News / Interviews

Bahraini regime on its last breath: Pundit

Monday, 18 July 2016 7:13 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 18 July 2016 7:13 AM ]

Bahraini woman clashes with riot policemen in the village of Jidhafs, west of Manama on May 23, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

The regime in Bahrain has been losing legitimacy for the last five years and it currently does not have the proper structure to be called a state, Hazem Salem, activist and political commentator said in an interview with Press TV.

The Al Khalifa regime is cracking down on civil societies and organizations representing the Bahraini people, Salem maintained, adding, “The Bahraini regime is breathing its last.”

“This harsh move against the freedom as a whole is nothing but a landmark of a regime losing legitimacy and they’re trying to destroy everything in the country including all the elements that the society is based upon,” he said.

Manama has moved to dissolve the country’s main Shia opposition group, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, as part of the ongoing crackdown on dissent.

He further said the clampdown in dictatorial states like Bahrain is not surprising but “the real surprise is how the so-called democratic countries are reacting, how the so-called Western countries are reacting.”

According to the commentator, “the Manama regime wants to label the moderate people as extremist and to push people to be with no solution but to fight in a material way for their rights and then it would say, ‘I’m fighting terrorism.’”

A former Bahraini lawmaker told Press TV, “The government of Bahrain does not have a mature policy” to handle the political situation in the tiny Persian Gulf nation.

Matar Ebrahim Ali Matar added that prominent Shia cleric and opposition leader “Sheikh Ali Salman is a major asset that the government can invest in to go through a transitional process to move toward a constitutional monarchy.”

“The Bahraini government is taking the country in a very dangerous track where they are cracking down on this power who calls for resolving issues through dialogue and through gradual reform,” he noted.

Since February 14, 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis, calling on the Al Khalifah family to relinquish power. Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested.

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