Bahrain: Fear rises for the lives of hunger strikers and prisoners
As more hunger strikers collapse, the political volatility in Bahrain takes more serious turns to the worse, while the people’s resolve the resist the Al Khalifa occupation takes new dimensions. Last week, Sheikh Abdul Hadi Al Mokhowdher, one of the seven popular leaders on hunger strike, collapsed and was taken to hospital for few hours. On Friday, Dr Abdul Jalil Al Singace followed with low sugar level and high blood acidity.
He is still receiving hospital treatment while continuing his hunger strike. There have been increasing support to the strikers who are protesting the illegal arrest and ill-treatment of Mr Hassan Mushaime’ and Sheikh Abdul Jalil Al Miqdad. Both had been arrested for opposing the Al Khalifa hereditary dictatorship, especially the refusal to draw up a democratic constitution and the crime of genocide resulting from the political naturalization programme being implemented by Sheikh Hamad.
The hunger strike has given impetus to the pro-democracy, anti-occupation movement. It has been extensively covered by international media despite the ruling family’s attempts to bribe journalists and news houses. It has now been decided to end he hunger strike on Tuesday 24th February, and start a new campaign with different forms of peaceful civil resistance means. The stand off between the people of Bahrain and the ruling family appears to have reached a point of no-return, with neither ready to back down. However, the negative image of the Al Khalifa hereditary dictatorship has tarnished the regime and may have forced some of its allies to question the wisdom of their supportive policies to an ailing and antiquated mode of dictatorship.
Meanwhile foreign businesses operating in Bahrain have been addressed by the Bahraini opposition which has informed them of the bleak situation and outlook in a country that has failed to stabilize. With a stagnant economy and widespread corruption by senior members of the ruling family, the economic prospects are gloomy and are unlikely to see marked improvement in the coming period. The opposition has also pointed out that it is intensifying its civil resistance campaign and urged those businesses to look for alternative locations outside of Bahrain. They are welcome to operate in Manama once the political conditions improve. The Al Khalifa dictatorship has denied equal opportunities to local or foreign businesses and their corrupt practices especially the commissions they impose on them have destroyed the economic prospects in a country whose policies of diversification have failed. Some businesses have already packed up and gone. Others are in the process of calling it a day.
On another level, the minister of interior has expressed offensive sectarian comments in an interview with the Saudi newspaper, Al Sharq Al Awsat.
He claimed that the native Shia Muslims have always been a minority in the Bahrain. The British historian, Lorimer, was falsely quoted in this respect. The Al Khalifa minister himself is accused of managing a torture regime against the Bahraini political detainees and is implicated in a recent address by tens of international human rights bodies to the UN Human Rights Council. To Bahrainis he represents the ugly face of torture and genocide and will be relentlessly pursued in international courts. This is in addition to another attempt to bring Sheikh Hamad and three of his lieutenants to justice. An earlier letter to Moreno Okampo, the Prosecutor General at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The attacks against Bahrainis have continued. At least six Bahraini youth have been arrested in recent days by the Death Squads run by the royal court. Three of them were detained after the massive protest held on Friday near the Dana Mole. Three others were arrested in the town of Karzakkan for being in the area as fires broke out in disused dustbins on the side of the street.
The summary trials of two groups falsely accused of killing an already dead Pakistani policeman and burning the farm of the notorious torturer, Abdul Aziz Atiyyat Allah Al Khalifa, have been postponed once again, as it became clear that no decent or impartial trial could convict any of the Bahrainis of wrongdoing based on testimonies of members of the Death Squads.
Bahrain Freedom Movement
23rd February 2009
