Bahrain: Al-Khalifa Prince Attends UK’s Olympics as Crackdown, UK Arms Supplies Continue

The Bahrain Freedom Movement published an article indicating that as efforts to ban the Bahraini torturer, Nasser bin Hamad from attending the London Olympics continue, it has been revealed that the UK Government has ignored several requests and pleas supported by irrefutable evidence against him.
“Although the UK Foreign Secretary asserted that anyone engaged in torture would not be granted a visa for the Olympics, the Al-Khalifa dynasty is sending one of its most sadistic torturers.”

There are now mounting fears for the lives of three prominent detainees who had testified that Nasser, the son of Bahrain’s King, had personally tortured them. According to the Bahrain Freedom Movement, these detainees are Sheikh Mohammad Habib Al Miqdad, Sheikh Mirza Al Mahroos and Mohammad Hassan Jawad, who said that Nasser had hurled verbal abuses as he punched and kicked them during the revolutions that kicked off in 2011.
It ought to be disastrous to London Olympics, as it would go in the books of history as one that embraced people who had committed crimes against humanity, the Bahrain Freedom Movement article added.

Meanwhile in the local Bahraini territories, the Al-Khalifa hereditary dictatorship has tightened its grip by banning any form of public protests especially in the capital Manama.
In the past weeks, some prominent opposition figures and activists were targeted and subjected to attempts of assassination, for example the head of Al Wefaq Party was hit in the back as he led a peaceful demonstration last month.
Supported by the US and UK, the Bahraini government had decided to undertake a war against its people, inviting, since the beginning of the revolutions, foreign troops to take part in the crackdown.

The Revolution has, nonetheless, continued unabated. At least 20 demonstrations have taken place every day in various parts of the country. Regime’s repression has intensified, and tens of people have been wounded with shotgun wounds.
The said US and UK support encourages the Al-Khalifa regime to intensify its use of chemical and toxic gases hurled at demonstrators, children, and elderly people.
This intervention is believed to hinder the people’s will to topple the regime, yet it cannot prevent it, the Bahrain Freedom Movement article added.

Also, the article indicated how over the past few days, many international human rights bodies have been calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Nabil Rajab, the President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.
According to his wife, no news has been received from him for several days, that it why there is mounting fear for his life. He has been threatened with extermination by security forces run by John Timony and John Yates, who also injured another prominent Human Rights activist, Zainab al-Khawaja. The two other most prominent human rights activists in Bahrain are Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja and Dr. Abdul Jalil Al Singace, who are now languishing behind bars, the article added.

Back to the ongoing US-UK arms supply to the al-Khalifa regime, “Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the regime’s crown prince is on arms-purchasing tour in USA as he declared his unyielding support to the killing of Bahrainis while hiding behind a façade of deceptive calls to conditional dialogue”, the article noted.
Meanwhile, London “sincerely” expressed its will to continue arming Bahrain. Denis MacShane, a Parliament Member, from the Labor Party, expressed earlier this week, “We are still exporting arms to Bahrain, where the death toll mounts, the numbers in prison grow and the torture continues. I am curious to know whether the Minister has any moral qualms about that.”

In response, Gerald Howarth (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State), from the Conservative party, replied, “… we have one of the most stringent arms export control arrangements in the world, and we look very carefully at these matters. I should add that Bahrain has been an extremely important friend and ally to both the United Kingdom and the United States.”
Therefore, the aforementioned statement confirmed the Bahraini people’s fear of UK’s direct “arms” complicity in the brutal crackdown on their women and children, the article concluded.