A political analyst says the ruthless crackdown on Bahraini protesters by the ruling Al Khalifa regime is carried out under the false accusation of involvement in terrorism.
“These kinds of actions just give the [Bahraini] regime an excuse to crack down, but we know well that there have been a lot of non-violent Bahrainis who have been falsely accused of terrorism,” Stephen Zunes told Press TV on Monday.
The American academic said, “This alleged threat of terrorism has been used to stifle … the vast majority of Bahrainis who are not violent and want democratic change.”
He describes as “phony” efforts by Bahraini officials to set up an Arab Court for Human Rights.
“They are pretty phony, but the real importance I think is to… demand greater transparency as Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have done, that we cannot trust the regime to monitor its own human rights abuses,” he added.
Over the past few years, Bahrain’s human rights record has come under scrutiny over its handling of the anti-regime demonstrations across the country.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the ruling Al Khalifa family to relinquish power.
Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the Manama regime’s ongoing crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
On Friday, Amnesty International called on Manama to launch a prompt investigation into all cases of torture, ill-treatment and deaths that occurred during protests and in custody.
Source/Fuente: http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/05/27/364344/bahrain-quelling-prodemo...
