International media silent on Bahrain atrocities: Professor

Press TV has conducted an interview with William Beeman, professor at the University of Minnesota from San Jose, about the Al Khalifa regime’s continuing crackdown on dissents in Bahrain.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Professor, three years in the making, how do you see Bahrain’s revolution? The crackdown continues there, I mean why is the West silent?

Beeman: It is a very difficult situation. I was fortunate to be able to go to Geneva last month, to the United Nations Human Rights Council where we heard enormous amount of information from people in Bahrain and people who had just come from Bahrain about the atrocities that were being committed by the Al Khalifa regime.

And the frustration of the Bahraini people is that the international news media is not covering their plight, their terrible situation. And we heard much more in one week in Geneva than I had heard in three years from the international news media.

One of the problems is of course that the United States maintains a naval fleet in Bahrain and so the US press is completely silent on the prosecution of the Bahraini people by the Al Khalifa regime.

Also Saudi Arabia is supporting the Al Khalifa regime and the United States does not want to make the Saudi government angry. So I am afraid that this is a politically imposed silence on the atrocities that are taking place in that country.

And the three deaths that took place this week are only the latest in many, many deaths and prosecutions that have been taking place for the last three years.

Press TV: And besides their silence, I mean there is this double standard by the West towards the revolution in Bahrain compared to other revolutions in the region. Why is that?

Beeman: Well I do not like to be too cynical about this but I think the fact that the people who are protesting are Shia and the principle friends of the United States in other groups consider themselves to be Sunni and consider the Shia to be revolutionaries or trying to overthrow the governments of the region.

This is nonsense of course but nevertheless this is something that has been easily sell to the capitals of the West where people had no understanding of the local dynamics of this situation.

Press TV: And finally what do you think the people of Bahrain should do from now on?

Beeman: In Geneva when I met with so many members of the Bahraini resistance, I pointed out to them that they should not be complacent about expecting the international news media to publicize their situation.

They have to be very, very active in getting the news out through social media, through anybody that will talk to them in the international media and I should say we should be happy that Press TV is doing some coverage of this but for instance where is Al Jazeera right in next door in Qatar? They are not doing anything.

So it is very important that the people of Bahrain themselves undertake as much of a publicity campaign as they can to get their story out.