Crackdown in Bahrain Has West’s Support
In a Sunday interview with Press TV, President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab slammed the international community, especially Manama’s European and Western allies.
The rights advocate believes those states have chosen not only to keep silent over the ongoing repression, but also to boost their ties with Bahrain.
Such policies encourage the Manama regime to continue its crackdown against protesters without any fear about the consequences, Rajab added.
He also accused the ruling monarchy of misleading the outside world about the ongoing uprising by trying to portray it as a sectarian conflict between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority.
Rajab, who has himself been imprisoned by authorities over criticizing the ruling monarchy, went on to say that the struggle is a genuine effort by the nation to bring openness and democracy to Bahrain.
The ongoing protest in Bahrain “is about people’s struggle for rights, for human rights, for justice, for equality, for international convention for human rights, for international standards not for Shias, for everybody,” Rajab said.
Rajab said the charges against Bahraini opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman are nothing but a ploy to silence dissent in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.
New nationwide rallies have erupted in Bahrain since the Manama regime arrested Salman on December 28 days after the 49-year-old respected cleric secured a new four-year term in al-Wefaq’s general congress.
Sheikh Salman told Press TV in an exclusive interview just before his arrest that Western states have adopted a double-standard approach toward the Manama regime’s human rights violations to protect their interests in the Persian Gulf region.
The Bahraini regime’s continued crackdown on dissident voices has drawn condemnation from several human rights groups.
Iran, the United Nations, the US and the EU have all called on Manama to free Salman.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of protesters have held numerous rallies in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.
