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April 22nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Why the riot squad would then have hoisted him up onto to a roof and left him
in a pool of his own blood was not clear. But with more than 80
demonstrators already killed during the 14-month-long pro-democracy
protests, most activists are prepared to believe the police are capable of
anything.
“We are 100 per cent sure that the police killed him,” said his
brother Hussain, 24, as the family gathered to mourn in a the parlour of
their cramped breezeblock flat. “When we got to the hospital, they
wouldn’t even let us see his body close up.”
The Bahraini interior ministry said the death was being “being treated as
a homicide”, although government sources denied the police were
responsible. But within hours, pictures of his bloodied face, an
anti-teargas mask dangling around his neck, were being circulated on
activist social networking sites, which inevitably dubbed him the Bahrain
Formula One’s first “martyr”. With clashes continuing into evening
across Manama last night, it looked as if there could be more.
Meanwhile, in what seemed like a separate world, the Formula One drivers
continued their qualifying races. In post-race press conferences, they
continued to avoid addressing the human rights drama off-track, despite some
protesters holding up banners depicting them as stick-wielding riot police.
Frenchman Jean Todt, president of Formula One’s ruling body, the International
Motoring Federation, insisted the sport’s image had not suffered, speaking
yesterday of the “healing” power of sport. “We are not a
political body, we are a sporting body,” Mr Todt said. “I already
hope it will be a great outcome to hold the Grand Prix.”
However, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said he had spoken with his
Bahraini counterpart, Sheikh Khalid al Khalifa, to express “concern
about the violence in Bahrain”.
“We urge all sides to restrain from violence and to enter into an
inclusive and constructive political dialogue to achieve long term stability
for Bahrain,” Mr Hague said.
Mr Khalifa, though, seemed to think there was little to be concerned about: in
a Tweet, he described the protests on Friday as simply “examples of
freedom of speech and assembly”.
Even at the race circuit itself – which, located nearly 10 miles out in the
Bahraini desert, was hard for protesters to reach – there were signs of the
heightened security presence. Visitors had to go pass through multiple
checkpoints, while guards checked the undercarriages of cars for bombs and
frisked racegoers with airport style metal detectors.
Some security officials had been issued with photographs of known activists,
amid fears that they might pose as spectators and try to disrupt the racing
itself by running onto the track.
The protests, which began several weeks ago in the run-up to the race, have
already robbed it of much of its usual hype and razzmattazz. Notably lacking
in recent days have been the usual pre-race VIP photocalls and lavish
sponsor’s parties, and despite the excited predictions of local newspapers,
there have been no sightings of Formula 1 “Wags” such as Lewis
Hamilton’s pop singer girlfriend Nicole Sherzinger, or Button’s model
partner Jessica Michibata, both of whom turned up for the Malaysian Grand
Prix.
Meanwhile, as millions of Formula One fans watch Hamilton and Button battle it
out today, Zainab al Khawaja will have a rather different finishing line
looming ahead of her. Since Feb 8 her father Abdulhadi, a veteran human
rights campaigner jailed for life for his part in Bahrain’s own Arab spring
uprising last year, has been on hunger strike.
Doctors have already warned him that from day 60 onwards, his body’s
nutrient-starved organs would start to fail. He has now gone more than 70
days without food and his daughter now fears the next time she sees him may
be in a coffin.
“He is already way into the danger zone, and we fear he could die at any
day,” said Ms Khawaja, a feisty 28-year-old who has inherited her
father’s reputation for standing up for her rights.
“The last time we were allowed to see him was three days ago, when he
already looked very weak and tired. We are only allowed to see him every two
weeks. He may die before we see him again.”
Tomorrow, Ms Khawaja and other activists will attend a hearing at Bahrain’s
Court of Cassation – the highest judicial authority – where judges will rule
on an appeal against her father’s conviction for trying to overthrow the
state.
The case, which has become an international cause celebre, spells trouble
either way for the Bahraini authorities, who were accused of deliberately
postponing the ruling until after the Formula One race was over.
Releasing Mr Khawaja, it is feared, will simply galvanise his supporters.
Keeping him in jail, though, will almost certainly ensure that he dies there
in coming days – which will galvanise them all the more.
“My father has always called for peaceful resistance, but if he dies,
peaceful resistance may die with him,” his daughter warned. “The
problem is that in any contest of force, the government will always win.”
All of which means that while Formula One may soon move on to its next
circuit, the Arab Spring that rocked the small Gulf island of 1.3 million
remains unfinished business. Somewhat overlooked by the outside world
because it fell between the revolutions of its bigger Arab Spring cousins,
Egypt and Libya, the “February 14 uprising” saw crowds fill
Manama’s central Pearl Roundabout to protest against the rule of the Sunni
Muslim al-Khalifa royal household.
More than 50 people were killed and hundreds arrested during the ensuing
unrest, which split the royal household between the reform-minded King Hamad
and hardliners like the prime minister, Prince Khalifa, who stands accused
of institutionalising discrimination against the country’s Shia majority.
However, while the King did respond with offers of reforms, Bahrain’s position
on the Gulf region’s Sunni-Shia fault-line makes truly representative
democracy a tricky prospect from the start.
Sunnis worry that the end of their minority rule could lead to Bahrain falling
under the influence of Shia ayatollahs in Iran – a fear that led
neighbouring Saudi Arabia to send in troops to help “stabilise”
Manama last year, and which many claim limits the prospect of any real
reform.
Hence, as Formula One rolled into town last week, not everyone was in a
position to forgive and forget in the name of sport. Among them was Dr Ali
al Ekri, 44, one of 20 doctors and medical staff who are still on bail
facing jail sentences of up to 15 years each for treating injured
demonstrators last year.
Once personally congratulated by King Hamad for his work as a frontline doctor
in Gaza, the Irish-trained orthopaedic surgeon spent nearly six months in
custody last year, during which he claims to have been whipped with cables
and beaten unconscious by his captors. Once, six of them spit in his face in
a row.
“I still have nightmares now,” said Dr Ekri, as he related, with
clinical precision, the lasting injuries sustained to lower his back and
eardrum. “It is nonsense to suggest the protests have been anything to
do with Iran. All we want is democracy, which we doctors saw for ourselves
while training in Europe.”
The royal family of Bahrain, which was a British protectorate until 1971,
bitterly resents comparisons with the Assad clan of Syria or the Gaddafis of
Libya. They point out that King Hamad’s own official commission of inquiry
last year conceded that human rights abuses took place, and have promised
constitutional reforms and freedom of speech.
John Yates, the former Scotland Yard chief, has also been appointed as an
adviser to improve policing, and foreign journalists are not banned from the
country. Unlike so many Arab regimes, the government has also deployed a
number of youthful, media-savvy spokespeople, who are often just as smart as
their activist opponents.
Last week, Fahad al Binali, an Edinburgh-educated member of the Bahrain’s
Information Affairs Authority, even turned up at a press conference held by
Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, politely
putting the government’s case.
“It is admirable that people here are advocating human rights and
pointing out where abuse has happened,” said Mr Binali, who dresses in
traditional white robes and headdress. “Yet the fact that you are
holding this press conference right now here in Bahrain – what does that say
about freedom of expression?”
Speaking after the press conference, Mr Binali added: “It is not true
that we are holding the Formula One race to pretend everything is OK. If we
wanted to avoid bringing international attention on Bahrain’s internal
problems, it would have been easier to cancel the race completely.”
However, for every Bahraini who might see Mr Binali as the genuine voice of
reason, there is another who sees him as yet more window-dressing done on
the advice of Western public relations firms hired by the government. And in
any event, old habits die hard.
On one demonstration that The Sunday Telegraph witnessed last week,
tear gas was fired within minutes of it starting, while on another, an
accredited Reuters TV journalist was rung by officials and told not to film
the “illegal gathering”.
A translator and fixer used by this newspaper, Mohammed Hassan Sudaif, was
also arrested and beaten while attending a demonstration independently on
Friday night. Yesterday he was charged with attending an illegal gathering.
In any event, no amount of spin-doctoring will be able to defuse the anger
that will be felt across Bahrain should Mr Khawaja die in coming days. The
Formula One fans and drivers will probably have gone by then, but Mrs
Khawaja promises not to let them forget.
“They should be ashamed of themselves for coming here,” she said. “Hopefully
their children will one day ask them why they did so, when people were being
tortured by dictators.”
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