THE GUARDIAN: Bahrainis are suffering the same violent repression as Libyans – so why does Barack Obama have nothing to say?
Three days after Hosni Mubarak resigned as the long-standing dictator in Egypt, people in the small Gulf state of Bahrain took to the streets, marching to their version of Tahrir: Pearl Square, in the capital city of Manama. Bahrain has been ruled by the same family, the House of Khalifa, since the 1780s – more than 220 years. Bahrainis were not demanding an end to the monarchy, but for more representation in their government.
One month into the uprising, Saudi Arabia sent military and police forces over the 16-mile causeway that connects the Saudi mainland to Bahrain, an island. Since then, the protesters, the press and human-rights organisations have suffered increasingly violent repression.
One courageous young Bahraini pro-democracy activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, has seen the brutality up close. To her horror, she watched her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a prominent human-rights activist, be beaten and arrested. She described it to me from Manama: » | Amy Goodman | Wednesday, April 13, 2011
