Archive | December, 2011

Wait oh Saar fire….

A local saying immediately popped into my mind as I read these words in today’s Al-Wasat:

وطالبت لجنة الحقوق الدينية في وزارة الخارجية الأميركية بـ «تقديم أي من المسئولين في الحكومة البحرينية الذين ثبت تورطهم في انتهاكات صارخة للحرية الدينية إلى العدالة ومعاقبتهم بموجب القانون، ويجب على الحكومة البحرينية إصدار اعتذار رسمي لتدمير العشرات من دور العبادة، وهو الأمر الذي وجدت اللجنة البحرينية المستقلة لتقصي أنه ينتهك بوضوح القانون البحريني والدولي»

 

and represented in this official statement from USCIRF:

 

Soon after the release of the BICI report, King Hamad al-Khalifa appointed a committee to review how to implement the report’s recommendations. The committee is expected to report back to the King in February.

USCIRF urges the committee to address the following concerns during its review of the BICI’s recommendations:

  • The report recommends the government of Bahrain should “consider rebuilding, at its expense, some of the demolished religious structures in accordance with administrative regulations.” USCIRF is concerned that the government may rebuild only a few of the religious structures with legal permits and decrees, and not many of the other structures. In consultation with the Shi’a community, the government of Bahrain should restore or rebuild all the structures that were illegally destroyed;
  • The report does not address the loss and destruction of religious materials in some of the demolished structures. The Bahraini government should restore, replace, or compensate the local Shi’a community for the loss of these materials;
  • The report’s findings do not address allegations by multiple human rights groups that some individual members of the Shi’a community were harassed, interrogated, and arrested for returning to some of the destroyed sites to pray or retrieve religious materials. These allegations should be addressed and officials responsible should be reprimanded and held to account;
  • Any Bahraini government officials found to have committed severe religious freedom abuses should be brought to justice and punished under the law; and
  • The Bahraini government should issue a formal apology to the Shi’a community for destroying dozens of religious structures that the BICI found clearly violates Bahraini and international law.

“USCIRF welcomes the King’s decision to establish the BICI, as well as his public announcement that the government intends to rebuild Shi’a places of worship. It is important that these structures be rebuilt in close consultation with the local Shi’a community and not unilaterally,” said Leo.

The emphasis is mine and the cause of my raised eyebrows and that idiom popping into my mind. To represent it fully, the idiom goes:

Wait oh Saar fire for water from Hnainia

Saar being a village in the north of the island while Hnainia is in the south. We use that expression to represent the improbability (or even impossibility) of an event ever happening…

LIES LIES LIES! Really?

Nick Kristof was once again in Bahrain recently and as any good reporter, delved right into the events he came to investigate, talked to both sides of the conflict and came to the conclusions that most of the Bahraini people have been laboriously living through and breathing over the last ten months.

Others who choose to keep the blinkers permanently affixed to their conscience – and expectedly – cry foul whenever someone attempts to remove them. They do so not in providing evidence to contradict what has been reported, of course, but by blaming someone for the effort. This time, ironically, the government:

That’s right. Advise an erring government to further push its head in the sand. And here, my friends, is the crux of the problem. “Loyalists” if they could actually be called that, are doing immense damage to the country and its people by naively believing that the best way to deal with real problems is to hide from the truth and through their actions condone the government’s straying from the correct path. They also assume that international observers are like the sheep they’re used to, are very easily misled and will also believe their versions of the “truth”, though the truth is staring them in the eye.

So what did Nick do this time? What kind of “untruths” did he tell?

Well, spend a few minutes with this:

And here’s the article that goes with this video.

We ain’t goin’ nowhere fast if we continue to bury our heads in the good stuff.

So what are the things that will get us out of this mess? Well, they are what every human being on earth is and should be aspiring to:

    1. A new constitution forged by a constituent assembly elected to establish a constitutional monarchy and an elected Government.
    2. The adoption of an equitable electoral system to achieve representation of all of our society.
    3. Dismiss the government and the formation of a transitional government whose mission is to achieve political and security breakthroughs so as to create a suitable ground for a serious and fruitful national dialogue. We reject the reduction of this important requirement through a limited cabinet reshuffle which is a repetition of the previous attempts which did not provide a real alternative to our people.
    4. Release of the remaining prisoners of conscience and political prisoners and the abolition of their trials.
    5. The formation of an independent and impartial commission of inquiry in the killings that took place since 14 February, and to bring those responsible to trial.
    6. Neutralization of the state’s official media in order for it to be nationally representative of all components of the society and their views.
    7. To provide the necessary safeguards to achieve the government’s commitment to agreements it undertakes.