Khalifi and Saudi polluters must not be trusted on climate policies
Six peers and members of parliament, including former Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, said in a joint letter sent to the Bahrain’s khalifi prime minster that his commitment on climate change was undermined by Bahrain’s continued participation in the Saudi-led “reckless bombing campaign” in Yemen. The group said the war had destroyed ecosystems and contaminated the soil and water, leading to unprecedented impoverishment and disease. “The war in Yemen has devastated Yemeni society and its unique and fragile landscape and heritage. Boasting about your green credentials while backing a coalition that bombs agriculture and water resources is textbook greenwashing,” Baroness Bennett, a signatory, told The Independent newspaper. Bahraini opposition has repeatedly accused the ruling khalifi tribe of destroying the environment in the country with their reckless policies. These include deforestation, sea land reclamation that has destroyed the coral reefs and caused seawater infiltration to the underground freshwater aquifers, offshore and inland oil exploration projects.
Republican US Senator Marco Rubio has called for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr Abdul Jalil Al Singace who has begun the fifth month of his hunger strike. Rubio said in a tweet that Al-Singace has been detained since 2011 due to his participation in a peaceful demonstration in support of human rights and democracy in Bahrain. Senator Rubio called for his immediate and unconditional release. He stated that the Bahraini academic, Abdul Jalil Al-Singace, had entered into an open hunger strike in Jaw prison since last July 18 in protest against his ill-treatment inside the prison and the confiscation of the research that he had spent years writing.
Native political prisoner, Ali Hassan has repeatedly asked the prison officials to provide him with medical care for his ailments but with no success. His condition is rapidly deteriorating.
On 3rd November the United States added the Israeli spyware company NSO Group to its “entity list,” a federal blacklist prohibiting the company from receiving American technologies. It has determined that its phone-hacking tools had been used by foreign governments to “maliciously target” government officials, activists, journalists, academics and embassy workers around the world. More than fifty Bahrainis had their phones targeted by the Pegasus spyware provided by the NSO Group, including Moosa Abd Ali, the London-based native Bahraini photo-journalist whose nationality had been revoked by the regime.
Last week the specialized criminal court in Riyadh issued a two-year prison sentence on Saud Al Fansan, the former chancellor of the Sharia Department at Imam Mohammad bin Saud
Saudi human rights group, ALQST said that Abdulrahman al-Dowaish was arrested by the Saudi authorities on 18 October 2021. This followed a phone call to the Public Prosecution in which he asked about his father, Saudi preacher Sulaiman al-Dowaish, who has been forcibly disappeared since 2016.
On 2nd November the Washington Post published an Opinion article about a legal case brought by a former Saudi intelligence officer, Saud Aljabri, that said: MBS (Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman) is facing a series of legal and diplomatic setbacks that could derail his case against Aljabri while leaving him open to the counterclaim. Last week, U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton ruled that Aljabri “cannot fairly defend” himself against the fraud charge without disclosing “privileged information” about U.S.-Saudi intelligence activities in which he was involved. The case is so sensitive that the Justice Department moved in August to invoke the “state secrets” privilege to block any disclosure that might reveal intelligence sources and methods. With Aljabri’s defense thus foreclosed, Gorton ordered MBS’s lawyers to file a memo by Nov. 9 “to show cause why this case should not be dismissed.” His ruling could also lead to dismissal of a similar case brought by the Saudis in Ontario, Canada.
Two weeks ago the Netherlands delivered a joint statement on behalf of 37 countries to the UN General Assembly voicing deep regret at the UNHRC’s failure to renew the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts (GoEE), which since 2017 has been investigating violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Yemen. The statement urged UN member countries to “use all opportunities within the UN-system to assess facts on the ground in an impartial manner, and work towards accountability.” The Saudis spent millions to buy off the votes of member states at the Human Rights Council. They voted against extending the mandate of the experts who had been appointed to examine war crimes committed by the aggressors.
Bahrain Freedom Movement
10th November 2021