Bahrain protests: ‘The repression is getting worse’

Bahrain protests: ‘The repression is getting worse’
Ian Black Sitra – UK Guardian – August 8 2011

Months after its brief exposure to the Arab spring, Bahrain’s cat-and-mouse routine of protest and repression continues

Masked youths in the village of Daih, Bahrain, protest against the government from behind makeshift barriers. Photograph: Hasan Jamali/AP

Hassan Ali Salman is a stocky, fit-looking young man. But he flailed in vain as the police officers grabbed him, one forcing his T-shirt roughly up over his head as three or four others laid in with their wooden batons, dragging and pushing him to a line of waiting Land Cruisers and more helmeted cops.

Behind him, on a bare breezeblock wall, crudely drawn nooses encircle the names Hamad and Khalifa – in reference to the king of Bahrain and his uncle the prime minister – alongside graffiti demanding their execution and the overthrow of the regime.

The recent scene in Sitra, a short drive from central Manama, the capital, provided an ugly glimpse into the cat-and-mouse routine of protests and repression in this Gulf island state. Filmed secretly, posted on YouTube and distributed on Twitter, it exposes what Bahrain’s western-backed government prefers foreigners not to see.

In the nearby cemetery lies the grave of Zainab al-Juma, a disabled woman who died in July after inhaling tear gas from a police grenade. The black flag that marks her “martyrdom” hangs limp in the hot, still air. Another local victim was Ahmed Farhan, shot in March, his brains spilling out of his shattered head live on camera as horrified screams sounded all around.

Bahrain is far quieter now than during its brief exposure to the winds of the Arab spring in February and March, but unrest continues. Every night cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) echo through the villages of a Shia underclass that has chafed under the Sunni Al Khalifa dynasty since the country’s independence from Britain in 1971.

“We go up on to the roofs and shout and then try to march to the entrance of our village,” said Abu Ali, a thirtysomething accountant and former prisoner from Karzakan who supports al-Wifaq, the Islamist movement demanding democracy and equal rights for all. “The repression is getting worse.”

Haydar, from nearby Diraz, described a savage beating, curses and threats of rape as he was forced to kiss the boots of the police officers who tormented him on 26 June. “They pulled my shirt over my head and every hundred metres they hit me in the face and kicked me,” he said. …more