MOI Minister Meets with US Partners in Human Rights Abuse

Minister of Interior Lt-General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa – the Minister holds meetings during official visit to US
19 July, 2012 – MOI

MOI:

During an official visit to the US, His Excellency Minister of Interior Lt-General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa held meetings with US government officials and members of the Senate as well as Congressmen over the last two days. He met CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus and FBI Director Robert Mueller. He also met Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Michael H. Posner in the presence of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs M. Brooke Darby and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Arabian Gulf in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs as well as Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough.

HE the Minister also met a number of US senators including John McCain, head of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, in the presence of Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Daniel Inoyem, Ben Cardin and James Risch.

HE the Minister also met Congressman Peter King, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Congressmen and members of the Foreign Affairs Committee Keith Ellison and Dana Rohrabacher, and Congressman and member of the Human Rights Committee Jim McGovern.

HE the Minister highlighted during his meetings the steps taken by Bahrain to deal with the incidents during the past months, including implementation of the recommendations of the final report of the Bahrain International Commission for Inquiry (BICI) set up through a national initiative by His Majesty the King.

HE the Minister affirmed that Bahrain had always led the way to a democratic approach since the launch of the comprehensive reforms project by HM the King more than ten years ago. He stressed that the incidents in Bahrain were not internal matters since they received outside support to escalate them to the level of violence and vandalism. This, he said, had led to death of innocent people and created fear among citizens and residents. “We understand that security and civil peace cannot be achieved by force or through violence and terror but through respect for the law and loyalty to the nation in order to achieve justice. This is a sign of wise governance by HM the King,” he said.

In this context, HE the Minister said that the investigations related to the seizure of five tonnes of explosives had shown that a number of them were ready to use and showed links between the suspects in the case and foreign parties.

He affirmed that the culture of violence was not part of the characteristics of Bahraini society and the main issue was the extremist approach through violence as the only means to achieve goals. “The strong national stance under the leadership of HM the King had protected the cohesion of the State and saved it from a real disaster and the damage it could have caused would be hard to predict,” he said.

He highlighted that during the crisis Bahrain had witnessed aggressive media attacks based on biased and far-from-objective reports and some international media resources had projected that what was happening in the country was a continuation of the Arab Spring. “This was proven to be baseless,” he said, and appreciated the BBC for its brave act of admitting to not being fair while covering the incidents of the last year. He added that this was the kind of stance Bahrain expected from prestigious international channels which claimed to bring the truth to the world.

HE the Minister also highlighted in detail the procedures adopted by the Ministry of Interior to carry out comprehensive reforms in response to the BICI recommendations. …more