Bahrain: Arrest and incommunicado detention of human rights defender Mr Naji Fateel
front line defenders 2 May, 2013

On 2 May 2013 at dawn, police arrested human rights defender Mr Naji Fateel at his home in the village of Bani Jamra in north-west Bahrain. He is being held without formal charges at a location which is still unknown.

Naji Fateel is a board member of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, and a blogger who has been active in reporting human rights violations in Bahrain. The human rights defender gives daily speeches during marches in villages in which he discusses the importance of documenting violations and calls for people to form monitoring committees. He also publishes his opinion twice daily on his twitter account. Naji Fateel attended the Front Line Defenders 2010 Dublin Platform.

Naji Fateel has previously been arrested on charges of illegal assembly and taking part in a demonstration unauthorised by Bahraini officials. The demonstration was an exercise of the right to peaceful assembly. On this occasion the human rights defender was interrogated and tortured whilst in detention. Front Line Defenders issued an urgent appeal on his behalf on 16 February 2012. He was released on bail on 17 April 2012. Naji Fateel’s home has been raided on several occasions last year as part of a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. He has also been subjected to death threats on account of his work in defence of human rights.

Front Line Defenders expresses its concern at the arbitrary arrest and detention of Naji Fateel, and worries that, given the precedent, the human rights defender is at risk of being tortured whilst he is being held incommunicado. Front Line Defenders believes that continued international silence on the arrests of human rights defenders has emboldened the Bahraini authorities to take these measures against Naji Fateel, who is being held solely as a result of his legitimate and peaceful human rights work. …source

Dictatorship and Double Standards: Bahrain Is More Repressive Than Russia, But Reading the Washington Post You’d Never Know That
1 May, 2013 – Mark Adomanisv – Forbes

One of the things that I find endlessly grating about the “morality in foreign policy” crowd is their myopia. While a consistent stand in defense of human rights is entirely laudable, if a bit unrealistic in the fallen world we live in, the people who want to inject “values” into American diplomacy are usually incredibly selective in their outrage. By and large they choose countries, such as Venezuela or Russia, with which America is already on lousy terms and then argue that “values” demand heightening tensions in already tense situations. It’s an instrumental view of “rights” which holds that they are useful only to the extent they support American foreign policy priorities.

Thus you have someone like the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl who is repulsed by the idea of limited anti-terror cooperation with the Russians but who just can’t seem to find the time to bemoan the (far more grievous) human rights violations of close US anti-terror allies such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. It’s particularly fascinating to compare Diehl’s almost palpable outrage over limited intelligence sharing with the Russians (something about which supposedly “pro-Russia” people like myself and Daniel Larison have been decidedly skeptical) with the bored and indifferent tone he takes with the Bahrainis who, according to Freedom House, are even more repressive and undemocratic than the Russians.

Here’s how he sets the stage in Bahrain which, remember, is a more repressive country than Russia whose regime has shot to death dozens of peaceful demonstrators over the past few years (emphasis added):

For the past 18 months, the two sides have been locked in an impasse that has spawned near-nightly demonstrations in Shiite villages, the deaths of at least 55 people, the jailing of many opposition leaders and fraying relations between Bahrain and its chief military ally, the United States.

First of all, it’s worth pointing out that there is almost no evidence that relations between Bahrain and the United States are actually “fraying.” The Obama administration easily brushed aside Congressional concerns about a continued security relationship with the country. The United States fifth fleet is still based in Bahrain and there are no plans to have it relocate anytime soon. The United States was so “concerned” about Bahrain’s violent suppression of its pro-democracy movement, aided by our close allies the Saudis, that it continued to sell the country a broad range of weapons systems (weapons systems, of course, that it would never in a million years countenance selling to the Russians). Diehl seems to be inventing tensions between the United States and Bahrain where they don’t actually exist. …more