Bahrain: 3 demonstrators were sentenced and the judge refused the request for release child
May 30th, 2011

Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) is deeply concerned about sentencing of 3 demonstrators Today in National Safety court ( Military court) .

Today 30 May 2011 , 3 demonstrators sentenced :

1- Hassan Abdullah Saeed was sentenced to two year imprisonment for taking part in illegal protests and disrupting public order.

2-Mohammed Ali Kadhim was sentenced to one year imprisonment for taking part in illegal protests and disrupting public order.

3-Ahmed Ali Mohammed was sentenced to three year imprisonment for taking part in illegal protests and disrupting public order and The obtaining of publications that contain content inciting the overthrow of the regime.

Case on-going:

Mohammed Ebrahim Khatem -15 years old – The case has been adjourned till 5 June, 2011 for the final pleading.The judge refused the request for release. …source (Ref:http://byshr.org/?p=518)

ICRC wants more access to detainees in Syria, Bahrain
May 26, 2011

The head of the International Committee for the Red Cross on Thursday criticized both Syria and Bahrain for denying the rights group access to people detained during crackdowns on political demonstrations.

“It is true that we are the only international humanitarian organization accepted to work in Syria,” Jakob Kellenberger, the ICRC chief told journalists while presenting the group’s annual report. “But I have to tell you (…) what we can do so far is really very modest.”

Kellenberger said his staff have been denied access to several cities where people have been detained while demonstrating against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. ICRC staff have been given some access to prisoners in Daraa, Kellenberger added.

Some UN Security Council members are currently working on a draft resolution that says the brutality leveled against Syrian protestors amounts to a war crime.

Kellenberger also said that Bahrain has so far not honored requests by the ICRC to visit detainees arrested during its heavy-handed crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. Bahraini authorities came under strong criticism from international human rights organizations for their brutal suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations that lasted for a month in the capital Manama.

Bahraini authorities said 24 people died during the crackdown, including four who died in detention.

-AFP/NOW Lebanon …source

Bahrain denies abusing female Shi’ite doctors
May 31, 2011

DUBAI – BAHRAIN’S interior ministry on Monday denied claims made to AFP by female Shi’ite doctors that they were abused and tortured while in detention over their alleged backing for anti-regime protests.

‘The claims and allegations made by female doctors in the AFP report are not only baseless but scurrilous,’ said a ministry statement emailed to the agency.

‘The Bahrain authorities affirm that very high standards of human rights norms are being followed at all detention / interrogation centres in the country.’

Several female doctors who were released recently had told AFP they were abused and tortured at the hands of interrogators in detention centres, amid a massive crackdown on the Shi’ite majority after security forces quelled a month-long protest in mid-March.

The women said they were forced under severe beating and verbal abuse to confess to backing their co-religionist protesters and abusing their positions. Some said they were made to testify against colleagues at Salmaniya hospital accused of lying and exaggerating on satellite channels to pile pressure on the government. There were also claims of verbal sexual harassment. …more

McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Thu, Mar. 24, 2011
‘Arab spring’ drives wedge between U.S., Saudi Arabia
Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: April 19, 2011 09:15:44 PM

WASHINGTON — The United States and Saudi Arabia — whose conflicted relationship has survived oil shocks, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq — are drifting apart faster than at any time in recent history, according to diplomats, analysts and former U.S. officials.

The breach, punctuated by a series of tense diplomatic incidents in the past two weeks, could have profound implications for the U.S. role in the Middle East, even as President Barack Obama juggles major Arab upheavals from Libya to Yemen.

The Saudi monarchy, which itself has been loathe to introduce democratic reforms, watched with deepening alarm as the White House backed Arab opposition movements and helped nudge from power former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, another long-time U.S. ally, according to U.S. and Arab officials.

That alarm turned to horror when the Obama administration demanded that the Saudi-backed monarchy of Bahrain negotiate with protesters representing the country’s majority Shiite Muslim population. To Saudi Arabia’s Sunni rulers, Bahrain’s Shiites are a proxy for Shiite Iran, its historic adversary.

“We’re not going to budge. We’re not going to accept a Shiite government in Bahrain,” said an Arab diplomat, who spoke frankly on condition he not be further identified.

Saudi Arabia has registered its displeasure bluntly. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were rebuffed when they sought to visit the kingdom this month. The official cover story was that aging King Abdullah was too ill to receive them.

Ignoring U.S. pleas for restraint, a Saudi-led military force from the Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of six Arab Persian Gulf states, entered Bahrain on March 14, helping its rulers squelch pro-democracy protests, at least for now.

A White House statement issued the day before enraged the Saudis and Bahrainis further, the diplomat and others with knowledge of the situation said. The statement urged “our GCC partners to show restraint and respect the rights of the people of Bahrain, and to act in a way that supports dialogue instead of undermining it.”

In a speech Sunday in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to Washington, said the Gulf countries now must look after their own security — a role played exclusively by the United States since the 1979 fall of the Shah of Iran.

“Why not seek to turn the GCC into a grouping like the European Union? Why not have one unified Gulf army? Why not have a nuclear deterrent with which to face Iran — should international efforts fail to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons — or Israeli nuclear capabilities?” Turki said, according to a translation of his remarks by the UAE’s state-controlled Emirates News Agency. …more

U.S. yanks diplomat from Bahrain after he’s threatened
By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — The United States pulled its human rights officer from Bahrain last week after he’d become the subject of a weeks-long campaign of ethnic slurs and thinly veiled threats on a pro-government website and in officially sanctioned newspapers.

Ludovic Hood left the island nation on Thursday. During his final days in Bahrain, Hood was given security protection equal to that of an ambassador, U.S. officials said.

“The safety and security of our diplomatic personnel is our highest priority,” the State Department in Washington said in a statement in response to inquiries from McClatchy. “It is unacceptable that elements within Bahrain would target an individual for carrying out his professional duties.”

Hood’s early departure from Bahrain — five human rights and U.S. officials confirmed that he had not been scheduled to leave Bahrain last week — underscores the serious tensions that have arisen between the U.S. government and Bahrain, the home port of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

On May 19, President Barack Obama criticized the Sunni Muslim government’s harsh crackdown on the country’s majority Shiite Muslim population. The crackdown has featured the destruction of Shiite mosques, the jailing and physical abuse of leading opposition political figures and journalists, and official harassment and intimidation of teachers, medical professionals and others. …more

France 24 correspondent tortured for covering pro-democracy demonstrations
Published on Monday 30 May 2011.

When Nazeeha Saeed, the Bahrain correspondent of France 24 and Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya, was summoned to a police station in the city of Rifa’a for questioning at midday on 22 May, she expected to be back home two hours later and had no inkling of the nightmare awaiting her.

On arriving at the police station, she took a seat and waited calmly. Other women, mainly nurses, were also waiting, sitting on the floor.

An hour later, she was called. She entered an office where there was a male officer. In a quiet but unsettling voice, he told her to answer the questions that would be put to her. He then left her with a female officer, who accusing her of “lying” in her reports and told her to admit her links with the Hezbollah TV station Al-Manar and the Iranian Arabic-language TV station Al-Alam. “You must confess,” the woman kept repeating, going on to accuse her of participating in the pro-democracy demonstrations that have taking place in Bahrain since March.

An hour later, she was taken to another office. There, a woman police officer mocked and insulted her. When Nazeeha ignored her, the policewoman grabbed her by the chin, held it hard, and slapped her with the other hand. “You must tell me the truth,” she screamed, continuing to slap her and then seizing her by the hair and throwing her to the ground. Four policewomen proceeded to slap, punch and kick her repeatedly. One of the women took her shoe and forced it into her mouth. “You are worth less than this shoe,” she said. …more