Students Under Attack in Bahrain – A Royal Shame

The chronicle: Bahrain Cracks Down on Student Protesters With Harsh Sentences
October 10, 2011 – By Ursula Lindsey – BCHR

Cairo – When protesters took to the streets of Bahrain eight months ago, they hoped to bring the Arab Spring to the small Persian Gulf island kingdom, and to end what they described as decades of discrimination by the ruling Sunni minority against the Shiite majority. But the repression that followed has dashed hopes for peaceful reform.

The crackdown has had “a chilling effect” on university campuses, says Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. Shiite students and professors told The Chronicle that discrimination against them is now “wide open” and described an atmosphere of fear, suspicion, and intimidation.

On October 3, six university students were sentenced to 15-year jail terms and another student to an 18-year term by a special military court. They were accused of attempted murder, arson, and vandalism in connection with clashes that took place on the campus of the University of Bahrain, the main national university, on March 13. The students and their supporters say the violence that day was carried out by Bahrain security forces and government supporters, none of whom have been charged.

Other students and professors are facing charges of illegal assembly, incitement, and disturbing the peace. At least 100 professors and university administrators have been fired, and about 60 students have been denied the right to continue their studies.

The court cases, dismissals, and expulsions are “part of a campaign against all antigovernment and pro-democracy protesters,” says a member of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, a prominent local group that the government dissolved in 2004 but whose members continue to work anonymously online. “The movement hasn’t stopped yet. Although they were attacked, detained, tortured, although students were suspended, still they demanded their right. The government is trying to silence them and pressure them.”

Starting on February 14, Bahrain witnessed protests modeled on those that had toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. Bahrain’s majority Shiite population began a large peaceful sit-in at a central square known as the Pearl Roundabout, demanding more democratic governance and social justice from the small island kingdom’s Sunni ruling family.

But the authorities accused the protesters of wanting to overthrow the government and of being agents of Iran. In March, they called in troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (fellow Sunni monarchies), opened fire on protesters, razed the prominent monument that gave Pearl Roundabout its name, and declared a state of emergency. Since then, a wide-scale campaign of arrests, trials and dismissals has singled out not only professors and students, but also thousands of public-sector employees, doctors, and teachers.

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, masked security forces have arrested professors in nighttime raids at their homes and have beaten and threatened students during interrogations.

Masaud Jahromi, a professor arrested in April and held incommunicado for a month, will go to trial on October 12 on charges of “attending an illegal gathering.”

Bahraini scholars have been dismissed for crimes such as “forwarding e-mails defaming Bahrain” or “criticizing the government in front of non-Bahraini professors.”

“All the dismissed are Shias. Ninty-nine-point-nine percent of those jailed were Shias. There’s no way you can say it’s not discrimination against Shias,” says a professor fired from the University of Bahrain, who spoke to The Chronicle on condition of anonymity.

Summoned before a committee of “pro-government faculty members” the professor says he was shown photographs of himself in a protest march. When he hesitated to confirm his presence, he was told by the investigating committee that the questioning could be continued at the Ministry of Interior. He remains concerned that he might face further interrogations or a trial, like some of his colleagues. …more