Sun, 12 Sep 2010 13:39:47 GMT
The Bahraini government has suspended the board of the Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS) after the group accused Manama of violating human rights.
BHRS censured the Bahraini government earlier this month after it charged 23 Shia activists with forming a “terror network” with the goal of bringing down the Sunni-dominated government.
Amnesty International said activist/blogger Ali Abdulemam was arrested for allegedly spreading “false news.”
Sun, 12 Sep 2010 13:39:47 GMT
The Bahraini government has suspended the board of the Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS) after the group accused Manama of violating human rights.
BHRS censured the Bahraini government earlier this month after it charged 23 Shia activists with forming a “terror network” with the goal of bringing down the Sunni-dominated government.
Amnesty International said activist/blogger Ali Abdulemam was arrested for allegedly spreading “false news.”
“By suspending the board of the BHRS and putting its own representative in charge, the government has effectively taken control of the organization with the apparent intent of closing it down,” said Malcolm Smart, the London-based watchdog’s Middle East and North Africa director.
Amnesty International says the action is part of Manama’s crackdown on the Shia opposition and human rights activists in the run-up to the October 23 parliamentary elections, adding that the decision should be reconsidered since it violates the basic right to freedom of expression.
Press TV has interviewed Saeed al-Shahabi, Head of the Free Bahrain Islamic Movement. He is one of the two opposition figures among the 23 who haven’t been arrested yet but has been charged in absentia of forming a “terror network” to overthrow the government.
Most of the opposition and human rights activists were arrested back in August.
Human rights activists accuse the government of torturing and generally harassing the political opposition in Bahrain. They have called for an international committee to be set up to look into the alleged torturing of the Bahrainis.
Manama has denied the torture allegations and accuses the 23 men who have been charged with offences of instigating violence in the country.
Here is the rush transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Mr Shahabi how long have you been living in the UK and why did you leave Bahrain?
Shahabi: I have been in the UK since 1971. I applied for political asylum in 1982. I have become a UK citizen for the past 10 years. In that case, I am outside or supposed to be outside the Bahraini jurisdiction. However; I am a Bahraini by origin and still take interest to what happens to my native country.
Press TV: Would you call it a self-imposed exile?
Shahabi: Well people are exiled in their own homeland. People are either in small jails or in the bigger jail called Bahrain. Some people have chosen to live outside their country until the situation inside the country improves. They have decided to carry their struggle for freedom, democracy and respect for the human rights and justice outside their homeland. The idea is to create as much pressure as possible on this monarchy in order to raise itself to the level of internationally accepted rules of democratic engagements.
Press TV: What will happen to you if you go back to Bahrain?
Shahabi: I am now under the threat of execution. You are talking about the 23 people who have been charged but the total number of those who have been arrested in the past one month is now 250 people. Some of them are below 16. We are talking about a massive crackdown on a majority of opposition people, by forces, which in many cases, are mercenaries. On the other hand, those people who have been accused of plotting to overthrow the regime are known for the government for many years. They are not working clandestinely and they have not plotted to overthrow the regime. They have been open about their demands to have development, real reforms in a society that has been ruled by tyranny and dictatorship.
Press TV: Tell us about the evidence that officials are presenting as proof that the 23 activists are involved in a terror network?
Shahabi: Even the British Ambassador to Manama few years ago was quoted as saying that the Bahraini government has requested us to deal with these supposedly terrorists. The British diplomat then said we asked for evidence and yet no evidence has been submitted. I was tried in absentia in 1996 to 15 years in jail and five million dinars which is about 14 million dollars. I was accused as early as 1980s because of my activities in calling for a democratic change in the country.
Press TV: The government has also come under criticism by Amnesty International. How strongly is this “clampdown” related to the October parliamentary elections?
Shahabi: The ruling family knows that if a free and fair election based on the constitution is allowed to take place, definitely the majority of the people would oppose the appropriation of land as an example of the country’s theft. They would oppose this dictatorship pushing itself on the people.
That is why they want to engineer an election that produces hopeless, useless and ineffective parliament and they want to ensure that even this ineffective, hopeless, and useless parliament is dominated by lackeys, by people who only stamp any decision, any law, or any bill by the ruling family. Bahrain is ruled by a royal family and not by the people and this is why we still have a prime minister who has been in his post since 1971. Seventeen out of 28 ministers are from the ruling al-Khalifa family. How do they expect us to accept democracy is in Bahrain? What type of a democracy is it?
There is an opposition and a confrontation between democracy and the ruling family. The New York Times said yesterday that the crackdown is a hint to an end to the political reform program. So all in all what we see in Bahrain today is a return to the old era when the rule of the secret police becomes the order of the day, when the people are snatched at midnight from their beds and taken to the torture chambers to be mutilated.
This is what happened to Jafar Hesabi, a UK national who even the UK embassy in Bahrain has refused to take action about. This is what is happening to four or five senior academics from Bahrain who have been stripped naked and beaten to unconsciousness. We are passing through a difficult time.
Press TV: Do you think there has been any effective international effort to solve the situation here or are we lacking the international effort or attention towards what is going on in Bahrain?
Shahabi: There are two faces to this question. First of all I think luckily this time we got two parties on our side. We have the human rights organizations, Amnesty International, Frontline, Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) and the Pen International are among so many others who have supported the people of Bahrain and criticized and condemned the atrocities of the ruling family.
On the other hand we have the media. Generally the media coverage has been positive. We have the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, BBC and of course Press TV near our home. Of course we also have the media of the enemy, which is paid money to distort the image of the opposition and the reality. What we want from media is to concentrate on the facts.