| Submit your comments on this article |
| Arabia |
| Bahrain steps up crackdown on opposition |
| 2011-04-01 |
| [Al Jazeera] Bahrain has stepped up the arrests of Shia Mohammedans, including many cyber activists, with more than 300 jugged and dozens missing since it launched a crackdown on pro-democracy protests, the opposition has said. Activists and politicians said on Thursday that a growing number of reform campaigners are going into hiding, after the country's most prominent blogger was tossed in the slammer on Wednesday. "The situation is critical ... Almost all the bloggers and activists who aren't in jail are now in hiding," Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said. Earlier this month, the Gulf Arab island's Sunni rulers imposed martial law and called in troops from fellow Sunni-ruled neighbours, including Soddy Arabia, to quell the protest movement led mostly by the state's Shia majority. The severity of the crackdown, in which public gatherings are banned and security forces have been deployed at checkpoints, stunned Bahrain's Shia Mohammedans and angered the region's non-Arab Shia power Iran. Soddy Arabia and other Gulf Arab states fearful of rising Iranian influence see Bahrain as a red line among the popular uprisings that have swept the region since January. "The government says it is taking steps to ensure stability and security, but what's happening is the exact opposite," Mattar Ibrahim Mattar, a member of the country's largest Iranian catspaw Wefaq, said. "We're in one of the most dangerous stages, where citizens have no security. They're being tossed in the slammer and kidnapped at checkpoints that are all over Bahrain. The checkpoints are a place of fear." Mattar said Wefaq had counted 302 arrests on Wednesday but believed the number would soon reach 400. Hezbullies denial Meanwhile, ...back at the scene of the crime, Lieutenant Queeg had an idea... the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbullies denied on Thursday that it had given military training to Shia Bahraini protesters. Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Bahrain's foreign minister, said in an interview with the pan-Arab Al Hayat newspaper on Wednesday that Hezbullies, which he described as a terrorist organisation, had trained Bahraini "elements" in Leb. In a recent televised speech, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbullies leader, offered support to the protesters in Bahrain, but did not specify what kind of help. Last week, Bahrain lodged a formal complaint to the Lebanese government over Hezbullies's offer. "We have to affirm that our Bahraini brothers did not ask us for any military or security training on any day and we have not given any training of that kind," Hezbullies said in a statement, adding that the group had only provided political and moral support for the protests. Bahraini activists and opposition politicians said the campaign of arrests had taken a chilling turn following the arrest of the prominent blogger Mahmood al-Yousif. Yousif, who for years has promoted anti-sectarianism under the slogan "No Shia, No Sunni, Just Bahraini", is believed to have been tossed in the slammer in the early hours of Wednesday. His wife, La Belle Frances Irvine, said she arrived home from a trip to find her husband missing, as well as his computer, phone cassettes and tapes of family holidays. "He phoned us at 10am to tell our son he was being held 'as a guest' and was okay. I don't know what that means, and I have had no other contact. We have no idea where he is," she said. Yousif was considered a liberal who had criticised the Sunni rulers for their lack of reform but had also chided Wefaq for not moving more quickly to talks with the government. More than 60 per cent of Bahrainis are Shia and most want a constitutional monarchy. Demands by hardliners for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed minority Sunnis. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 If the Iranians take over Saudi Arabia, then THEY'LL have the cash. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-01 16:22 |
| #3 what's in it for Pakistan? Cash. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-04-01 16:11 |
| #2 Re: Joe's comment, what's in it for Pakistan? Can the Saudis be sure they can trust them? |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-04-01 16:08 |
| #1 ION NEWSMAX > SAUDI ARABIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE PERSIAN GULF[LT desire by KSA to transform the GCC into a NATO-EU style regional entity, albeit armed wid Nukes]??? and * BHARAT RAKSHAK > SAUDIS ASK PAKISTAN TO PREPARE TO DEPLOY TROOPS ON PENINSULA IFF PROTESTS CAN'T BE STOPPED [Yemen, Bahrain, + even in Saudi Arabia itself]. PAK mil intervention as contingency in support of local Govts + security forces. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-04-01 01:37 |