The United Nations’ silence over the atrocities committed by Bahraini regime forces against anti-regime protesters in the Persian Gulf country is astonishing, an observer says.
The United Nations' silence over the atrocities committed by Bahraini regime forces against anti-regime protesters in the Persian Gulf country is astonishing, an observer says.
 Filmmaker David Lawley |
Lawley went on to give an account of the brutal manner in which the Saudi-backed Bahraini regime forces crack down on peaceful anti-government protesters.
“Each little village [in Bahrain] is surrounded by police cars and occasionally, two tanks and at least five or six police cars around each little village. So, in the evenings when there are peaceful protests, all the people in the village go up on the roofs and chant 'God is great' and then the police storm into the villages with these police cars and then the tanks roll through and they disperse the crowd with tear gas and shooting birdshot from guns,” he said.
“The medical teams out there ... are treating children as young as twelve for beatings, and we have seen numerous cases of birdshot in peoples' arms and eyes. Some people have lost their sight,” he noted.
Lawley described the UN's inaction in the face of the Bahraini regime atrocities as an instance of “double standards” and said, “Why are they [the UN authorities] not touching Bahrain when genocide is actually taking place on the streets?”
Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch have also condemned the Bahraini and Saudi regimes for their heavy-handed tactics against the Bahraini population.
PROTEST IN TURKEY
Turkish protesters have held a rally in the city of Istanbul to denounce the Saudi-backed military crackdown on Bahraini civilians.
The angry demonstrators, who carried placards, marched to Saudi Arabia's consulate and chanted anti-Riyadh slogans.
“We condemn the killings in Bahrain and we want the king [Al Khalifa] to step down. We want democracy for the region not monarchy,” a demonstrator said.
The demonstrators also warned that the international community's silence would only worsen the humanitarian situation in Bahrain.
“Indifference will only embolden the tyrants. People who don't speak out against the tyrants are complicating their crimes. The media blackout on Bahrain is intentional,” Kible magazine Editor-in-Chief Kader Akaris said.
The European Union and the United States have kept silent over the repression of the peaceful pro-democracy movement in Bahrain and the Saudi intervention.
Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February.
According to local sources, scores of protesters have been killed during the government-sanctioned clampdown with the Saudi foreign troops contributing to a rise in the violence.
Saudi and Bahrain troops have also destroyed dozens of mosques and religious sites, alongside with burning many versions of the Holy Qoran.
