Bahrain remains a torture-permitting nation

Bahrain’s foreign minister has asked the British Government to get Denis MacShane to shut up about its human rights record. Here he explains why he will not be silent

Tribune Magazine: Bahrain remains a torture-permitting nation

by Denis MacShane – 25 February, 2012 – Tribune Magazine

I am used to endless lies and criticism from the British National Party and its favourite blogger, as well as the ­Islamist ideologues who hate my work on anti-Semitism, and the offshore-owned press obsessed about Europe. But this is the first time that a government, Bahrain, has written to the British Government asking the Foreign Secretary to shut me up.

In a 17-page open letter to William Hague, Bahrain foreign minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa accuses me of making several “demonstrably misconceived” statements about the political ­situation in Bahrain without visiting the country. It is true that I have not been to Bahrain recently, but I don’t need to go to Syria or Iran or North Korea to know there are serious human rights issues in those countries.

The latest news from Bahrain remains ever more worrying. There are regular pro-democracy demonstrations which are severely repressed by the police. In a new tactic, the police are raiding individual homes and throwing tear gas canisters inside. Amnesty International reports that as many as 30 people may have been killed as they choked to death in confined spaces.

Last month, 24-year-old Yousif al-Mawaly was arrested, tortured and then dumped in the sea. Photographs of his body seen by the BBC appear to show abrasions and bruises consistent with beating.

Human Rights Watch has reported that Bahraini riot police beat a prominent human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, as he was leaving a peaceful protest last month. Rajab said that the police attacked him using their fists and batons at about 8.30pm, as he was walking toward his car. “I noticed a number of riot police behind me. They were all in uniform. They started beating me and I fell on the ground. I told them that I was Nabeel Rajab, hoping that they would stop, but they kept beating and kicking me.” …more