Nabeel Rajab President Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Bahrain sentences Nabeel Rajab to 5 years behind bars February 21, 2018 - Bahrain sentences prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab to five years in prison over tweets deemed critical of the regimes in Manama and Saudi Arabia. http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2018/02/21/553101/Bahrain-Nabeel-Rajab
US Weapons Being Used on Protesters in Bahrain as Sunni Minority Destroys the Shia Download audio file September 20, 2011 WARNING! The CIA has targeted this individual for his human rights work and for exposing the supply of US weapons to the despotic regime which is killing civilians. Please spread this story! Mentioned in Stratfor E-Mails and deleted by the 5th Column at Sputnik. Mr Rajab has a court date tomorrow and is facing more persecution for his human rights work. 11-20-2011 Interview with Nabil Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and Deputy Secretary General for the International Federation of Human Rights.
Robles:
Can you detail some of
the human rights violations of the Bahrain government for our listeners?
Rajab: We have a culture of human rights violation and of crime, committed against humanity in Bahrain, especially in the past 6-7 months, since the Arab uprising – and, as you know, we started our uprising on January 11. Since then, there was a bloody crackdown, where thousands of people were detained and tortures. At least two people for every thousand citizens were in detention, thousands of people sacked from their jobs, expelled from their schools, their universities. There were systematic tortures, hospitals were taken by the military and patients were abused and tortured in the hospitals. Many people fled the country as people died or were tortured to death. We have a bad human rights record, especially the one we have since last March.
Robles:
There have been a lot
of reports about US weapons being used to suppress democracy demonstrations
in Bahrain. Can you give us some details on that?
Rajab: First of all, the American political position on Bahrain was totally different from their foreign policy towards other revolutions and other uprisings that were calling for democracy and human rights. The Americans and some other western countries were very silent on Bahrain. And not only that. Their weapons were used against protesters and human rights defenders in Bahrain, especially tear gas. At least ten people died in the past ten days because of the tear gas that was used by the special forces and riot police. And this tear gas is made in Pennsylvania, in the US. Unfortunately, human rights record is not a standard to the Americans when they sell weapons to Bahrain. Bahrain has a very bad human rights record, and it was very disappointing for the people of Bahrain, for human rights activists and for democracy fighters that the US did not only take their side in the uprising but was supplying the repressive regime with weapons in the region. That has a very poor human rights record. The people of Bahrain look at the US very differently than they did before February 13, especially when they saw our revolution, our uprising, which was calling for democracy and human rights, being banned, punished – and they still gave them aid and they still supplied them with weapons and tear gas that was used against the protesters and democracy activists.
Robles:
The US base in
Bahrain, does that have any relationship for the US supporting government?
Rajab: I think the US base is the policy-maker in Bahrain, rather than the Embassy and the State Department of the US in Bahrain. The US naval base has more power than the Embassy, and I think that was the main reason why the American government has taken the side of the Bahraini regime – because they see that their benefits and interests lie with the dictators and the repressive regime, not with any future democracy. People thought that the presidents of America and Bahrain would help them struggle for democracy and human rights. That’s what they thought in the past. But now it’s very clear: their president was very negative and helped the regime and the repressive ruler more than the people of the country.
Robles:
So we see a complete
double standard?
Rajab: We are a victim of the American double-standard foreign policy, we are a victim of the American interests, we are a victim of the American military presence in Bahrain. For that reason, as well as due to the complication of US’s foreign relations with Iran and other countries, we have to pay the price, because the US government’ still sees its interests lie with the dictators in the Gulf Region. That’s why they have reacted very negatively in the Gulf region, totally different to how they had reacted in Syria, Libya, Iran and Egypt. You could see that when the US president in his speech, where Saudi Arabia wasn’t mentioned at all, although Saudi Arabia is known to have the most oppressive regime in the region, spoke about most of the Arab countries but not those countries, because I think the flow of the oil has more importance than human rights of the people here.
Robles:
How many people have been killed, in your estimation, by the government of
Bahrain?
Rajab: At least 40 people were killed in the past months. Thousands of people detained and systematically tortured. Those numbers are very high percentage wise, if you take into consideration the population of Bahrain, which is around half a million people only. It is more than in Tunisia, it is more than in Egypt. But, unfortunately, we have seen complete silence from the US, because of their interests, because of their military presence, because of the arms sales, because of the oil sales. I think the US is creating people who don’t support it in the region. They have lost the hearts and minds of the people in that part of the region. Since my country gained independence, the army has been used only once – against peaceful protesters that were calling for democracy and human rights. It’s the only time that the Bahraini army has been deployed. Not only that, the Bahraini government did worse than any other country, because they killed their own people with their own army, but they invited other troops, from Saudi Arabia, from UAE, to take part in the bloody crackdown against the people of Bahrain.
Robles:
You say, people are
arrested, tortured and disappear, they lose jobs, they are kicked out of
universities. On what basis could this happen?
Rajab: Unfortunately, the crackdown has targeted people mostly in the sectarian basis, because the majority of protesters were calling for equality – they come from the indigenous Shiite population. The government targets them, targets their businesses, targets them at schools, at universities. Many people lost their sight because they were shot in the eyes.
Robles:
Would you characterize human rights violations in Bahrain as crimes against
humanity?
Rajab: What happened in Bahrain is a crime against humanity.
Maryam Al-Khawaja President Bahrain Center for Human Rights Human Rights Activists Attacked in Bahrain http://www.jar2.com/Interviews/Maryam_Al-Khawaja.html
U.S. Double-Standards Crystal Clear in Bahrain by John Robles 28 June 2012, 19:26 Even in today’s world of instant messaging,
internet, mobile and satellite communications and worldwide mass media,
there are still places that exist, where events take place unbeknownst to
the rest of the planet. Even in today’s world of instant messaging,
internet, mobile and satellite communications and worldwide mass media,
there are still places that exist, where events take place unbeknownst to
the rest of the planet. There exists countries that do not want the world to
know what is going on within their borders or there exists countries that
try to control the flow of information coming out of areas where their
activities are not within the boundaries of what the civilized world would
find as acceptable or appropriate. Serbia and Kosovo are places where such a media
blackout exists and those are places I believe need more attention from the
international community another is Bahrain. Officially called the Kingdom of Bahrain, the
country is a small island nation situated in the western part of the Persian
Gulf and has a population of about 1,234,571 according to a 2010 census. The
country ranks 42nd on the Human Development Index, it is also a member of
the UN, the WTO, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference
and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. Bahrain was caught up in what has become known as
the Arab Spring on February 14th 2011 when protestors took to the streets
demanding more political freedom and an improvement in the human rights
situation in the country. Originally there was no threat to the monarchy nor
were there calls for a regime change in the country. This all changed
however on February 17th when police killed four protestors while attempting
to clear the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, the central gathering place for
most of the protests taking place in the country.
Since then the response and the crackdowns
on peaceful and unarmed demonstrators by police and security forces has been
described as brutal. Almost 3,000 people have been arrested and more than 70
have been killed, according to the acting president of the Bahrain Center
for Human Rights, Maryam
Al-Khawaja, in an interview for the Voice of Russia
. There are also wide spread reports of torture, beatings and the denial of
medical assistance leading to death. As with most of the Arab Spring countries there is
an internal conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. In Bahrain the
majority of the population is comprised of Shiites although the Sunnis
control most of the government sectors and politics. There are reports of
widespread and institutionalized discrimination in employment, housing and
other areas against the Shiites. According to Ms. Al-Khawaja there exists a media
blackout in Bahrain. The most obvious and pervasive form being a system of
filtering and blocking internet sites that is implemented and executed by
the Bahraini Information Affairs Authority (IAA) and which has a noticeable
impact on the overall speed of the internet traffic for the country’s more
than 250,000 internet users. According to the Bahrain Center for Human
Rights (BCHR) there are over 1,000 sites currently blocked in Bahrain
including their own.
Bahrain has also seriously cracked down on
bloggers and regularly arrests people for posting on Twitter and Facebook.
The opposition groups views and opinions have no place in Bahraini media so
they resort to the internet. One such person Nabeel Rajab, the president of
the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (http://www.bahrainrights.org/en
) who I interviewed last September (http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/09/20/56438166.html
) has been arrested twice and may have been tortured. During one arrest
according to the center, he was beaten and blindfolded and in his own words
was threatened with rape and kicked when he refused to say he loved the
prime minister. The situation in the country is getting worse with
many experts saying that the situation may soon explode. According Ms.
Al-Khawaja part of the daily routine for many Bahraini citizens involves
being tear gassed and trying to save their children from suffocating. Human rights organizations all over the world have
called for a halt to dozens of widespread abuses in the Kingdom. Some of the
most notable being the following: Human Rights Watch has called on the
Bahrain’s High Court of Appeal to reject the use of confessions possibly
obtained by torture, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights
Defenders, a joint program of the International Federation for Human Rights
(FIDH) and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) wrote an open
letter to the King of Bahrain to state its concerns about the arbitrary
detention of Nabeel Rajad, Amnesty International has issued many statements,
in particular with regard to the persecution of medical personnel who were
attempting to assist injured protestors, Human Rights first says the
persecution of Human Rights Workers is getting worse, the Cairo Institute
for Human Rights Studies stated in a report: “The human rights situation in
Bahrain in 2011 witnessed unprecedented deterioration at almost all levels,
especially in light of the repressive retaliatory action aimed at crushing
the popular uprising which demanded far-reaching democratic reforms…”, and
the list goes on. So where are the calls from the U.S. and NATO for a
“humanitarian intervention” or for regime change in Bahrain, a U.S. ally
that hosts a base for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet? Nowhere. However on May 9,
2012 Hillary Clinton met with Bahraini Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al
Khalifa and expressed that “…much work remains to fully address ongoing
human rights issues.” Where were statements like this to Gadaffi or to
Assad? So with all of these reports what does the U.S. do?
They sell arms to the Bahraini Government. In February of this year 18
representatives and 3 Senators, all of them from the Democratic Party, wrote
a letter of protest to Clinton who in turn, did nothing. There have been widespread reports that the
security forces are using military grade tear gas on protestors and gassing
homes, killing civilians. But that is just one of the lesser pieces of
equipment and weaponry that the U.S. is selling Bahrain. The entire Bahraini
military, called the Bahraini Defense Force and numbering about 13,000, is
equipped U.S. hardware, everything from F-16s, to Blackhawk helicopters, to
Abrams tanks and even an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate. But the
relationship does not end there, Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet
giving them a base in Juffair and has signed a cooperation agreement with
the U.S. military. When speaking recently with regards to Syria I
think Russia’s plenipotentiary envoy in human rights affairs, Konstantin
Dulgov said it best: ““Double standards in human rights is unacceptable and
Russia and the majority of the international community reject that”. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter also recently
stated something worth repeating with regard to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights; “the U.S. Government’s policies are now clearly violating at
least 10 of the declaration’s 30 articles, including the prohibition against
“cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” So there you go, another example of a double
standard and complete hypocrisy from the only country in the world where its
leader signs off on a daily kill list. Who shall we kill today? The views and opinions expressed here are the author’s own.
CNN Paid to PR Bahrain
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