Manama changing Bahrain demography through expelling dissidents: Bahraini ex-MP

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jalal Fairooz, a former Bahraini legislator, about Amnesty International’s condemnation of the Al Khalifa regime in Bahrain over the detention of prominent opposition figure Nabeel Rajab.

Read a rough transcription of the interview below.

Press TV: When it comes to Nabeel Rajab, it seems he spent more time behind bars than outside since the 2011 uprising began. Tell us a bit more.

Fairooz: Well, it seems that the authorities of Bahrain thought that whatever Nabeel Rajab will be saying even over Skype in the opening of the Human Rights Council in Geneva would [discredit] the authorities themselves. They were very frightened of whatever Nabeel Rajab would do to them by disclosing all the atrocities in Bahrain.

But, what exactly happened was on the contrary of whatever the government of Bahrain wants, because, just this morning, after the breaking news of abduction of Nabeel Rajab, the High Commissioner of Human Rights talked in the opening ceremony of the Human Rights Council very harshly about the Bahraini authorities. He condemned very strongly the Bahraini authorities’ violations. And also, after him, all the countries who have spoken, specially Sweden, the Dutch and the Switzerland representatives have condemned Bahrain for not applying whatever the Human Rights Council have mentioned before.

And only today and yesterday, all the delegations of human rights who were supposed to travel from Bahrain to Geneva were avoided to go out of Bahrain and they were not provided any aid for that. And it seems that the government of Bahrain just wants to challenge the world and especially Human Rights Council that they don’t care whatever the world would say about their atrocities.

Press TV: Indeed, Mr. Fairooz, now that you mentioned the Human Rights Council, one thing that was raised when it came to Bahrain was Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein criticized the Bahraini regime stripping of the Bahraini citizens from their citizenship. Why is that method being used against dissidents?

Fairooz: Well, the regime’s plan is to get rid of all the activists in Bahrain, whether they are political or human rights activists, either by having them permanently jailed through life sentences or stripping their nationalities.

Just this morning, two journalists were stripped of their nationalities and they were sentenced to 10 years just because they requested more freedom in Bahrain and they did some tweets here and there.

So, the regime wants to get rid of the loyal Bahrainis to whatever is the principles of all the rights, and on the contrary, the Bahraini regime is bringing tens of thousands of Syrians and Pakistanis and granting them citizenship just to change the demography of Bahrain.

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