Bahrain Bans Main Opposition Newspaper
AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: Paper critical of government accused of publishing "fabricated" reports about last month's pro-democracy protests.

Bahraini authorities have banned Al-Wasat, the country's main opposition newspaper, which has been critical of the government in its coverage of Shia-led protests quashed last month.

The newspaper did not publish on Sunday after a message on state TV saying Bahrain's Information Ministry had ordered the paper to shut down.

The state-run Bahrain News Agency (BNA) says officials accuse Al-Wasat of "unethical" coverage of the Shia-led uprising against the country's Sunni rulers.

The Kingdom's Information Affairs Commission also referred the newspaper for investigation, BNA said.

Al-Wasat has been accused of publishing "fabricated" reports last week about the "security developments in Bahrain". » | Source: Agencies | Sunday, April 03, 2011

Shiites in Iraq Support Bahrain’s Protesters
THE NEW YORK TIMES: 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.

Ahmad Chalabi, an erstwhile American partner in the period before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and a Shiite member of Parliament, on Friday denounced what he called a double standard in the Western powers’ response to the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East — particularly in Bahrain, where a Sunni minority dominates a vast and restive underclass made up of his Shiite brethren.

“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 Bahrain’s 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. » | Tim Arango | Friday, April 01, 2011

Bahrain's Calculated Campaign of Intimidation
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Bahraini activists and locals describe midnight arrests, disappearances, beatings at check-points, and denial of medical care – all aimed at deflating the country's pro-democracy protest movement.

Manama, Bahrain
With a wave of midnight arrests, checkpoints, and targeting of wounded protesters, Bahrain's Sunni rulers have launched what appears to be a calculated campaign to intimidate supporters of the pro-democracy protest movement that began here in February.

Security forces have directed much of the abuse – which includes midnight arrests, checkpoints, and targeting of wounded protesters – toward Bahrain’s majority Shiite population, instilling fear and raising sectarian tensions in the tiny kingdom.

“I don’t want to go anywhere now. I’ll stay in my home because there is no safety,” says Ibrahim, a university student who says he was recently beaten and held for 36 hours at a checkpoint, and has a deformed left ear and bruises elsewhere to prove it. He asked that his last name be withheld for his own safety.

“While they were beating us, they said, ‘Where is your Mahdi now? Why isn’t he coming to save you?’ ” says Ibrahim, referring to a messianic figure in Shiite Islam. “They made us scream 'Mahdi.' They put my face in the ground, and told me to speak. Then they kicked dust in my mouth.”

What was their crime?

“We are Shiite,” says Ibrahim. “They want to remove all Shia from Bahrain.”

In a speech to parliament Tuesday, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed al-Khalifa said the authorities were not targeting Shiites, but were imposing law and order. Bahrain is operating under emergency law, put in place last month.

"The measures are not imposed against any religious sect as some have said, but rather they are used against those who have broken the law," he said, according to the state news agency. " We are not trying to spread evil, but good, and outlaws will meet justice." » | Kristen Chick, Correspondent | Friday, April 01, 2011

Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya Deal
ASIA TIMES ONLINE: You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a "yes" vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya - the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.

The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online. According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the diplomats said, "This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner." » | Pepe Escobar | Saturday, April 02, 2011

Bahrain Hardliners to Put Shia MPs On Trial
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Bahrain is facing renewed turmoil after regime hardliners began preparations to put on trial Shia legislators accused of backing protests.

The kingdom’s parliament effectively stripped 11 MPs from the Wefaq party – a quarter of the legislature’s sitting members – of their immunity from prosecution, signalling a further hardening of the ruling family’s position.

Western human rights activists also accused the regime of torturing wounded protesters being held in a hospital in the capital Manama. » | Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent | Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Bahrain 'Targets' Wounded Protesters
THE INDEPENDENT: Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that Bahrain authorities were harassing and isolating hospital patients wounded in anti-government protests when security forces began a crackdown in the kingdom two weeks ago.

Bahrain's Sunni rulers this month imposed martial law and brought in troops from Sunni-led Gulf neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, to quell weeks of unrest during pro-democracy demonstrations led mostly by the state's Shi'ite majority.

Twenty-four people were killed in the ensuing clashes, the government said on Tuesday. The opposition Wefaq party says 250 people have been detained and another 44 have gone missing since the crackdown.

The security measures were condemned by Iran, the main Shi'ite power in a region dominated by Sunni Muslim rulers, which said they could lead to a wider conflict.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled al-Khalifa said Iran should stop its "offensive" against Bahrain, telling pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that political dialogue could only start once security had been restored in the island kingdom. Opposition parties reiterated denials of any foreign backing on Wednesday.

US-based Human Rights Watch said it was concerned Bahrain forces were targeting hospital patients who were protesters or bystanders in scattered demonstrations that broke out last Friday in a planned "Day of Rage" that police quickly quashed.

"Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented several cases in which patients with protest-related injuries were transferred to or sought treatment at Salmaniya and were then severely harassed or beaten," it said in a statement. » | Erika Solomon, Reuters | Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Eleven More Opposition Members Quit Bahrain Parliament
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES: The parliament of Bahrain has accepted the resignations of eleven Shia opposition politicians, thereby widening the gulf between the Sunni ruling elite and the largely Shia protest movement in the tiny kingdom.

The state-controlled Bahrain News Agency reported that eleven members of the opposition Al Wefaq party quit to protest the government’s violent crackdown on protesters. Seven other Wefaq officials had previously quit over the same grievance.

Al Wefac, which has refused to enter into any dialogue with the ruling family, is the largest and most prominent of Bahrain’s seven opposition parties. » | Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Hundreds of Saudi Shi'ites Protest in East
REUTERS CANADA: RIYADH - Hundreds of Saudi Shi'ites staged a protest in the kingdom's oil-producing Eastern Province Friday calling for prisoner releases and a withdrawal of Saudi forces from Bahrain, activists said.

The world's No. 1 oil producer and a U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia has not seen the kind of mass uprisings that have rocked the Arab world this year. But dissent is simmering in the kingdom as unrest takes root in neighboring Yemen, Bahrain and Oman.

There were rallies in two villages close to the main Shi'ite center of Qatif shortly after midday and afternoon prayers.

"There are around 400 protesters here at the moment and some are waving Bahraini flags," said one protester who declined to be named. "The protests are peaceful and the riot police are well away from the demonstrators."

Demonstrators called for political freedoms and an end to what they call sectarian discrimination against Saudi Arabia's Shi'ite Muslim majority by the absolute Sunni monarchy.

Saudi Shi'ites have held a number of protests in Eastern Province, where most of the country's oil fields are. » | Jason Benham | Friday, March 25, 2011

Bahraini Protesters Defy Ban
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: MANAMA, Bahrain—Security forces using tear gas, rubber bullets and bird shot dispersed antigovernment protesters across Bahrain who defied martial law and a ban on public gatherings.

In many of the Shiite villages that surround the capital of Manama, groups of protesters, mainly young men, gathered at prominent intersections, calling for the fall of the Sunni ruling family. » | Joe Parkinson | Friday, March 25, 2011

Saudi Shi'ites Protest for Reforms
VOICE OF AMERICA: Hundreds of Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia rallied in two towns in the kingdom's eastern province of Qatif, where they demanded the release of prisoners and the withdrawal of Saudi troops from Bahrain. 



Some demonstrators waved Bahraini flags on Friday as they took to the streets in a show of solidarity with Bahrain's Shi'ite majority, which has been demanding reforms from the country's Sunni-led government. » | Friday, March 25, 2011

Bahrain Protesters Hit by Tear Gas
VOICE OF AMERICA: Security forces in Bahrain have fired tear gas at anti-government demonstrators who defied a government ban on public gatherings and took to the streets. 



Security teams held back protesters in mostly Shi'ite Muslim villages near Bahrain's capital, Manama, when they tried to rally after Friday prayers. 



Government forces tightened security throughout the kingdom Friday, which opposition groups set for "Day of Rage" protests demanding political reforms. Troops set up checkpoints across the country while military jets flew overhead.



Activists have been protesting for about a month in Bahrain. The kingdom's Shi'ites, a majority of the population, have been demanding greater political freedoms from Sunni Muslims who control the government and make up the royal family. » | Friday, March 25, 2011

Bahrain Airlines Stop Iran, Iraq, Lebanon Flights
AHRAM ONLINE: Bahrain cancels flights to countries critical to their repression of uprising

Bahraini airlines have suspended flights to Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, where Shiite communities have criticised the kingdom's response to Shiite-led protests in the Gulf state, the airlines said Wednesday.

On Friday, Bahrain carried out a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists demonstrating since February 14 in the tiny Shiite-majority, Sunni-ruled kingdom.

Iran condemned last week's intervention of troops from neighbouring Gulf states in support of Manama, while Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah has offered unspecified support for the Shiite-led Bahraini opposition.

And thousands of protesters have turned out in Iraq in shows of support for Bahraini Shiites. » | AFP | Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Bahrain: Powder Keg of the Gulf?
Reporters - The smallest kingdom in the Arab world is seeing protests against authorities go from strength to strength. The Shiite majority is demonstrating against the Sunni Al Khalifa dynasty, which has ruled Bahrain with an iron fist for two centuries. Shiites say they are victims of social and political discrimination

THE TIMES: Bahrain: Fate of first woman to die in crackdown: Thousands of mourners gathered in Bahrain yesterday to lay to rest the first woman to die during weeks of violence in the tiny Gulf kingdom. She was killed in an incident that her family insist is the subject of a cover-up. Bahia al-Aradi, 51, was shot dead last Wednesday at an army checkpoint… » | Hugh Tomlinson, Manama | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 [£]

Oil Interests Muted Bahrain Criticism: Analysts
VANCOUVER SUN: BAGHDAD - Saudi Arabia's massive oil wealth and Sunni solidarity against Shiite Iran is the main reason Arab states remained muted over repression in Bahrain, while loudly protesting over the crushing of a popular revolt in Libya, analysts say.

"Riyadh has traded Bahrain for Libya, because what happens at its borders is vital for the kingdom," said Burhan Ghalioun, director of the Centre for Contemporary Oriental Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris.

He said "the allied military intervention in Libya is secondary for Gulf countries, because their relations are very bad with Moamer Gadhafi," the Libyan leader facing a revolt at home and air strikes by an international coalition to prevent his brutal crackdown on civilians.

On March 14, Saudi Arabia sent 1,000 troops across the causeway into Bahrain, and two days later police cracked down on protesters who had been camped in the centre of Manama for a month, killing three demonstrators.

"Nobody is interested in showing hostility to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. Westerners and Arab states alike need their oil and huge financial resources," Ghalioun added.

Nearly half of the world's oil reserves are owned by the Gulf monarchies, which since 1984 have been linked through the "Peninsula Shield" defence pact.

It has been conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, and the looming shadow of Iran, that has been instrumental in coalescing support behind King Hamad, the Sunni monarch who rules over a Bahrain population that is 70 per cent Shiite. » | Agence France-Presse | Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Rights Groups Condemn Bahrain Violence
Human rights activists have condemned military aggression towards anti-government protesters demanding political change in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain. Al Jazeera has spoken to the family of a father who was killed after driving past an unofficial checkpoint in the country.
 Al Jazeera's correspondent, who we are not naming for his safety, has this report

Saudi Deployment in Bahrain Risks Sectarian Conflict
THE JERUSALEM POST: Analysts say the unique Saudi move has crossed a red line for Iran which may prompt it to intervene as a counterweight.

Saudi Arabia’s decision to deploy security forces in embattled Bahrain threatens to escalate a domestic political dispute in the island state into a sectarian confrontation with Iran, whose reverberations may be felt as far afield as Iraq and Lebanon, analysts said.

Saudi Arabia, together with security personnel from the United Arab Emirates operating under a mandate from the Gulf Cooperation Council, has placed 2,000 soldiers and police in Bahrain. At the cost of four lives, scores of injured and the imposition of martial law, calm has been restored. A week after the March 14 deployment, businesses, the stock market and schools were re-opening.

But analysts said the Saudi move – the first ever by one Arab state intervening militarily in another since the onset of the so-called Jasmine Revolution three months ago – has crossed a red line for Iran and may prompt it to intervene as a counterweight.

A tiny country with no oil of its own, Bahrain nevertheless holds a strategic place in the Gulf. It is home to the US Fifth Fleet and is adjacent to Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil fields. Its Sunni Islamic monarchy is close to the Saudi ruling house as well as the US, but some 70% of its population shares the Shi'ite faith of Iran, Riyadh’s rival for regional supremacy.

“Iran sees it as an attack on the international Shi'ite community,” Theodore Karasik, director for research and development at the Dubai-based Institute for near east and Gulf Military Analysis. “Also, they have claimed Bahrain in the past, as a historical claim, is Iran’s 14th province. That kind of rhetoric is a portent for the future.” » | David Rosenberg / The Media Line | Monday, March 21, 2011

Saudi Shi'ite Protests Simmer as Bahrain Conflict Rages
REUTERS: Hundreds of young Shi'ite men marched down a commercial street in the Saudi city of Qatif, near the heart of the kingdom's oil industry, pounding their fists in anger over their country's military intervention in Bahrain.

"With our blood and soul we sacrifice for you, Bahrain," they chanted as they walked, according to videos of a recent protest posted on the internet. Some wore scarves to conceal their faces. Others waved Bahraini flags.

"People are boiling," one Shi'ite activist in Qatif told Reuters by phone, asking not to be named for fear of arrest. "People are talking about strikes, demonstration and prayer to help the Bahrainis."

The protests were in response to Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter and most powerful Gulf Arab state, sending troops to Bahrain last week to help quell weeks of protests by majority Shi'ites in the Sunni-led monarchy. Bahrain's opposition called it a declaration of war.

Riyadh, facing Shi'ite protests of its own, fears a sustained revolt in neighboring Bahrain could embolden its own Shi'ite minority, which has long grumbled about sectarian discrimination, charges Riyadh denies.

The military intervention, however, appears to have only deepened Shi'ite resentment in the kingdom, where between 10 and 15 percent of the 18 million Saudi nationals are Shi'ites.

Leading Saudi Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Hassan al-Saffar has called for Gulf leaders to find a political solution.

Saudi Shi'ites, inspired by pro-democracy protests across the Arab world that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia, have held sporadic protests in a handful of eastern towns over the past three weeks.

"Before the start of revolution in Tunis, people felt rather incapable of making a difference," activist Tawfiq al-Seif said. "They (now) feel they can make a difference." » | Cynthia Johnston | QATIF, Saudi Arabia | Monday, March 21, 2011

Iran Cleric Tells Bahraini Shiites to Protest On
SIFY NEWS: A senior Iranian cleric on Friday urged Bahrain's majority Shiites to keep up their protests — until death or victory — against the Sunni monarchy in the tiny island kingdom.

Bahrain has been rocked by a month long uprising of the Shiite-led opposition against its Sunni rulers. And though there are no apparent links between Bahrain's Shiite opposition and Iran's predominantly Shiite nation, the Persian Gulf leaders are concerned that political gains by Bahrain's Shiites could give Iran a stepping stone to its archrival Saudi Arabia.

Iran has denounced the deployment of a Saudi-led force from Sunni Arab allies this week to prop up the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain.

In Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati spoke to worshippers after Friday prayers and called on "brothers and sisters" in Bahrain to "resist against the enemy until you die or win."

Jannati, a supporter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asked all Muslims to help the Bahraini Shiites "restore rights" and also accused the United States of being an "accomplice in all crimes." » | AP | Monday, March 21, 2011

Bahrain Opposition Seeks Talks with Monarchy
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Bahrain's opposition bloc appeared to have eased its preconditions for talks with the ruling monarchy, with one leader saying the only condition now was to stop bloodshed.

As the Gulf kingdom struggled to regain normality after a week of violent tumult, the opposition released a set of demands which stopped short of previous ambitious requirements.

The group called for a lifting of military control at the main hospital, the withdrawal of Saudi and Emirati troops deployed to aid the king, and the release of prisoners seized in the violence.

But it did not mention earlier contentious preconditions including an elected council to redraft the constitution. » | Ben Framer, Manama | Sunday, March 20, 2011

The Proxy Battle in Bahrain
THE NEW YORK TIMES: CAIRO — King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has demonstrated one lesson learned from the course of pro-democracy uprisings across the Middle East: The world may cheer when autocrats resign, but it picks carefully which autocrats to punish for opening fire on their citizens.

That cynical bit of realpolitik seems to have led the king to send troops last week over the causeway from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, where they backed up a violent crackdown on unarmed protesters by Bahrain’s own security forces.

The move had immediate consequences for Middle East politics, and for American policy: It transformed Bahrain into the latest proxy battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for regional dominance. And it called into question which model of stability and governance will prevail in the Middle East, and which Washington will help build: one based on consensus and hopes for democracy, or continued reliance on strongmen who intimidate opponents, sow fear and co-opt reformist forces while protecting American interests like ensuring access to oil and opposing Iran.

For Saudi Arabia, the issue in Bahrain is less whether Bahrain will attain popular rule than whether Iranian and Shiite influence will grow.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have sparred on many fronts since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 — a Shiite Muslim theocracy in Tehran versus a deeply conservative Sunni Muslim monarchy in Riyadh — in a struggle for supremacy in the world’s most oil-rich region. The animosity was evident in Saudi Arabia’s support for Iraq during its war with Iran, and it still shows in Iran’s backing for Hezbollah in Lebanon. » | Michael Slackman | Saturday, March 19, 2011