Dear President Obama,
I write to you from a Bahraini jail cell, and this message was never meant to go beyond its walls. Even though I have never advocated for violence nor harmed another living soul, I have spent 28 of the last 36 months in a Bahraini prison for actions that can only be counted as crimes in a nation that stifles free expression and criminalizes open assembly. I have documented my government’s use of torture. I have reported on civilian casualties in Yemen. I have held a different opinion than that of a king. In retaliation, I may spend the next ten years of my life in jail.
While my government punishes me for demanding an end to its assault on civil and political rights, other GCC states, especially Saudi Arabia, subject human rights defenders to harsher abuse. Their repression can be seen in the flogging of free speech activist Raif Badawi and the death sentence against the religious scholar and human rights advocate Nimr al-Nimr. Saudi courts even sentenced Raif’s lawyer, Waleed abu al-Khair, to 15 years in prison. We as human rights defenders are targeted for giving voice to the marginalized, people seeking to take the reins of their own destiny; our governments do everything in their power to prevent us from acting upon the best ideals of our conscience.
– From last year’s post: Jailed Bahraini Human Rights Activist Writes Open Letter to Obama from Prison
As Saudi Arabia has proven over and over, it pays to be a U.S. ally in the Middle East. It’s a designation which grants tyrants carte blanche to do whatever they want. Discriminate against minorities, punish dissidents with crucifixion, systematically violate every conceivable human right, etc, etc. As an example, recall what happened just last week:
Saudi Arabia Forces the United Nations to Remove it from a List of Child Killers
So while Saudi Arabia gets most of the attention due to its relative size, regional influence and particular affinity for barbarism, the Kingdom of Bahrain is not far behind.
The last couple of days makes this perfectly clear. As the AP reports:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Bahrain suspended the country’s largest Shiite opposition group in a surprise court hearing Tuesday, intensifying its crackdown on dissent five years after Arab Spring protests rocked the island kingdom.
The Al-Wefaq opposition group has been suspended before amid turmoil over the protests and lingering unrest. The small Shiite-majority island off the coast of Saudi Arabia is ruled by a Sunni monarchy, which has imprisoned several activists and deported others.
Read that last sentence a few times and let it sink in. This is where the U.S. stations the Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Here’s some more:
“It was out of the blue,” al-Shamlawi told The Associated Press. “They say Al-Wefaq is the sole danger to national security.”
He said the court set an Oct. 6 hearing to decide whether to “liquidate” the party — meaning the island’s biggest opposition group could be entirely dismantled.
By late Tuesday afternoon, police had surrounded Al-Wefaq’s headquarters and took down its banners and posters while carrying away material inside, witnesses said.
In May, a Bahraini appeals court more than doubled a prison sentence for Al-Wefaq’s secretary-general, Sheikh Ali Salman. Salman now faces nine years behind bars, up from an earlier four, following his conviction last year on charges that included incitement and insulting the Interior Ministry.
The sudden court case and investigations came a day after authorities detained Nabeel Rajab, a prominent activist and the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.
Rajab, whom King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa previously pardoned over health concerns, faces a charge of spreading “false news,” lawyer Mohammed al-Jishi said on Twitter. Al-Jishi did not respond to requests for comment.
The 2011 demonstrations called for greater political freedoms on the island, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. The government crushed the protests with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Since then, the island has seen low-level unrest, protests and attacks on police. Other prominent opposition figures and human rights activists remain imprisoned. Some have been stripped of their citizenship and deported.
In a speech Monday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said at least 250 people lost their citizenship in Bahrain in recent years “because of their alleged disloyalty to the interests of the kingdom.”
Rights groups say Bahrain refused to allow activists to leave the country to attend the Geneva conference where al-Hussein spoke. The raids appear to have been timed to serve as a snub of the U.N. meeting.
Tuesday’s court decision shows Bahrain “is bulldozing its civil society,” said Sayed Ahmed al-Wadaei, the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.
Just the latest reminder that if you remain subservient to U.S. imperial interests in a strategically important geography, you can do whatever the heck you want.
For more on Bahrain, see:
U.S. Government Reinstates Arm Sales to Bahrain Despite Rampant Human Rights Abuses
Jailed Bahraini Human Rights Activist Writes Open Letter to Obama from Prison
The Bahrain Ghetto: Barbed Wire Fencing Goes Up Around Certain Neighborhoods
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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