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Risking the radicalization of Bahrains Shiite community may be a very bad idea. Worries on that score are what led Vice President Joe Biden to ask again in a phone call Sunday to the king of the island nation for a negotiated settlement between the Sunni monarchy and his repressed Shiite majority. Meanwhile, as Iraqi Shiites demonstrated in favor of their coreligionists in Bahrain, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned somewhat apocalyptically this weekend that Saudi intervention against Bahrains Shiites could ignite a sectarian war in the Persian Gulf region.
Bahrains protest movement, inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, began Feb. 14. The Bahraini crowds demanded the resignation of the prime minister, whom they accused of ordering severe and persistent human rights abuses. Khalifa Al Khalifa, the uncle of the king, has held the post since Bahrain became independent of Britain in 1971. The largely Shiite protesters, led by the Wifaq Party, also insisted that the constitution be altered to give more power to the Shiite majority, and that the country become a constitutional monarchy. Three small parties (including al-Haq, which had split from Wifaq), began calling in early March for an outright republic, and of course they frightened the Sunni monarchy and its Saudi backers most of all.
After a month of rallies and protests at the Pearl Roundabout in downtown Manama, the beleaguered Bahraini monarchy brought in a thousand Saudi troops to disperse the protesters on March 14. The action drew a sharp rebuke from Iran, where Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani warned that the Saudi invasion would not pass without a reaction from Tehran. The next day, emergency laws were imposed in Bahrain, including a ban on further large public rallies and a curfew. Manama, the capital, has gradually returned to a semblance of normality, but Shiites in 12 small towns near the capital defied the state of emergency to stage protests last Friday. They were met with a harsh reaction from security police.
Among the Middle East protest movements, that in tiny Bahrain is one of the more momentous. Manama hosts the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet, which provides security to a region that has nearly two-thirds of the worlds proven petroleum reserves. Bahrain has a citizen population of nearly 600,000 and about two-thirds of those are Shiite Muslims. The monarchy, which is close to being an absolute monarchy, is Sunni and has traditionally given the Shiites little respect. There are another 600,000 or so guest workers in Bahrain, probably a majority of them Sunni Muslims from India and Pakistan, though there are also substantial Hindu and Christian populations. Expatriate Sunnis are employed as police and in the army and security forces, and are sometimes given citizenship in a bid to offset the demographic weight of the Shiites.
(Reuters) - Bahrain's largest Shi'ite opposition group Wefaq has accepted Kuwait as a mediator with Bahrain's government to end a political crisis gripping the tiny kingdom, a member of Wefaq said on Sunday.
Bahrain imposed martial law and called in troops from neighboring Sunni-ruled states earlier this month to quell weeks of unrest by mostly Shi'ite protesters.
Jasim Husain, a member of Wefaq, said Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah had offered to mediate between Bahrain's Sunni al-Khalifa ruling family and Shi'ite opposition groups.
"We welcome the idea of bringing in an outside element," Husain told Reuters.
Husain said talks had to address issues outlined by Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa before Gulf state troops entered Bahrain. These include an elected government and reform of electoral districts that the opposition says were drawn to ensure a Sunni majority in parliament.
"The fear is that the results (of mediation) may not be acceptable to the opposition or that they can't be sold to the public," said Husain.
DEMANDS DROPPED
Wefaq and its six allies said last week they would not enter talks unless the government pulled troops off the streets and freed prisoners.
Observers said Wefaq had now dropped these demands.
"This is the most significant political development in the efforts aimed at reaching a peaceful solution," said Mansoor al-Jamri, editor of the opposition Al-Wasat newspaper.
Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which view Bahrain's ruling family as a bulwark against regional Shi'ite power Iran, have sent troops to Bahrain to help it quell weeks of pro-democracy protests.
Kuwait, which has a Shi'ite minority of its own, has sent navy vessels to Bahrain under a Gulf security pact to patrol its northern coastline.
The Gulf Cooperation Council -- a regional political and economic bloc made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- welcomed the mediation move.
"We hope that this initiative will be in the interest of security and stability," Secretary-General Abdulrahman al-Attiyah told reporters in Kuwait.
He should get off the meph, or is he that stuffed from the little girls he raped last night?
MANAMA, Bahrain It was late Friday afternoon. The deserted roads of this capital city were blanketed with soldiers, faces masked, seated atop armored personnel carriers. Checkpoints secured access roads to outlying Shiite villages, where squads of police were out in force to foil any protest that might erupt.
My taxi driver stopped at one checkpoint. Three riot policemen in blue uniforms bent down to look in the car.
Where are you going? one asked.
Im bringing her back to her hotel, my driver said.
The next question Where are you coming from? carried this tagline: Shit on you and your face.
The driver kept his cool, replying: Before you say that, you should look at my identity card by the way, Im Sunni.
Taken aback, the policeman abjectly apologized.
Im sorry, he said, embarrassed by his mistake in assuming my driver was Shiite just because we were in a Shiite area.
The incident underscores the deep trauma afflicting this Gulf kingdom, whose citizens say they once reveled in the comforting intimacy that infuses life on a tiny island.
No more. Bahrain today is a fearful abode of sectarian division, fueled largely by the Sunni-led governments violent suppression of a once euphoric protest movement, and a campaign of Shiite intimidation that is both pitiless and petty.
People feel they are under collective punishment, said Sayed Hadi Al Mosawi, a senior official of the moderate Shiite political party, Al Wefaq. The situation is very, very bad.
The situation has included nighttime arrests of political opposition leaders, protest movement activists, human rights monitors, and even artists who supported the reformist movement. Shiites stopped at checkpoints, sometimes run by masked men in civilian clothes, are often insulted, and then robbed of their money and mobile phones, Al Mosawi said.
The home of opposition figure Munira Fakhro was firebombed twice; the offices of her party, al Waad, were burned down, and the presses of the opposition Al Wasat newspaper were vandalized. Scores of people are missing, according to Al Wefaq, the political party.
A journalist, who asked not to be named because he feared retaliation, noted that official statements used the word cleansing to describe the security forces routing on March 16 of the protesters camped in Pearl Roundabout, a traffic rotary that served as the movements main staging ground.
Its right to add ethnic, the journalist added, saying that he believed the aim of the two-week-old campaign is to instill fear and horror in the Shiite community and make everyone succumb to the authorities.
Human Rights Watch reported Tuesday that 11 people have been killed since the crackdown began, most of them by security forces using excessive force, namely crowd-control equipment at extremely close range and live gunfire. Four members of the government security forces were also killed. Prior to the crackdown, seven protesters had been killed.
Inspired by protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt, Bahrainis launched their own on Feb. 14, and it swelled beyond expectations. The demands were political reform, with most calling for a constitutional monarchy and an end to corruption. Protesters were mostly Shiite 60 percent of the islands population is Shiite and they were demanding a fairer distribution of jobs as well as an end to their political marginalization.
BEIRUT - Hezbollah says it's not involved in training activists at the helm of Shiite-led protests against the government in Bahrain.
The militant Lebanese group said in a statement on Thursday that it has no "cadre or sleeper cells" in the tiny Gulf island nation ruled by minority Sunnis.
The statement comes a day after Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa accused Hezbollah in comments published in the Arabic-language Al-Hayat newspaper of training some Bahrainis involved in the protests at home.
Like Hezbollah, most of the protesters in Bahrain are Shiites. The Shiites are a majority in Bahrain.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has criticized Bahrain's Sunni monarchy for bringing in Saudi-led troops from Gulf countries to help quell its unrest.
What do residents of the Iranian capital think about the wave of uprisings and unrest in the Arab world that have toppled the regimes of Tunisia and Egypt and are continuing to rock countries such as Libya, Bahrain and Yemen?
The Times asked a number of people in the streets of Tehran about their thoughts on what's going on in the Arab world and what they think will be the outcome of the upheavals. The responses yielded an array of reactions and differing opinions.
However, the interviewees were unified when it came to Libya, agreeing that its leader, Moammar Kadafi, must go. Many also expressed concerns about protest-stricken Bahrain -- a neighboring country with a Shiite majority population, some of whom are loyal to Iran, but is ruled by a minority Sunni dynasty -- and said the government is cracking down heavily on the Shiite demonstrators.
Mozhgan Faraji, a 33-year-old Iranian journalist, said she felt that Western countries are paying much greater attention to the war in Libya than to the demonstrations and unrest in Bahrain and Yemen and wondered why that is the case.
"I am baffled," she told the Times. "Why on Earth are the Western powers not interested in the unrest in Yemen and Bahrain? Are human rights in Yemen and Bahrain not as important as in Libya ? Perhaps the Western countries are worried about the emerging revolutionary brand of Shiite in the region. But honestly, I am happy that the crazy leader of Libya is going to be toppled."
Ali Kakavwand, a 44-year-old professor of English linguistics, expressed concern about what he described as a clampdown on Shiite demonstrators in Bahrain and said there is a need to change the political dynamics in Syria, where the Assad family has been in power for many decades.
"I am very upset for the suppression and savage crackdown of my fellow Shiites in Bahrain," he told The Times. "I wish them to be able to have more share of power. I am also angry with Saudis for demolishing the shrines of our imams in Shiite-dominated area in Saudi Arabia.
But I have no stance concerning Yemen. I do not know who is right, who is wrong in Yemen. I believe the people of Syria also have a right to change their officials and leaders. The Assad family and the Baath Party are dominating the country for more than 50 years, so let's change the faces. I wish to see the toppling of Kadafi as soon as possible. He has been responsible for the vanishing of Imam Mosa Sadr."
Dokhi Sofi, a 48-year old housewife, said she is convinced that foreign plotters from the U.S. and Britain are orchestrating the Arab protests. She added that she thinks that as a result of Western sponsorship of the uprisings, Bahrain and Yemen are likely to be taken over by Islamists and become theocracies.
I just wish all these Muslims would get over this death wish for Martyrdom. It's systemic to ALL of Islam.
Seriously. It's like the dark ages thinking.
Even as Washington and the European powers bomb Libya on supposed humanitarian grounds, the US-backed regimes in Yemen and Bahrain are continuing their brutal crackdown on protesters.
On Friday, Bahrains largest opposition party claimed that the government was intensifying its arrests of protesters and opposition activists. The al-Wefaq party claimed that Bahraini security forces had arrested over 300 people since March 16, and that 24 people remain missing.
One of the opposition activists who has disappeared is Mahmoud al-Youssef, a prominent Internet blogger who has been highly critical of the al-Khalifa royal family that rules Bahrain. Human rights groups claim al-Youssef was taken into custody on Wednesday, but they are unable to obtain any information about his status or whereabouts.
Tanks are stationed near prominent buildings in the Bahraini capital, Manama, and there are police checkpoints located throughout the country. There are reports of nighttime raids by unidentified gangs, believed to be plainclothes security agents or backers of the government, on homes in poor Shiite neighborhoods. Residents have reported being assaulted and that their possessions have been destroyed.
Nabeel Rajab, the chief of the Bahrain Human Rights Center, described how several dozen masked men raided his home two weeks ago. They threatened to rape me and one man was touching my body. They hit me with shoes and punched me with fists. They were insulting me, saying things like, Youre Shiite so go back to Iran.
Rajab was blindfolded and taken from his home, which he shares with his 8-year old daughter, then beaten for two hours before being returned. Another gang of masked men armed with guns returned to his house on Wednesday to threaten him and a group of journalists he was speaking with.
For now, such measures have quelled the protests and strikes in Bahrain. But mass opposition to the al-Khalifa regime remains. We cannot stop, one protester told the Associated Press on Friday. We might go quiet for a bit to mourn the dead and treat the injured and see those in jail, but then we will rise up again, said the man, who had been fired from his teaching job for participating in a demonstration.
In a further sign that the regime is tightening its grip on power, the countrys only opposition newspaper, Al-Wasat, was shut down on Sunday. The official Bahrain News Agency accused the newspaper of unethical coverage of the ruling family and the mass protests against it.
The most widely-read publication in Bahrain, Al-Wasat was shut down pursuant to the emergency powers asserted by King Hamad last month. The royal decree allows the authorities to take any action deemed necessary to put down signs of opposition.
Mansoor al-Jamri, editor-in-chief and co-owner of Al-Wasat, issued a statement saying that the move was an attempt to silence independent news in Bahrain.
There is now no other voice but that of the state. The news blackout is so intense, added al-Jamri. The online edition of Al-Wasat was also shut down, part of wider moves by the Bahraini government to restrict access to web sites.
BAGHDAD The violent suppression of the uprising in Bahrain has become a Shiite rallying cry in Iraq, where the American war overturned a Sunni-dominated power structure much like the one in place in Bahrain.
They called for international action in Libya, Mr. Chalabi said in a meeting hall on the grounds of his farm outside Baghdad. But they kept their mouths shut with what is happening in Bahrain.
The Iraqi Parliament briefly suspended its work to protest Bahrains crackdown on largely peaceful protesters, and the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, also a Shiite, recently said in an interview with the BBC that the events in Bahrain could unleash a regional sectarian war like the one that menaced Iraq just a few years ago.
In the Shiite-dominated south, there have been calls to boycott goods from Saudi Arabia, a Sunni monarchy that sent troops to support the Bahraini government. Followers of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr have taken to the streets to support the demonstrators in Bahrain. And, perhaps most notably, members of the marjaiya, the top Shiite leadership in the holy city of Najaf usually silent on political matters have spoken out, including at Mr. Chalabis event on Friday, when a Najafi cleric said, We have tears in our eyes, and our heart aches.
Mr. Chalabi, in an interview, said it was the first time the marjaiya in Najaf had participated in a political event.
In contrast, few Sunnis have been vocal about Bahrain, and Sunni preachers during Friday Prayer have not made it a rallying cry in the way their Shiite counterparts have. In Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, some have criticized the politicians who are making an issue of Bahrain. In response to the crisis, the authorities in Bahrain have suspended flights to and from Iran and Iraq, the countries in the region with the largest Shiite populations.
Several hundred people members of Parliament, clerics, Bahraini opposition figures attended the gathering for Mr. Chalabis nascent organization, the Popular Committee in Iraq to Support the People of Bahrain. Outside, artists painted murals.
This painting represents the connection between Iraq and Bahrain, said Shurhabel Ahmed, who was working on a section depicting a symbol of the protest movement that had been torn down by the authorities: Bahrains Pearl Monument, surrounded by date trees. This represents the Arab countries, he said of the trees. The red is the roots of the tree the bloodshed.
Mr. Chalabi called his effort nonsectarian and said some Sunni members of the opposition in Bahrain had been scheduled to attend. They refused to let them out, he said. They stopped them at the airport.
One Sunni who did attend the gathering was Salah al-Bander, a British citizen originally from Sudan and a former Bahraini government adviser who gained prominence five years ago with a written exposé describing the systematic oppression of Bahrains Shiite population. The episode became known as Bandergate.
In Bahrain, it is largely viewed as a Shia uprising, he said in an interview. Its not true. Some Sunnis are among the detainees.
But the Iraqi Shiite outcry, and especially the meeting that Mr. Chalabi held on Friday to discuss Bahrains Constitution, risked lending credence to the claims of the Bahraini ruling class that the uprisings were not the result of indigenous aspirations, but of foreign meddling, especially given Mr. Chalabis well-known ties to Iran.
MANAMA, Bahrain At first, she didnt expect much from the demonstrations that began in mid-February. They drew only a few hundred people, and she had grown accustomed to her government ignoring its citizens.
The government didnt care about what the people say, said the middle-aged woman.
But like similar movements in Egypt and Tunisia, the protest movement expanded beyond expectations. Its semi-permanent base camp at Manamas Pearl Roundabout acquired a stage, big TV screens and tents for those staying overnight and for the 30-plus political factions and parties proselytizing to the crowds.
The woman, who has a writing career and is a mother, was taken in. Propelled by the feeling that her country was passing through a special time that will not come again, she became a regular visitor to the roundabout. The Arab worlds revolutionary fever had hit Bahrain and showed us we can change ... as Barack Obama said, Yes we can.
Today, that euphoria is gone and Bahrains protest movement is in tatters. Many of its leaders and activists are imprisoned and its followers, most of them Shiite, subject to harsh repression under emergency laws. Where Tunisia and Egypt saw change, Bahrain saw more of the same.
I feel they killed the hope inside us
~Bahraini protester The woman who related her experience of those heady days initially agreed to be named in this story. But she said later she was too afraid to be identified, citing the continuing arrests of Shiites like herself.
Interviews with Bahraini political figures, human rights activists and journalists suggest that the movements failure was due to miscalculations on all sides. But most agree that its defeat was mainly due to the ascendance of hard-liners in both the government and the protest movement. A request to interview a government official was unsuccessful.
So many things went wrong, said Bahraini novelist Fareed Ramadan, a Sunni who supported the protesters aims. So many mistakes has been done by the government. So many mistakes has been done by the Sunni [community] leadership and so many mistakes has been done in Pearl Square by protesters, he said.
TEHRAN In what appeared to be an attempt to assert Irans credentials as a supporter of protesters in Bahrain, non-Iranian religious students from the city of Qom demonstrated outside the United Nations headquarters in Tehran and the Saudi Embassy on Friday morning.
The gathering of around 1,000 people, many of them Shiite clerics, came from countries as diverse as Nigeria, Madagascar, India and Bangladesh as well as representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon and Bahrain itself. A small number of women protesters wearing customary black chadors stood separately from the main crowd.
Familiar slogans such as Death to America and Khamenei is our leader were chanted in heavily-accented Farsi while Death to the Saud family and Death to the Khalife family followed in Arabic and Urdu.
This dear group has gathered today to protest against the murder of Shias and Muslims in Bahrain and to call on the United Nations to fulfill its responsibility and protect the Bahraini people, said Seyyed Reza Ali-Shah Hosseini, a Shiite cleric from Pakistan.
Irans role is the same as that of all Muslim peoples, and that is to support the Bahraini people, he said.
The demonstration comes after a week in which Iran adopted a strong position as leading state supporter of the uprising in Bahrain and laid claim to its perceived role as leader of the Islamic world.
On Thursday, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted an open letter from a number of Bahraini Shiites calling for support from Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Our brothers, sisters and families are being killed before our eyes and no one comes to save us, the letter was quoted as saying.
Your speech in Arabic about the Egyptian revolution led our Egyptian brothers to victory, the letter continued, referring to a February speech Ayatollah Khamenei gave at the height of protests in Egypts Tahrir Square in which he described the uprising which l toppled President Hosni Mubarak as an Islamic awakening.
We are suffering and have no choice but to resist and are prepared for martyrdom, the letter continued.
Fridays rally followed a similar gathering of clerics and religious students in Tehran and other Iranian cities on Wednesday during which speeches were heard from senior clerics and representatives of Irans powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps.
I heard a news item that injured protestors are being beaten or arrested in hospital.
Manama, Bahrain - Bahraini authorities said Saturday two protestors have died in separate incidents, marking the third time in a week that opposition detainees have died in custody.
Ali Isa Saqer, 31, died before reaching the hospital, the Interior Ministry said.
Saqer, who was being held for attempted murder of policemen he allegedly tried to run-over on during unrest on March 13, was unruly inside the detention centre and the use of force was required, the ministry said.
The statement did not clarify if other detainees were involved or injured in Saqer incident.
I been to Bahrain and its a lovely country, its people are taken care of for the most part, what are they protesting about?
Me too! I liked Bahrain. Very interesting place. Shame for them that their protesters have been killed.
