Al Khalifa Monarchy Doomed to Failure

An Iranian lawmaker has denounced the Bahraini government’s brutal crackdown on protesters, saying “defeat and humiliation” will be the fate of Al Khalifa family.

“Every government that suppresses its people, will face no fate but defeat and humiliation,” a member of Iran-Bahrain Parliamentary Friendship Group, Mahmoud Hosseini Dolatabadi, told Majlis news agency (ICANA) on Saturday.

The Iranian parliamentarian lashed out at international bodies, which claim to defend human rights, for keeping silent on the killings of anti-government protesters in Bahrain by Saudi-led forces.

“Governments should hear the people’s demand for their rights but instead of meeting the public demand, dictatorial regimes in the region are killing people,” he said.

Dolatabadi pointed to the deployment of Saudi and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) forces to Bahrain and added, ”Riyadh and Abu Dhabi took no measure when the Zionist regime (Israel) attacked south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip (in 2009) but they are currently sending troops to Bahrain to prevent the Al Khalifa family’s downfall.”

The clampdown on Bahraini opposition protesters who demand a constitutional monarchy has been intensified after Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Oman and Qatar dispatched their armed forces to assist in quelling protests in the crisis-hit Persian Gulf state earlier this month.

Rights groups and opposition parties say hundreds of people have been detained or have gone missing since the protests began in mid-February, with at least 25 people killed and 1,000 others wounded so far.

Bahraini demonstrators maintain that they will continue with their protests until their demands are met for a new constitution that would limit the king’s powers. They are also calling for Bahraini Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa to step down.