The despotic monarchy is a US client state, home to its Fifth Fleet, supplying its regime with weapons of repression – used against anyone freely expressing views authorities want suppressed.
It’s a fascist police state by any standard, run by a criminal cabal. Yet John Kerry shamelessly praised its authorities for making “meaningful progress on human rights and reconciliation” despite its ruthless crackdown on dissent, filling its gulag prison system without thousands on trumped up charges, murdering others to silence them.
A September 6 article discussed political prisoner Nabeel Rajab, a world renown human rights champion, arrested and abused multiple times for his activism, most recently detained lawlessly since June, awaiting trial next month, kangaroo proceedings delayed several times, convicting and sentencing him predetermined with little more than meaningless rhetorical Western protests on his behalf.
Without heavy pressure exerted on Bahraini authorities to release him immediately, so far not forthcoming or expected, he’ll die a slow death in prison – already in poor health, denied medical care, his fate sealed without meaningful foreign help.
His “crime” of compassion, caring and supporting just causes includes championing fundamental democratic rights, expressing his views freely, wanting fair and equal treatment for all Bahrainis, along with opposing brutal regime policies.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are twin gold standards of fundamental rights everyone deserves.
Bahrain is a signatory to both. Like most regional countries and virtually all Western ones, its imprimatur, and theirs, isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
Human, civil and other democratic rights are rare in almost all societies. Exceptions prove the rule – some regimes far worse than others.
None match high crimes America commits globally, including against its own most vulnerable citizens. Israel is by far the Middle East’s most ruthless regime, waging longstanding slow-motion genocide against millions of Palestinians – with full US support and encouragement.
Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, notoriously commit grievous human rights abuses as standard practice.
Rajab is perhaps the best known among thousands of Bahraini political prisoners – horrifically abused, his upcoming trial sure to be a travesty of justice.
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy advocacy director Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei said “(a)nyone can read” Rajab’s views published in a NYT op-ed “to see how pathetic” charges are against him – “completely contrary to the principle of free expression.”
“During a time when authorities are punishing anyone with a contrary opinion, its attacks on the most basic universal freedoms have only caused further instability.”
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain executive director Husain Abdulla called charges against Rajab “a sham from the start…It’s time for Washington to send a strong message to its ally that it will not tolerate such blatant repression by suspending all arms sales with the Al Khalifa regime.”
In return for donating $32 million to the Clinton Foundation, Bahraini crown prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa was given face-to-face access to Hillary at State, her former department aide Huma Abedin acting as go-between, arranging things, part of the Clinton crime family’s pay-to-play way of operating.
Obama and past US presidents haven’t intervened in Bahrain or anywhere else in support of fundamental democratic rights – other than meaningless lip service.
If anointed to succeed Obama, Hillary will run the White House the way she operated at State – humanity the big loser.