Total Pageviews

Bahraini Activists Document Crackdown on Protest

September 7, 2012, 4:18 pm
By CHRISTINE HAUSER and ROBERT MACKEY

Video recorded by an opposition activist in Bahrain, said to show the use of tear gas to quell a protest against the ruling monarchy on Friday in the capital, Manama.

Security forces again fired tear gas and arrested demonstrators in Bahrain's capital on Friday, as protestors renewed their calls for reform and the release of political prisoners in the Gulf Arab island nation that is home to the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet.

The protesters took to the streets three days after a ruling by a Bahraini appeals court which upheld life sentences for 8 leaders of the protest movement. Those activists, including the f ounder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, were convicted last year of charges including plotting to overthrow the country's Sunni Muslim monarchy. Twelve opposition figures, seven of them in absentia, were also given jail terms of between 5 to 15 years. Although the protest movement is mostly led by members of the Shiite community, who form a majority of the population but have little say in the way the country is ruled, activists reject government claims that they are sectarian extremists.

Images recorded by opposition activists and posted online showed some of the crackdown on dissent on the streets of Manama, the capital.

Ala'a Shehabi, a British-Bahraini activist who spoke to The Lede about the protest movement in April, posted one image of the gas on her Twitter feed on Friday.

Writing on social networks, demonstrators in Manama and their supporters described hearing what sounded like gunfire, and reported that stun grenades and birdshot were fired at protesters. They posted images of unarmed demonstrators chanting “Peaceful! Peaceful!” as they marched, carrying flags and facing off with black clad forces with helmets and riot gear.

Demonstrators in Bahrain chanting “Peaceful! Peaceful!” and holding a banner calling for the release of political detainees.

Many said that security forces, both uniformed and in plainclothes, were making arrests of demonstrators, including one man who was photographed as officers led him away in the capital's Old City neighborhood.

The acting head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Maryam al-Khawaja, said that more protesters would have joined the demonstration but the security forces were blocking the streets to prevent a mass rally.

Ms. Khawaja is the daughter of the center's founder and a colleague of the current president, Nabeel Rajab, who was sentenced last month to three years in prison for “inciting” protests. She claimed that the security forces had turned the capital “into military zone just to attempt to prevent a peaceful protest,” and drew attention to images posted on Twitter by witnesses that seemed to prove it.

The image s appeared to show that the security forces locked down streets in the capital, a regional financial hub, restricting the flow of cars and people, although on a Friday work hours are curtailed.

An armored personnel carrier was posted in front of the Saudi embassy, although it was not immediately clear how long it had been there. Troops from Saudi Arabia have helped their neighbor Bahrain to quell the protests.

One of the images Ms. Khawaja drew attention to appeared to show a heavy security presence where the Lulu, or Pearl, monument used to stand in the center of traffic circle that was briefly occupied by protesters in February of last year.

After the area was abruptly cleared with the use of heavy force, the authorities tore down the soaring monument to Bahrain's pearl-fishing past that had become a symbol of the protest movement and bulldozed the traffic circle.

Ms. Khwaja's sister, Zeinab, who tweets as @AngryArabiya, has also been jailed for protesting. On Thursday, Zeinab al-Khwaja's husband posted a photograph of their da ughter celebrating her third birthday during a visit to the prison where her mother is being held.

According to a Reuters report, dozens of protestors showed up for the demonstration, of which the Wefaq party, the largest Shiite opposition group, was a main organizer. It remains unclear how many people were injured, in part because protesters are often treated in private homes rather than hospitals because of fears they could be arrested there or endanger medical staff trying to treat them. The number of arrests also remains unknown.

When asked for details about arrests; crowd control methods; the size of the protests and any reports of casualties, Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority said in an emailed reply:

A large protest was called for to take place this afternoon in a commercial area in the middle of the capital, the equivalent of Times Square. It would have disrupted traffic and infringed upon other citizens' right of way, not to ment ion the negative impact on small businesses which have been hit hard by similar demonstrations. Therefore, the authorities did not issue a permit for the demonstration to take place.

In Bahrain, protests are allowed as long as they follow required procedures. A protest of several thousand took place only a few days ago on a major highway in the suburbs of the capital. This is not new in Bahrain.

Today, there were a few arrests made for disturbing the peace, incitement of violence and protesting without authorization. Numbers cannot be confirmed yet but there were no reports of casualties. The riot control methods and equipment used, as well as traffic diversion methods, are in accordance with international norms,

It should also be noted that any demands made in regards to convicted criminals are unacceptable as this is a matter for the independent judiciary to resolve. Moreover, the process has not been finalized as those convicted have a right to appeal to Bahrain's highest court.

The comparison to New York's Times Square is a reminder that a former senior official with the New York Police Department, John Timoney, was hired late last year to advise Bahrain's police force on its handling of protests.

Bahrainis also posted photographs on Twitter showing what they identified as an aerial surveillance drone disguised as a weather balloon, like those used to monitor the streets in the United States and Gaza.

The appeals court decision this week took place after another Bahraini court had ordered retrials for the activists, including Mr. Khawaja who had been on a hunger strike for nearly three months. After the court issued the verdicts on Tuesday, the state news agency published a statement from the government's Ministry of Human Righ ts Affairs, claiming that the country's judiciary was independent. “It is unfair to state that the sentences are outrageous due to political considerations,” the statement said in part.

Bahrain came under renewed criticism after the jail terms, which the government said can still be appealed, were upheld this week. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said in a statement on Thursday that the Bahrain court's decision was “deeply regrettable.” She added:

I had welcomed the Bahraini government's decision to transfer these cases to civilian courts, as military trials of civilians raise serious problems as far as the equitable, impartial and independent administration of justice is concerned. But now, given the gravity of the charges, the scant evidence available beyond confessions, the serious allegations of torture and the irregularities in the trial processes, it is extremely disappointing that the convictions and sentences have been upheld in appeals proceedings that often took place behind closed doors.