TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2016
Bahrain is one of six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, despotic monarchies allied with US regional imperial interests, mainly its endless wars of aggression.
On Monday, prominent human rights defender/former political prisoner Nabeel Rajab was again arrested. At 5:00AM, police surrounded his home. His son Adam tweeted they “entered the house and arrested my father…”
The incident occurred on first day of the UN Human Rights Council’s 32nd session, its high commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, warning “(r)epression will not eliminate people’s grievances. It will increase them.”
Prominent human rights defender/political prisoner Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s daughter Zainab was forced to leave for exile in Denmark after learning she’d be arrested and imprisoned if she stayed.
In late May, she was released from prison for humanitarian reasons after being sentenced to serve 37 months solely for political reasons.
Bahrain is a ruthless police state, human rights and democracy supporters murdered or imprisoned.
On Tuesday, AP News reported its authorities “suspend(ing) (the) largest Shiite political group and fr(eezing) its assets…as part of a widening crackdown on activists and dissent…”
The Al-Wefaq opposition was targeted, suspended before for supporting protests for justice, the regime-controlled Bahrain News Agency saying action against it was taken to “safeguard the security of the kingdom” – code language for opposing democratic freedoms.
An October 6 rubber-stamp court hearing was set to decide whether to “liquidate” the party altogether. Last month, regime authorities more than doubled Al-Wefaq secretary-general Sheikh Ali Salman’s political imprisonment to nine years.
In response, Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy director Sayed Ahmed al-Wadaei said the ruling shows the regime “is bulldozing its civil society…(transforming) itself into a state of silence and terror” – with full US support and encouragement.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
Uprooted Palestinian 
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