The head of an official inquiry into Bahrain’s unrest last year called for the investigation of any senior officials involved in the deaths or torture of protesters, as thousands of demonstrators returned to the streets in one of the nation’s largest marches in months.

Human Rights Abuses in Bahrain must be investigated
12 March, 2012 – ABNA.co

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – The head of an official inquiry into Bahrain’s unrest last year called for the investigation of any senior officials involved in the deaths or torture of protesters, as thousands of demonstrators returned to the streets in one of the nation’s largest marches in months.

Cherif Bassiouni, whose report in November found authorities used excessive force and widespread torture to shut down a popular uprising, told The Wall Street Journal that Bahrain’s Sunni regime hadn’t acted on his recommendation that any members of the government guilty of abuses should face justice.

“If you follow the system of accountability and justice, you follow the evidence wherever it goes and whoever is responsible has to be held accountable,” said Mr. Bassiouni, an Egyptian former United Nations human-rights lawyer.

Bahrain’s King Hamad ordered the independent report into the crackdown in June. Headed by Mr. Bassiouni, the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry concluded that detainees had been subjected to systematic mistreatment included being beaten with rubber hoses, metal rods, electrocuted and threatened with rape. The report outlined proposed reforms to the police and security services.

A Bahrain government spokesman said a special prosecution unit dedicated to determining accountability had been established, but he declined to comment on whether senior government officials would be investigated.

Mr. Bassiouni is scheduled to submit a follow-up report at the end of March assessing the government’s implementation of his proposals, after meeting King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa and other senior officials in the coming week.

Tensions in Bahrain have simmered since the Sunni-led government forcefully put down a mainly Shiite protest movement early last year, with the help of Saudi troops, leaving 35 people dead and nearly 3,000 arrested, according to the report.

Friday’s march was called by protest leaders as a show of opposition resolve after Bahrain’s leaders portrayed the uprising as losing steam ahead of a Formula One Grand Prix car race in April, the Associated Press reported. Protests forced the cancellation of last year’s race.

Friday’s main procession was mostly peaceful, but breakaway groups were driven back by tear gas as they headed toward Pearl Square, which was the center of the uprising for weeks last year, AP said. …more

Graeme Lamb: British general’s company paid to support Bahrain dictatorship
By Andrew Gilligan – 11 March, 2012 – Telegraph

BRITAIN’S former military commander in Iraq has extravagantly praised a dictatorial Arab regime after it paid his company £1.5million to “support [its] stance before the international community”.

Lt Gen Sir Graeme Lamb, a former director of Special Forces and commander of the Field Army, last month described the Gulf state of Bahrain as a “little gem… the leading point of change, reforms and progress since the 1920s” and attacked the Western media for “unfairly” lumping it in with Tunisia, Libya and Syria.

“There it is just systematic, state-sponsored abuse of its own people,” he told Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News. “And nothing can be further from the truth here.”

At least 50 civilians have been killed, according to Amnesty International, after Bahraini and Saudi forces put down non-violent demonstrations last spring calling for political reform, democracy and an end to Sunni domination over the country’s Shia majority.

In proportion to Bahrain’s tiny population, the death toll is higher than in Tunisia or Egypt. Five members of the security forces have also died.

At least 30 places of worship have been destroyed by the regime and medical staff at the main hospital were jailed for up to 15 years in military courts for treating protesters, though retrials in civilian courts have been ordered following an international outcry.

Gen Lamb has recently complained in the British media that Bahrain has been “hounded”. He called for a more “balanced viewpoint” and said “majority rule was tried in the early years of independence and failed”.

He partly blamed the uprising on “Iranian malevolent influence” and said the West should listen to the country’s “silent majority”.

Tender documents on the Bahraini government website show that last July, the regime’s media council paid £1.5million to a British company described as “3G (UK)” for “a media campaign to support the Kingdom of Bahrain’s stance before the international community”.

The only British lobbying company called 3G said it worked exclusively for UK clients and had received no payment from Bahrain.

Gen Lamb confirmed that the company referred to was in fact the Good Governance Group, also known as G3, for which he is a “special adviser”.

“I now know that is the case [that G3 was paid by Bahrain],” he said.

“A number of people are trying to add two and two together to make four, or six. You’ll say whatever you are going to say, but [my support for Bahrain] is not part of that contract. It is something that I have believed for a long time and it is nothing to do with any business interests I have.”

Last year G3, which employs former service chiefs, officials and diplomats, was drawn into Liam Fox’s resignation as defence secretary after it emerged that it had paid international travel costs for Dr Fox’s close friend, Adam Werrity.

A spokesman for G3 refused to comment.

Gen Lamb is also a director of Aegis Defence, which has one of its four overseas offices in Bahrain.

Since the killings, the tender documents show, the Bahraini government appears to have mounted an intense but subterranean public relations offensive to rehabilitate its image. …more

Guantanamo: Survivors Reminisce Ghost Lives
12 March, 2012 – aseerun

“My words are not enough to describe what happened to me. They have taken us completely naked across the tarmac, dogs have attacked us, incredible, such inhumanity. As a teacher, I taught English to the Afghans and told them about the American dream. The U.S. should have been grateful to me. ” Sami al-Laith, 3 years and 10 months of captivity

He must have been an impressive lecturer; tall, sharp-witted, and an air of natural authority. A sharp intellect is the only thing that remains of Sami al-Laithy. He sits slumped in a wheelchair, his back and neck acutely in pain with every movement.

For six years he has lived in this dark room in what remains of his grandfather’s former mansion in al-Gharbia, Egypt. The columns at the entrance are witnesses to a past fortune. Now rain falls through the ceiling and black mold spots spread on the old walls.

In addition to Sami, 56, his mother and younger brother with his wife and four children live in the house. The brother lost his job as a translator in the Ministry of Defence because Sami was trapped in Guantanamo. The family has hardly enough money to buy food.

In his rickety wheelchair, Sami al-Laithy cannot maneuver without help on the muddy path outside the house. Trapped in the room, he stares at the walls. “The Americans,” he says, “have destroyed me, my health, my soul, my future.”

When al-Laithi speaks, one hears his love of language, of Arabic poetry and English sonnets. He is one of 38 Guantanamo detainees which the U.S. formally declared to be “no longer” enemy combatants. Flatly, his files state that he “represents a low risk due to his medical situation.”

As they stormed into the cell with batons and pepper spray, beating him again and again, American soldiers broke al-Laithi’s back. Pressure applied liberally with military-issued boots, they kicked Prisoner Number 287 until he could no longer walk, ‘disciplining’ him for refusing to go into what he called the “humiliation yard.”

He refused treatment at the hospital; Torturers, he insisted, could not simultaneously be doctors. They pressed his head between his legs and pulled it back, hard. A vertebra at the neck broke. “I asked why they do these things. Why? No answer,” he says. “Only the walls have listened to me for years.“

Sami al-Laithi says what he thinks. “Wearing the heart on his sleeve,” he calls it.

Over 20 years ago, al-Laithi had to flee the authoritiarain regime of Egypt because of his constant complaints about corrupt officials. He went first to Pakistan where his sister lived and then, from there, to Afghanistan. …more

Mr. Walid Jumblatt; the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the leader of Durze sect affirmed that Bahrain presented the best example of the peaceful revolution.

Bahrain presented the best example of the peaceful revolution
12 March, 2012 – ABNA.co

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Mr. Walid Jumblatt; the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the leader of Durze sect affirmed that Bahrain presented the best example of the peaceful revolution.

He asked the government to execute peoples’ claims before the gap in between its people and the state institutions increased, warning that if further dissensions were to take place it would set the country alight with no room for dialogue left anymore.

Mr. Jumblatt said that the democratic constitutional kingdom was the best solution in Bahrain provided that it ensured the rights of both religious sects, the Shia and the Sunni and allows people to live in harmony side by side without prejudice or segregation.

In his timeline in twitter, Mr. Jumblatt said:” Bahrain settlement holds the key of a peaceful transition in the entire Gulf region, hence, an effective action must be done by which all the parties which will satisfy the securement of peace.”

He also condemned the mass media for neglecting the Bahraini revolution as if nothing had happened while exaggerating the situation in other countries, which could be considered unjust and biased. He also accused Al Jazeera TV channel and Al Arabiya of serving the interesting of Zionists by promoting a vision of the world according to their standards. …source

Bahrain declared enemy of Internet freedom
12 March, 2012 – Al-Akhbar

Bahrain has been declared an enemy of the Internet by a prominent campaign group in a report on Monday to mark World Day Against Cyber Censorship.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the Gulf state’s continued arbitrary arrests of online activists, while criticizing Saudi Arabia and Syria for continued online censorship.

Bahrain was one of only two countries to be called an “enemy” for the first time this year, the other being Belarus.

“Two countries, Bahrain and Belarus, have been moved from the “under surveillance” category to the “Enemies of the Internet” list,” the report said.

“They combine often drastic content filtering with access restrictions, tracking of cyber-dissidents and online propaganda.”

The report said the ongoing arrests of activists and the lack of international news coverage had succeeded in suppressing the protests in Bahrain.

It added that the upcoming Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix was an attempt by the ruling regime to pretend the protests are not happening.

“Bahrain is an example of a news blackout succeeding thanks to an impressive combination of technical, judicial and physical censorship methods,” the report said.

“Bahrain is spending millions to polish its image abroad and give the impression that the country has returned to normal. This has been capped by the announcement that the 2012 Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix, canceled last year, will go ahead in April,” it said.

A video emerged online over the weekend parodying attempts to organize the Grand Prix despite growing opposition due to human rights concerns in Bahrain.

The video, entitled “Bernie No F1 in Bloody Bahrain” after Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone, shows a computer simulation of the race, but as the drivers reach the finishing line they are greeted by Bahraini activists.

Bahrain is a key American ally in the Gulf and is home to the US Fifth Fleet, but has been rocked by pro-democracy protests since last year.

Saudi troops entered Bahrain in March 2011 to disperse the protests violently, with at least 40 people killed.

Opposition activists claim the death toll has risen to over 60 since mass protests resurfaced late last year.

A government-commissioned report last year found evidence of torture of activists, including bloggers and writers, in Bahraini custody.

The Reporters Without Borders report also condemned Saudi Arabia and Syria for continued harassment of online users.

“Saudi Arabia has continued its relentless censorship and suppressed coverage of a provincial uprising,” the report said, adding that “many Syrian and Bahraini netizens have been tortured in custody.“ …source