Al Khalifah committing ‘genocide’ against Bahrainis: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Saeed al-Shehabi, with the Bahrain Freedom Movement from London, about the imprisonment of 27 Bahraini citizens over alleged terrorism charges.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Talk to us more about the recent prison sentences handed down by the Al Khalifah.

Shehabi: This group is just another group that can be added to a long list of people who have been persecuted for their political thoughts, their religious affiliation and their general dynamism. The people of Bahrain cannot sit at home and wait for the regime to continue its genocidal policies or to allow it to persecute their religious leaders as it is doing now with grand Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim, who is being under siege and whose nationality has been revoked.

Now this group of people has been given hefty sentences of 15 years in jail. And in the past two weeks, at least eight to 10 people had their nationality revoked in addition to the heavy sentences passed on them. The regime is anxious and is keen to ensure that native Bahrainis are persecuted, are banished, as it had done so two days ago with lawyer Taimoor Karimi, who was deported to Iraq. Before Karimi's case, many others were sentenced and had their citizens revoked too.

This is part of a policy of genocide that cannot be explained except by the fact that the regime wants to change the demography balance of the country in its favor by bringing foreigners and granting them Bahraini nationality while persecuting people as has happened today and in the past. Several groups have been sentenced to heavy sentences. Now this is why there must be a regime change, because the Bahrainis will suffer a great deal if this Al Khalifah tribal dictatorship continues in office.

Press TV: And what about the silence and blind eye being turned by some certain Western countries with regards to events taking place in Bahrain?

Shehabi: Well, if it was only silence that could be understood or tolerated, but the connivance, the complicity, in these crimes is what is worrying us most. I don't understand what interest can be saved for the US or for the United Kingdom by siding with these dictators. I don't understand how peace and security in the world can be secured by supporting dictators and tyrants.

I always thought that they would stand up for democracy, they would support pro-democracy activists, they would oppose tyranny and dictatorship. And are there today in the world more tyrannical regimes than those in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain? Is there any regime that is more backward and also repressive than those two regimes?

Yet what we see is that Washington and London would not spare a minute without supporting these in terms of security arrangements and in political support and also in military presence. I think it's time for London and Washington to change their position; otherwise, they will continue to be on the wrong side of history.

Press TV: Mr. Shehabi, medical workers and doctors have been prosecuted and persecuted, activists have been jailed, the opposition has been outlawed, there's pretty much no boundary as to the extent of what the Al Khalifah is willing to do to stand in front of the calls for democracy in Bahrain.

Shehabi: It will continue to confront activists. Today I understand that journalist Nazeeha Saeed, who is working for France 24, has been banned from travel. Two weeks ago, Dr. Taher al-Dirazi, a senior surgeon, was going to go to London to visit his son with his family when he was taken off the aircraft.

All the people, the human rights activists, who were planning to go to Geneva were either banned from going to the airport or even taken off the airplane before it taxied to fly, and of course this is in addition to what we see today from the siege on the town of Diraz. It is gradually becoming like the Zionist siege of Gaza.

This is something that must not be tolerated by the world community. They must not see another Iraq or another Gaza, another Palestine being gradually encircled and their people start to death. This is what's happening in my town, Diraz, where Sheikh Isa is being under siege and also encircled day and night by troops, who are mostly mercenaries from the outside.

I think, it’s time for the world community to come to a consensus and support the people of Bahrain and stand against the repression and the genocidal policies being adopted and implemented by the Al Khalifah regime supported by the Saudis.

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