Regime Undoing in Bahrain

Date: 22 June 2016 - 21:25

News ID: ۲۸۱۱۰

By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani says the recent intensification of a crackdown on Shia Muslims in Bahrain signals the looming demise of the Al Khalifah regime.
In his words, the Bahraini regime’s decision to strip prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim of his citizenship is "immature” and "adventurist,” which reflects the political crisis in the tiny Persian Gulf island. These measures are a sign that a regime that threatens its prominent figures with revoking their citizenship is drawing its last breaths.
Indeed, the decision is only the latest in a string of inhumane measures that include repressing political dissent, manipulating Shia religious funds, and killing Bahraini civilians. That says why 251 Iranian lawmakers have also issued a statement, condemning the decision as well as the intentional community’s silence toward it.
So it’s not just a sad day for Shia Muslims. It’s also a sad day for the international community, particularly the Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Human Rights Council, which systematically look the other way when they hear news about rights abuses in Bahrain. At best, they simply read out a statement.
It is because of the inaction of rights groups such as the UN Human Rights Council that the Bahraini authorities and security forces continue to commit serious and systematic human rights violations, including torture and widespread arbitrary arrests, against the majority Shia population.
It is also because of the inaction of international rights groups that leading opposition activists sentenced to long prison terms after they called for political change and religious freedom, remain behind bars - as do many others whose alleged crimes involve mostly peaceful street protests.
There has been no condemnation of the regime by the UN Human Rights Council in connection with the policies that have led to widespread torture and unlawful killings either. The Council has yet to investigate hundreds of cases of torture, some involving deaths in custody, and there has been no investigation, let alone prosecution, for command responsibility of people killed in custody as a result of torture. As far as the Human Rights Watch has been able to determine, no authority has ever been convicted of any offence.
The regime claims it has told the UN Human Rights Council that the Interior Ministry has developed a code of conduct and initiated training for security forces "to embed respect for human rights and due process.”
But despite the reform efforts the Interior Ministry claims it has taken, there has been a continuing pattern of the use of excessive force by security forces against peaceful protests, as well as wanton beatings, arrests and torture of young men accused of participating in pro-democracy demonstrations and religious rituals.
It is hard to see evidence of reform when we look at how the regime and its security forces have actually been behaving, especially during the mourning month of Muharram. But it is not that hard to see why the unelected regime in Manama can behave like this, can revoke the citizenship of its people, can restrict access to the country for international rights monitors and journalists, and can get away with arbitrary arrests, torture and murder:
The tiny Persian Gulf state is the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet as well as the British naval fleet. It holds thousands of U.S. service members, and has the full military and diplomatic support of Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States.