Bahrain: Pressure mounting for fact-finding mission
The political crisis in Bahrain has deepened in the past few days after it became clear that the long-awaited “dialogue” has failed drastically.
Instead of dealing with the core issues relating to governance and the future role of the Al Khalifa, the regime turned it into a public meeting arguing about trivial issues that had nothing to do with the underlying causes and demands of the revolution.
The American Embassy in Manama exerted enormous pressure on the political societies to join the meeting and the Al Khalifa dictatorship blackmailed some of those societies threatening them with severe reprisals if they did not join.
The main forces of the revolution have, however, rejected any attempt to undermine the main aims including that of regime change. The first week of this futile attempt to derail the revolution has failed; the youth have returned to the streets and made their presence felt through their demonstrations and slogans like: “The people want regime change” and “Down with Hamad”. Few now believe that it would be possible for the two sides to co-exist following the enormous crimes committed by the Al Khalifa against Bahrain’s people.
The enormity of the situation has led to international campaigns against the regime. Major news media such as The Times, The Independent, The Guardian have continued coverage of the illegal trials of Bahraini doctors and athletes. The Al Khalifa have been weakened and humiliated to such an extent that as soon as an international body threatens to take action against the Al Khalifa they would cave in without any resistance. When Fifa asked the Al Khalifa to give details of the crimes allegedly committed by the Bahraini athletes such as Alaa Hubail and his brother, Mohammad, the two were released despite their two years prison sentences.
On Friday 8th July, both The Independent and Guardian newspapers carried full page adverts against the ongoing summary military trials of doctors and nurses. Almost all international human rights bodies are convinced that senior figures of the Al Khalifa had committed serious crimes against humanity.
A recent videos shot secretly on Thursday 7th July depicts clearly members of the Death Squads openly torturing a Bahraini youth after being arrested in the street. There are many similar videos that could be used in any international court as evidence against senior members of the regime. New revelations of the forms of torture being inflicted on the doctors have confirmed that some of the methods may not have been used before. These include stuffing human secretion the mouths of the detainees to force them to sign false confessions. Senior figures of the opposition were given the choice either to utter words of apology to the dictator or being raped.
Meanwhile the 14th February youth have called for more protests to bring about a regime change. While public anger is rising against the American support of the regime, there is mounting pressure on international bodies to take action against the Al Khalifa dictatorship. Although Bahrain’s dictator is trying to avoid international sanctions by forming his own committee to “investigate” the crimes committed in the past few months, there are pressures on the Human Rights Council to send a fact-finding mission to Bahrain.
The appointed committee is unlikely to scrutinize the dictator because it has to report to him and is financed by him. The UN Human Rights Council is urged to send her own team to investigate the Al Khalifa crimes against Bahrainis immediately, otherwise the Council will be accused of bias, double standards and failure to do its duties. Up to forty people have been killed by the regime’s machines of terror which is still committing serious crimes against more than 1000 prisoners.
Bahrain Freedom Movement
9th July 2011