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writing for godot

Bahrain - the Uprising Continues...

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Written by Maia Newley   
Wednesday, 18 January 2012 01:01
I've been meaning to write something about Bahrain for a while now but, today, I read something which made me realize that I needed to write it TODAY :

"It is with streams of tears on my face I write this. This shameless day had the nerve to come; Badryia, the Bahraini mother of a detainee, set herself on fire today. Helplessness burnt her soul way before her depressive act burnt her mere body."

This tweet, written by @AnarchistBH, relates to a 59 year old woman, Badryia Ali, who set herself on fire on Saturday in Bahrain. Ali, whose son had been detained since last April, died as a result of her injuries, according to Al Wasat (a Bahraini online newspaper). Her protest brings the Arab Spring almost back to where it started with the death of Mohammed Bouazizi on 4th January, 2011, subsequent to his own act of desperation in Tunisia.

While the West waxes lyrical on its 'success' in Libya, Bahrain seems to be burning more or less unnoticed, with a few exceptions, by the mainstream media.

The Bahraini protests began on February 14th 2011 and, at that time, there was a fair amount of coverage in the mainstream Western media, you probably even remember it? Protesters marching to the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, and the world watching on and feeling a sense of vicarious freedom as we watched our Arab brothers and sisters try to take control of their lives. Then the Saudi Arabian tanks rolled in and somehow we forgot all about it, got side-tracked maybe with the 'successes' in Egypt and Libya. I'm really not sure what happened to our interest in Bahrain, but the Western media seemed to lose interest reasonably speedily favoring the more positive-outcome stories of that region.

However, since that time, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) has catalogued at least 50 confirmed deaths (as of 10th January 2012) and provides a list of 90 'targeted journalists' who have either been detained, beaten or otherwise impeded in the course of their work. The predominant targets appear to be photojournalists.

Nabeel Najab, President of BCHR, was himself beaten and briefly detained when he took part in protest march in Manama at the beginning of January 2012.

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) reports on the beating endured outside of a Police Station in Samaheej, northeast of Manama, on 3 January by Mazen Mahdi, a photo-journalist working for the German news agency, DPA, despite wearing a vest clearly marked with the word "PRESS". The same RWB article also reports that Reuters photographer, Hamad Mohamed, together with a colleague from RTR agency, were both briefly detained by the police in December, 2011, despite both clearly identifying themselves as journalists. Similarly, the Bahraini blogger and Tweeter, Zainab Al-Khawaja ( @angryarabiya ) was 'manhandled' and arrested on 15 December, 2011, and held for five days before being released to await trial for "attacking a police officer, taking part in an illegal demonstration and inciting subversion." If convicted, she faces a possible two-year jail sentence. Even the New York Times journalists are not exempt from the wrath of the riot and security police in Bahrain as NYT journalist, Nick Kristoff and his cameraman, discovered on 9th December, 2011, when teargas was fired directly at them. The list goes on and on and seems fairly indiscriminate, pretty much the only requirement to make yourself a target, it seems, is that you are reporting on or journalling, the events transpiring in Bahrain.

And this is before we even start on the detainees who seem to have somehow 'died' or 'disappeared' while in custody. Pretty much the only reliable source of information available comes from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights who are doing their level best to collate and record all the missing, detained and beaten protesters. Their website provides a link, in both English and Arabic, for people to notify them of further disappearances.

So indiscriminate are the Bahraini security and riot police, that they include the elderly and children in their sights. Press TV reported on Sunday, 15th January, 2012, on the death of an elderly Bahraini female, Salma Abdolmohsen, subsequent to teargas being fired directly inside of her home. This seems to be a fairly common tactic employed by the security forces and there are a plethora of video's and reports available across the web showing the effects of inhaling the toxic gas emitted from the teargas cannisters. Indeed, if you are directly hit, the cannister itself is recorded as having caused several deaths according to the BCHR statistics. The youngest recorded victim of the Bahraini regime's crackdown is 5 day old Sajida Faisal who died on 11 December, 2011, from teargas inhalation. The official Bahraini government statement relating to her death claims that she died from 'bacterial meningitis' although they are unable to provide any supporting evidence from the doctors at the hospital where young Sajida died.

Meanwhile, the Bahraini King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, has made a statement suggesting that he may be considering issuing a royal decree to 'amend the constitution and grant a greater role to the 40-seat lower house of parliament' according a report on 15th January by Associated Press. However, it remains to be seen whether or not such a royal decree is actually issued and, if it is, what it actually contains.

The BCHR reported on 14th January, 2012, that Yousif Ahmed Muwali, a 24 year old who had been reported to the police as missing by his mother five days ago, had been 'found dead' by the Bahraini Ministry of the Interior. Despite being made to wait several hours before being allowed to view his body, his father and a lawyer were eventually allowed into the morgue and state that his body shows clear signs of torture with evidence of bruising on his body, together with cigarette burns on his arms. The Chicago Tribune further reports that Bahrain's main Shi'ite opposition group, Wefaq, have called for an 'independent investigation' into his death. Wefaq's statement says there is "a complete loss of confidence in the integrity of the judiciary and security services of Bahrain".

Bahrain is led by a ruling Sunni minority and the Shi'ite majority have reported repeated and increasing attacks upon their number since the beginning of the protests last year. It is also claimed that much of the unrest in Bahrain was dispersed with the help of Sunni-led neighbors, Saudi Arabia, but the protests continue on a daily basis.

The United States continues to moor its fifth fleet in Bahrain and, according to the Chicago Tribune article, the US has recently made a $53 million dollar arms sale to Bahrain "contingent on a positive response to the recommendations of a government inquiry into the unrest."

Bahraini government officials continue to claim that they are committed to reform and change in their country but we have yet to see much concrete evidence of this. They may continue to release statements of their 'intentions' to issue royal decrees to investigate this or that, or to promise future changes, but thus far, there is little to no evidence to support that any of these promises have manifested in any actual change or any royal decrees have materialized which would lead to such change. Words are cheap, let us see some action. I, for one, would be delighted to be proven wrong on this and to see REAL change being pursued by the Bahraini regime. But I am not holding my breath...

In the meantime, what are we to do to assist our fellow human beings who are continuing to call for their freedom in Bahrain? While we tweet, blog and discuss between ourselves the horror and injustice of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Enemy Expatriation Act (EEA) and stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers occupying not only Wall Street, but every far flung corner of the world you can think of, should we not spare a few moments of our time to endeavor to spread the word and provide information about what is going on in Bahrain?

Maybe 2011 will go down in history for many things, but undeniably, the Occupy Wall Street campaign will be one of the most memorable. The year we all woke up and began to see the various injustices that had been visited upon us over decades. The year we found our respective voices and decided it was about time we stood up to be counted. People may march in person, they may blog online, they may send money to support the cause, but somehow it seems that everyone is a part of the overall whole. And that is something we should all be both proud of and determined about. But let us not forget our other responsibilities. We are all now part of a global community, the world is becoming smaller by the day, and we can no longer legitimately say "what happens on the other side of the world doesn't concern me", because we all now know that it DOES!

Quite why the mainstream media have been so tardy in their reporting of the protests and human rights violations in Bahrain I'm not entirely sure. Partly it may be due to the difficulties in getting reliable reports out of the country, partly also to the problems encountered by Western journalists who wish to visit the country to 'see for themselves', there may be many reasons, but none of them really stack up to me. There is a fair amount of reporting about the situation in Syria, almost on a daily basis we can expect to see a report of some type or another on our tv screens or in our newspapers, and yet, information on Bahrain seems much harder to come by. In these days of rolling 24/7 news media, it's so easy to take our eye off the ball and be seduced into focussing our energies on the success stories (and I'm using the word "success" advisedly) but, just because Bahrain is not featuring in the headlines of your daily news bulletin, do not be fooled into thinking nothing is happening there, or that the protests are over. They are not. They continue on a daily basis, as do the deaths, disappearances and random detentions.

So, let's take some of our new-found power and focus it on Bahrain. Let's write to our news organizations and demands answers as to why we are not seeing more about the deaths, detainments and disappearances there. The freedom of the people of Bahrain affects all of us and we must never forget that.

And finally, before I end, remember The Pearl Roundabout which I talked about at the beginning of this article, which the Bahraini protesters marched so bravely and so optimistically towards, feeling assured that our help would come? Well, it was levelled by the Bahraini regime on 18th March, 2011...

This afternoon, 18th January, 2012, the protesters will march to Manama.

(This blog was first posted on The Daily Kos (with links and photos!) on 15th January, 2012.)

http://www.bahrainrights.org/en
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