America’s ‘Humiliating Grip of Corruption and Tyranny’ in Bahrain
John Glaser, September 23, 2011 -AntiWar.com

Bahrainis continue to rise up against their dictatorship, as they have been doing virtually on a daily basis. This week Bahrainis orchestrated a massive demonstration, blocking traffic “in an attempt to step up pressure on the government ahead of by-elections this weekend.” In addition to the terrible repression the Bahraini government has directed towards the peaceful protesters, they have also responded recently with massive hand-outs in an attempt to rectify their international image as something other than savage and to pacify the population into stupid acquiescence. A “National Victims’ Compensation Fund” is designed to pay anyone who was “materially, morally or physically harmed” by the uprising and wage increases have been imposed. Apart from being simply bad economics, these efforts fortunately have had no pacifying effect on the population.

And unjustified government violence continues:

Bahraini security forces have fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse thousands of mourners at the funeral of a man who died after he himself was tear-gassed, a Shia politician said.

“Security forces used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse the demonstrators while the majority of them were trying to leave at the end of the funeral,” said Matar Matar, a senior member of Al-Wefaq, Bahrain’s largest Shia opposition formation, on Friday.

Tens of thousands of Bahrainis, he said, were at the funeral of Jawad Marhun, a 36-year-old who died late on Wednesday from what Al-Wefaq said was “excessive exposure to tear gas from a canister tossed into his parents home on September 10″.

The government of Bahrain, which crushed a month of protests in mid-March, said Marhun had died from “acute respiratory” problems as a result of sickle cell disease. His family denies that he had the disease, according to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR).

Let’s contrast this news and these images with what Barack Obama said at the UN earlier this week on the Arab Spring:

The humiliating grip of corruption and tyranny is being pried open. Technology is putting power in the hands of the people. The youth are delivering a powerful rebuke to dictatorship, and rejecting the lie that some races, religions and ethnicities do not desire democracy. The promise written down on paper – “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” – is closer at hand.
[Read more →]

Faisal Hayyat -Jail Tale, I’m dying
Bahrain Mirror

My First Daytime
The night was slow in the detention chamber. Sleep was elusive amid the detainees’ screams who were being tortured in the adjacent chambers. On Friday morning, a policeman brought me a sheet titled “Medical Check Form”, and two charges were written on it: crowding and incitement of hatred against the regime. The latter charge struck me with immense horror. “Incitement? I’m an instigator?” I refused to sign. One of the officials ordered me to comply fully to the policemen’s orders and not to refuse anything, and amid assurances of the detainees young men who were with me in the same detention chamber, I signed the form. The detainees told me that it was a mere form to allow for the medical check. I was blindfolded all the time, and still suffered severe pains in my hands and my feet soles after the night beatings. I was unable to move them neither lifting them off the floor.

At the noon prayers time, I asked a policeman to point me to Mecca direction. He pointed me to the opposite direction. It was an issue I knew after a new detainee had been brought to the detention chamber. I prayed hastily and in fear. In minutes, some one came calling for me. I was dragged handcuffed and blindfolded to the torture chamber. As soon as I entered, four to five people jumped on me beating me severely. I was able to determine their number of their voices. They hit me with whatever they had: hoses, electrical cables, punches on various parts of my body and boots kicks. Everyone was hitting me at the same time. There was no breath between the hit and the following one, they were combined hits that you felt that you had no room to breathe. Everyone swore, cursed, insulted and dishonoured my religious belief.

Who gets out?
I was screaming strongly for the severe beating. I begged them to stop beating me: “I’m dying, please, I can’t bear more”. Their reply was ready: “You’ll die here, don’t rush your fate”. They ordered me to say the slogan written on the placard that I had held in the journalists’ rally. I said: “Free, Free Press” and I stopped. They even beat me more, and said: “Go on, what was after Free, Free Press?”, I did not reply. They beat me even more. I screamed confessing: “… get out”. I pronounced the senior official’s name whose name I would not disclose now. Their beatings even grew more brutal and said to me: “Now you’ll know who gets out”.

I did not know for how much time I was in the torture chamber. They sent me back to the detention chamber. I threw my collapsing body, not believing what was going on to me, feeling that I was in a dark tunnel without any glimmer of light. They brought the lunch meal. I was unable to eat anything as I was in panic and horror of my ordeal and of what I heard of the detainees’ screams in the adjacent chambr.

After half an hour they called me again. I was completely collapsed, my feet were unable to carry my body neither was my body able to make my feet move. One of the policemen dragged me to the same chamber. It was the same chamber, I knew it of the distance of the way, from the number of steps, that way I sensed my arrival to it, and said to myself: “My God, back to you once again!!”.

As soon as I stepped in, they assaulted me: punching, then beating by hoses, then by fists, then kicks. The executioners were careful not to harm my face, as it was the most prominent part and more scandalous. I got strong slaps on the face by their hands, no fists, but a stray punch hit my nose and caused me severe bleeding that forced them to stop and send me to the detention chamber.

Sexual Harassment
On my way to the detention chamber, across corridors among chambers, I was subjected to explicit sexual harassment by a policeman. He lowered my pants and expressed his unrestrained desire to assault me sexually (!!!) I was about to faint and fall headlong after hearing what he had said. I entered into a fit of hysteric crying and pleaded him: “I’m a father and have children, please, don’t do that to me, torture me as you wish, but I plead to you with the most precious things you have not to do that”. That took place when we passed by the detention chamber. I knew later that we had been in the Police Station courtyard at the entrance. The event was meant to humiliate me deliberately in front of those who were present for taking revenge watching me as a humiliated detainee without dignity, there was no respect to my humanity that was violated among the policemen’s laughter. After that the one with the same voice pulled up my pants and made me face the wall, then he started with the others to grope my body parts and was keen to press the front part of his body to the back side of my body. …much more

Bahrain Boiling
BY SIMON HENDERSON | SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

MANAMA — As the U.N. General Assembly opens in New York, the world’s attention may be focused on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute — but tensions are still running high in a disputed strip of land further east. In the island kingdom of Bahrain, the struggle between Sunni and Shiite Muslims — and their respective patrons, Saudi Arabia and Iran — enters a new phase with the Sept. 24 by-elections to the country’s parliament.

Bahrain is where, in March, Saudi Arabia drew a proverbial line in the sand against the advance of the Arab Spring, leading a Saudi/United Arab Emirates coalition that sent 1,600 riot-trained paramilitary members and more than 20 tanks across the causeway that connects the two countries to put down a Shiite-led uprising. The crackdown led the Shiite opposition party al-Wefaq to resign its 18 seats in the 40-seat parliament in protest; the by-elections, scheduled by the ruling monarchy, are meant to fill those vacant seats. Al-Wefaq is boycotting the ballot but Shiite independent candidates are standing. Al-Wefaq’s local spiritual leader, Sheikh Issa Qassim, known by his Sunni detractors as “the ayatollah,” dubbed Bahrain “a fake democracy” in a fiery sermon on Friday, Sept. 23.

The elections threaten to upset the nervous stability that now reigns in the country. The Pearl Monument, which dominated a traffic circle around which demonstrators had gathered earlier this year, may have been demolished, but Shiite activists have promised to reoccupy the area this weekend. Such a coup will be a challenge — the junction is guarded by fleets of internal security vehicles, and down the road groups of Bahraini army Humvees also sit, waiting.

“Bahrain is going to boil this weekend,” read an email from a friend who lives in Manama. I don’t think he was referring to the weather, though noon temperatures are consistently over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The U.S. Embassy in the Bahraini capital issued a similarly sober warning, urging Americans to stay away from “a potentially violent demonstration” near the Pearl Roundabout, now renamed al-Farooq Junction by the government, though known as Martyrs’ Square by the Shiite opposition.

Whether the demonstrations come to pass remains to be seen, but the outcome of the by-elections is clear. The government will see the new members — all the districts concerned are primarily Shiite-populated — as support for its cautious steps toward a more representative democracy. Filling the seats will enable the national assembly to function again, even though the government may be tempted to reduce the number of Shiites in it (voter absenteeism and ballot rigging could reduce Shiite members from 18 to 12). A revived political system will enable the government to implement modest political suggestions made during the course of the summer by a national dialogue, which discussed the background to the troubles of February and March.

Al-Wefaq and the hard-line Shiite party al-Haq (which has always seen political participation as a waste of time) will depict the result as a fig-leaf covering the open wound of a Sunni-ruled, majority-Shiite country, where, despite promises of reform, the al-Khalifa royal family has no intention of losing either its political or commercial grip. …more

[cb editor: may be related to burns in images below.]

[cb editor: note the misdirection – Media reports on the Mall and video even coming out but media on Protests at Pearl Square are less prevalent. Internet sites with Pearl Quare video and images are either tied up with no page loading and possibly even connection being blocked – with server load balancing being manipulated.]

Bahrain Arrests ‘Vandals’ at Mall on Eve of Election, BNA Says
By Donna Abu Nasr – Sep 23, 2011 8:54 AM MT

Bahraini security forces have arrested several “vandals” at the biggest shopping mall in the capital, Manama, the state-run Bahrain News Agency reported.

The incident came a day before Bahrain holds special Parliamentary elections to fill 18 seats vacated by the al-Wefaq group, the biggest Shiite Muslim party. Its lawmakers quit to protest a crackdown on mostly Shiite protesters who held demonstrations in February and March. At least 35 people were killed in clashes with security forces.

The protests in Bahrain were demanding full democratic representation and equal economic opportunities for the majority Shiite population. The country’s hereditary Sunni rulers invited troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies to help restore order, and accused Iran of fomenting the unrest. …source

Bahrain nominee urges kingdom against ‘repression’
by zawya

WASHINGTON, Sep 21, 2011 (AFP) – US President Barack Obama’s pick for ambassador to Bahrain urged the kingdom Wednesday to avoid “repression” and instead respond to unrest “through genuine reform and reconciliation.”

“Political reform and respect for human rights are vital to Bahrain’s stability and to the protection of US interests in the region,” Thomas Krajeski told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a confirmation hearing.

“Bahrain’s long-term stability depends on addressing domestic grievances not through repression, but through genuine reform and reconciliation.”

His comments came days before parliamentary elections set for September 24 in Bahrain, where a Sunni monarchy has ruled over a majority Shiite population for decades and crushed a month of Shiite-led democracy protests in mid-March.

The opposition has already boycotted the polls and wants democratic reforms in the Gulf kingdom, home to the US Fifth Fleet.

Krajeski said his “top priority” was to sustain the US-Bahrain partnership “based on mutual interests in regional security “while encouraging and supporting reforms that meet the needs and aspirations of Bahrain’s citizens.”

Washington “remains deeply concerned” about the crackdown on protests, he reiterated, citing “many credible reports of serious human rights abuses by security forces.” …more

Anonymous Email just arrived 9:09AM CST – more as reports come in

Dear Friends,

Several areas in Bahrain are under heavy attack as I write this email
because of people’s announced attempt to return to pearl square. I am
receiving countless reports of injuries and arrests, and trying to confirm
them. This is *an urgent appeal for international pressure now.* This has
been ongoing for the past hour and a half and looks like it could continue
for several hours to come.

Best,

Groups to protest Bahrain elections and Human Rights conditions
From Samira Said, CNN – September 23, 2011 — Updated 1007 GMT (1807 HKT)

(CNN) — Several groups have planned protests ahead of Saturday’s parliamentary elections in Bahrain.

The elections are being held to replace 18 seats that were vacated by Al-Wefaq, the country’s largest opposition party. The party vacated the seats to protest the treatment of demonstrators during February’s unrest in Bahrain.

An opposition group called The February 14 Coalition said it plans to launch protests on Friday and Saturday in the newly named Martyr’s Square, the site formerly known as Pearl Roundabout.

“Just like all other freedom loving people living in real democracies across the globe, we, the people of Bahrain have the right to choose the way in which we are governed,” the group said.

The Youth Coalition of February 14 announced they will be holding a sit-in demonstration at the same location.

Addressing an opposition rally in Tubli, a village south of Manama, Thursday, Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the Al-Wefaq party said, “when we talk about democracy we want democracy like that of Westminster, France, and America, not the democracy of Saddam Hussein, nor the democracy of Zine El Abidine, nor the democracy of Gadhafi.”

Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, president of Bahrain’s Information Affairs Authority, said he expected voter turnout to be encouraging Saturday, according to the state-run Bahrain News Agency.

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa was attending the UN General Assembly in New York. On Thursday he spoke about the need for reforms “aimed to provide decent living conditions, security and tranquility in a society of peaceful coexistence.”

Saudis protest against KSA’s meddling in Bahrain
Fri, Sep 23rd, 2011 – By shiapost

Saudi protesters have once again poured into the streets to rally against the Al Saud regime’s brutal military intervention in Bahrain, Press TV reported.

The protests in the eastern city of Qatif took place despite the government’s strict ban on anti-regime rallies in the country.

Saudis have on various occasions voiced their anger with Riyadh’s intervention meant to crush the popular uprising in the small Persian Gulf kingdom.

The protesters also slammed the high unemployment in the country and expressed frustration with the decades-long rule of the Al Saud dynasty which has a record of rights violation.

In mid-March, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed their military forces in crisis-hit Bahrain to assist the Manama regime in its severe suppression of anti-government protesters.

Scores of Bahrainis have been killed ever since.

Saudi Arabia’s eastern regions have been the scene of protests over the past months, and authorities have arrested scores of people including bloggers and writers for taking part in anti-government demonstrations.

According to Human Rights Watch, more than 160 dissidents have been arrested since February in Saudi crackdowns on anti-government protesters. …source

Tensions grip Bahrain ahead of by-elections

An opposition group in Bahrain says it plans to launch protests on Friday and Saturday ahead of parliamentary by-elections set for September 24 in the Gulf kingdom – ahramonline

AFP , Friday 23 Sep 2011 – Bahrain stages by-elections Saturday boycotted by the main Shiite opposition bloc, with pro-democracy protesters vowing to escalate their actions six months after an uprising in the kingdom was crushed.

The elections are for 18 seats left vacant in the 40-member parliament after MPs from Al-Wefaq, the Gulf state’s largest opposition group, quit in February in protest over a crackdown by security forces on peaceful demonstrators.

Bahraini authorities later allowed protesters, mostly Shiites, to camp out at Manama’s central Pearl Square until security forces, boosted by a Saudi-led Gulf regiment, drove them out in a deadly crackdown in mid-March.

In total, 55 candidates will compete for 14 seats. “Four candidates were already declared winners after their competition withdrew,” an Information Affairs Authority statement said.

The main challenge lies in whether 187,000 eligible voters will respond to appeals by the authorities and turn out in Shiite-majority areas, after Al-Wefaq said last month it would boycott the election.

The government has considered sanctions against those who do not vote, threatening to exclude them from government jobs and deny them public services, the pro-government Al-Ayyam daily reported on Wednesday.

Al-Wefaq, or the Islamic National Accord Association, in a statement called the measures “terrorising” and “an organised crime project that contradicts basic principles of humanity and freedom of opinion and expression.”

It joined a national dialogue in July at the initiative of the king to relaunch political reform in Bahrain, which is ruled by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty, but soon pulled out and rejected the process’s outcomes.

Al-Wefaq has not called for the Al-Khalifas to be overthrown, but has stuck to its main demands for a fully fledged constitutional monarchy with an elected government and powerful parliament, as well as an independent judiciary.

It also disputes the legitimacy of parliament’s upper house, whose 40 members are appointed rather than elected and which can block initiatives by the lower house.

The new post-election parliament will vote into legislation projects agreed upon in the national dialogue, the government said on Wednesday.

“Parliament will have more powers following agreements made by the national dialogue… (which) has reached agreement on about 200 key political, economic and human rights issues,” said an English-language statement.

Al-Wefaq insists that the dialogue did not represent the will of the people.

In June, King Hamad announced the lifting of the state of emergency declared in mid-March, and later formed The Bahrain Commission of Inquiry — an independent panel of foreign experts — to investigate the month-long unrest.

Authorities say 24 people were killed in the unrest, including four policemen. The opposition puts the death toll at 30.

Other measures announced this week include a “National Victims’ Compensation Fund” and an additional budget outlay of more than one billion dollars over two years to improve living standards in the tiny kingdom, the poorest among its oil-rich Gulf neighbours.

Al-Wefaq head Ali Salman, speaking on Thursday during a gathering of thousands in a Shiite suburb of Manama on “a day of national unity” between Sunnis and Shiites, has declared Saturday’s polls a “day to mourn democracy.”

Activists have called for marches on Friday and Saturday towards Pearl Square, symbol of the protests earlier this year.

As tension soared in Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, US President Barack Obama’s pick for ambassador urged the kingdom Wednesday to avoid “repression.”

“Political reform and respect for human rights are vital to Bahrain’s stability and to the protection of US interests in the region,” Thomas Krajeski told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing.

“Bahrain’s long-term stability depends on addressing domestic grievances not through repression, but through genuine reform and reconciliation.” …source

HRH Prince Khalifa hails HM King’s speech at the UN
September 23rd, 2011 – b 24×7

[cb editor: historic video added for contrast]

HRH Prime Minister His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa hailed His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa’s keynote address at the UN General Assembly 66th Session in New York. “HM King Hamad’s speech reflects the purpose of construction and progress in Bahrain in all fields to ensure all people welfare security and stability”, he said.

He stressed the importance of the speech in projecting Bahrain’s landmark achievements to the world and reflecting efforts to ensure decent living standards for citizens in an atmosphere of security, serenity and a society in which peaceful co-existence, equality and equal opportunities for all people to reap development dividends.

He added that the speech outlined Bahrain’s strategy and future-oriented vision of Bahrain’s comprehensive development, which earned Bahrain international recognition in periodic reports that hail Bahrain as successful model to emulate for sustained development. “Bahrain has succeeded, in HM the King’s prosperous era in promoting democracy, laying solid development foundations and consolidation the pillars of a modern state based on the constitutional provisions, the rule of the law, human, civic and political rights”, he said.

HRH the Premier paid tribute to HM King Hamad for leading Bahrain, with his wise and far-reaching vision, to emerge from the difficult times.

“Bahrain now stands stronger and more confident and steadfast than ever, resolved to complete the march of progress and prosperity”, he said.

He called on all parties to join hands and rally together as Bahrain gears up to holding the by-elections.

He stressed the importance of the polls, urging all parties to put national interests above all other considerations.

He said that the Royal speech highlighted local issues concerning Bahrain, voiced support for Arab causes and international efforts to achieve peace and stability in the world and reaffirmed the Kingdom’s strong commitment to the joint global action for security and peace to reign worldwide. …source