Bahrain’s anti-regime protesters took to the streets as
"Come to Revolution" campaign picks up speed ahead of the fifth
anniversary of the country's popular revolution. Protesters staged a rally in
the northern village of Musalla amid tight security and voiced their readiness
to mark the anniversary of the uprising that engulfed their country on February
14, 2011. The protesters were holding photos of jailed political activists. Since
mid-February 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous
demonstrations on an almost daily basis in the kingdom, calling for the Al
Khalifah monarchy to relinquish power. Scores of people have been killed and
hundreds of others injured or arrested in the ongoing heavy-handed crackdown on
peaceful rallies.
Britain has been bankrolling a Bahraini police watchdog that
failed to investigate torture allegations regarding a young political activist
on death row in the Gulf state. The funding forms part of a broader £2.1
million (US$3 million) scheme to improve Bahrain’s criminal justice system and
was sparked by Britain’s close strategic ties to the kingdom. Those with
concerns about detainees’ treatment in Bahrain have been encouraged by the
British government to contact the Gulf state’s police ombudsman. But the
British-funded watchdog’s failure to investigate a complaint lodged by the
family of a political activist on death row has brought its reputation into
disrepute. Human Rights Watch warned that credible allegations of abuse and
torture of detainees in Bahrain undercuts claims that the state’s criminal
justice system is improving. The group said that new institutions in the Gulf
state are “sham reforms,” and demanded to know how Bahrain and Britain’s
governments could possibly claim they were protecting prisoners from abuse
during interrogation.
British arms sales to Bahrain have increased significantly
over the past five years, while in the
background abuse claims have continued. Between February 2011 and
September 2015, the UK has done deals with Bahrain worth £45m, covering arms
such as machine guns, assault rifles and anti-armour ammunition, according to
the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) organisation. The total for the three
years prior to the uprising was £6m. Saudi Arabia also sent UK-supplied
armoured vehicles to Bahrain to safeguard infrastructure, allowing the Bahraini
monarchy violently to repress the pro-democracy opposition movement, led by the
country’s Shia majority. Doctors who treated protesters were tortured.
In 2014, the UK agreed to open a naval base in Bahrain as a
result of a defence agreement. Construction began last November, with Philip
Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, celebrating the deal in a photocall with the
Bahraini foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa. The pair held
brand new shovels as they laid the cornerstone of HMS Juffair, the first major
naval base east of the Suez Canal opened by Britain since 1971.
A Bahraini human rights group lodged a complaint with the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development against Fifa over
Sheikh Salman al-Khalifa’s candidacy for the football governing body’s
presidency. In the complaintthe campaign group Americans for Democracy and
Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) alleged that Sheikh Salman committed numerous
human rights abuses while president of the Bahrain Football Association. The
central allegation concerns the persecution and arrest of footballers who took
part in pro-democracy protests. In 2011, Sheikh Salman reportedly chaired a
special committee that led to the jailing of more than 150 athletes, coaches
and referees. “All the evidence suggests that Sheikh Salman was involved in the
government crackdown on free expression and human rights,” said Husain Abdulla,
executive director of ADHRB. “This raises serious concerns about his ability to
protect the athletes who would be under his care as president of Fifa.”
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