Numbered Days of Manama’s Repressive Minority Regime

By: Kayhan Int’l

Everything, not something, is really amiss in Bahrain, the Persian Gulf island statelet where one of the world’s last repressive minority regimes precariously clings to power with Anglo-American support, while depriving the overwhelming majority of the 700,000-odd Bahraini natives of their birthrights and religious freedom.

In contrast, the Aal-e Khalifa clique of pirate origin from the Khor-Abdullah waterway that seized Bahrain towards the end of the 19th century with British help at a time when Iran was in a weak position and has held the Bahraini people hostage for the past two centuries, lavishly treats the million-plus expatriates of many nationalities and faiths, including the newly arriving Zionists.

Hundreds of innocent prisoners are languishing in the dungeons of Manama since the people’s peaceful uprising was brutally crushed in 2011 and the focal point of their rallies, the famous Pearl Square demolished, but neither the UN nor the regimes of Western Europe and North America have objected to the organized violation of human rights on such a massive scale.

This hypocrisy is not surprising in view of their brazen support for the genocide of Palestinians by Israel and their poisonous propaganda against independent Muslim countries, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, where terrorists, drug smugglers, and merchants of death are punished after fair public trials.

Now amidst reports of Britain’s unprincipled prevention of Maryam al-Khwaja from flying to Bahrain on learning of the deteriorating health of her father, human rights advocate Abdul-Hadi al-Khwaja who is in jail without trial for the past dozen years, news comes of the arrest in Manama of a female social media activist over participation in and live coverage of the grand Arba’een rituals in the holy city of Karbala.

According to the Iraqi al-Ghadeer TV network, the activist, identified as Sheikha al-Majid, was detained in Manama following her return from Iraq.

She was charged with ‘sectarianism’ for broadcasting live images while standing in the vicinity of the sacred shrine of Imam Husain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA).

Bahraini human rights organizations strongly denouncing her arrest and demanding her immediate release, deplored the un-Islamic tendencies of the Aal-e Khalifa regime which dares to term as ‘sectarianism’ the martyrdom ceremonies for the Prophet’s grandson, whom all Muslims including Sunnis, revere as the Saviour of Islam.

They said this is not a matter of surprise in view of the Zionist-oriented policies of the repressive minority regime which has not just backstabbed the Palestinian people by exchanging ambassadors with Usurper Israel, but sent its security forces to assist armed Jewish thugs in attacking Muslim worshippers at the al-Aqsa Mosque and desecrating the sanctity of the third holiest site of Islam.

It is to be noted that many Bahraini nationals have been illegally deprived of citizenship and expelled, including the senior-most Islamic Leader, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim who is fully confident that the days of the Aal-e Khalifa are numbered.

Iraqi parliamentarians expressing anger at the detention of Sheikha al-Majid on return from pilgrimage to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala have warned the Aal-e Khalifa regime against the continued persecution of Bahrain’s Shi’a Muslim majority.

In related news, The Bahraini Initiative, which represents 27 NGOs, lambasted Israeli atrocities against Palestinians as “a stark expression of the racial and Nazi-like fascism of the illegal Zionist entity”, pointing out that “the occupiers have intensified the killings of the sons of the soil, coupled with illegal construction of townships to house Jews coming from around the world to the Occupied Land.”

It said the normalization agreement with Israel is a “grave threat to the interests of the Bahraini and Palestinian people, as well as all the sons and daughters of the [Arab] nation.”

In view of these undeniable facts, analysts point out that repressive minority regimes do not last long. Whether in Bahrain or any other land these will be soon thrown into the dustbin of history as is evident by the disgraceful fate of Baghdad’s Ba’thist dictator Saddam and before that of the British installed rootless Pahlavi potentates of Iran.

Today, Iran and Iraq have successfully established popular representative rule of the majority that stands solidly against the attempts of the US, the Zionists, and their agents to undermine them. Insha Allah (God Willing) tomorrow Bahrain and the few other lands ruled by minority regimes, will join their ranks.