start of the popular peaceful protests in Manama the capital of the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain that were brutally suppressed by the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime, but beneath the superficial calm the volcano of the people’s anger continues to simmer and could burst with much more velocity any moment.
It means the regime, descended from pirates of the Khor Abdullah waterway who seized Bahrain, is living on borrowed time and no amount of military protection provided by the U.S. Britain, Saudi Arabia, or for that matter from its newfound liege lord Israel, can guarantee the survival of the Aal-e Khalifas.
The writing on the wall is crystal clear. Despite the regime’s campaign of deception through hosting of sporting events, international exhibits, and officials of the illegal Zionist entity, the oppressed majority is resolved to reclaim its denied rights – a not too distant reality that causes nightmares to the Saudis as well, since Bahrain’s independence will definitely encourage the long-suppressed Shi’a Muslim majority of the oil-rich eastern region where Aramco is based, to reclaim freedom for their own homeland which has been under occupation of the Najdis since World War 1.
A couple of days ago on February 14 Manama wore the look of a police state with security forces hired from other countries – mostly non-Arab such as Pakistan – posted at every nook and cranny to prevent the people from taking to the streets, the masses did mark the 9th anniversary of the unfinished revolution with vociferous chants against the hated regime and determination to achieve freedom.
Demonstrators in the capital as well as in the village of Sanabis (in the suburbs of Manama), the northwestern village of Diraz, the Bilad al-Qadeem suburb, the village of Tubli, and in the west of the island of Sitra, called for the ouster of the regime and immediate release of political prisoners. They also responded to calls for acts of civil disobedience, by closing shops and boycotting work and school. Security forces clashed with the protestors and tried to disperse them by firing tear gas, while arresting a number of them.
The determination and aspirations of the people, however, remain high in the face of the state of fear created by the regime through arrest, imprisonment, torture, murder, deportation, and deprival of citizenship.
In the words of one activist, the regime is trying to cover the embers with sand, but the embers are still burning, and will soon trigger a chain of blazes to light the path towards freedom from domestic despotism and Anglo-American hegemony.
The regime, in addition to illegally revoking the citizenship and exiling known activists such as Bahrain’s senior-most religious leader Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qasim, has handed down through kangaroo courts life sentences to internationally renowned human rights activists like Nabeel Rajab and Hassan Mushaima, along with leaders of the recognized opposition parties such as Sheikh Ali Salman of al-Wefaq that once held a number of seats in the now dissolved elected parliament.
Washington and London which every often accuse independent countries of violation of human rights and lack of democracy, have been tightlipped about the trampling of civil liberties in Bahrain, similar to their silence on the crimes against humanity of the Aal-Saud minority cultish regime of Riyadh.
This hypocrisy is evident to all, and the people of Bahrain who until now were calling for reforms, freedoms, and electoral rights for the long suppressed majority without disturbing the administrative structure, have become disillusioned of any peaceful solution to their just demands.
The masses, especially the growing number of youths, point out that the regime is not interested in reform or reconciliation. It has ignored calls for an end to its assault on pro-democracy forces, and has actually intensified its crackdown. Security forces are once again laying siege to many poor villages, where the sanctity of mosques and hussainiyahs is desecrated, religious symbols are torn, women and children are assaulted, and even copies of the holy Qur’an trampled.
The regime deliberately arrests, tortures and harasses women and uses all methods of humiliation to insult them, which are intended to put pressure on the people to abandon the uprising. In such a situation where the Aal-e Khalifa clique refuses to relinquish power and let a just system representing all Bahrainis be established, an armed struggle is the only way.
This is an eventuality, without the supply of weapons from abroad as the energetic and innovative Bahraini youths have the minds to assembly and produce some of the most sophisticated fire-arms as the last resort to reclaim their rights for which they are ready to court martyrdom at the hands of the pro-Israeli Aal-e Khalifa regime, which has no pretensions to Islam and has already backstabbed the Palestinians by siding with the U.S. to sell Bayt al-Moqaddas to the Zionists.