US State Department remains clueless and complicit on Human Rights Abuse in Bahrain

US urges Bahrain to speed reforms
19 September, 2012 – Al Akhbar

The United States urged Bahrain on Wednesday to speed democratic reforms and hold meaningful talks with opposition groups to ensure stability in a strategic Gulf ally at a sensitive time.

Bahrain must halt the excessive use of force by police and prosecute security forces for alleged crimes linked to mass protests, including torture and deaths of detainees in custody, a senior US official said.

“A stable, democratic healthy Bahrain, one where human rights issues are dealt with appropriately, is a country that’s going to be a strong ally and we need that,” Michael Posner, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told reporters in Geneva.

Washington values the “strong security relationship” it has had for 60 years with Bahrain, home of the US Fifth Fleet, “particularly in light of things going on in the Gulf now”.

Posner did not elaborate.

Posner was to hold talks later in the day with Foreign Minister Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa who defended the kingdom’s record at the UN Human Rights Council.

“We welcome peaceful expressions of disagreement, but not incitements to hatred and violence which damage the social fabric of a nation,” Al Khalifa told the Geneva forum, pledging that his government would pursue “unprecedented reforms”.

But Posner said progress had slowed and there had been no successful prosecutions of anyone involved in cases of torture and deaths in custody. “The fact is that a number of people, police and others who committed violations last February and March have not been held accountable,” he said. …more