Crackdown reign in Bahrain - Worse than Syria?

With all the discussion in regards to Syria and Osama Bin Laden many here on ATS have forgot that the U.S ally Bahrain is cracking down on the Shia majority with the help of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It isn't as bad as Syria in my honest opinion, however we can not be to sure as Bahrain has done a great job at keeping the crackdown as discreet as possible in the eyes of the international community and the U.S/Western media has filtered news of Bahrain protests and censored our exposure to the violent repression. It will come as no suprise to most forum members that this is happening yet the United States has yet to be diplomatically stern with Bahrain even though it was with Libya and is with Syria. This is hypocrisy at it's finest ladies and gentlemen.

The once massive pro-democracy protests in Bahrain have been reduced to small clashes between youth and police in predominantly Shia Muslim areas.

Security forces have launched a crackdown on protesters marked by beatings and sweeping arrests. Nearly 1,000 demonstrators have been imprisoned, among them doctors, artists and lawyers.

The UN High Commissioner for Human rights Navi Pillay says severe torture is being used against prisoners, and he is calling on the Bahraini government to stop intimidating and harassing human rights defenders and political activists.

english.aljazeera.net...


www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by SpeachM1litant
... and the U.S/Western media has filtered news of Bahrain protests and censored our exposure to the violent repression.

They have? Is that why there are currently over 9 thousand news articles about Bahrain on google news?
Including from today at Fox news, the BBC, Reuters, AP, the Telegraph (UK), and others?
Seriously, I think if the worlds people dont know about whats happening in Bahrain, its only because they arent interested.
Personally, I've been following it since mid February, and have no trouble finding news. And even occasionally pointiing out my displeasure on Formula 1 forums that Bernie Ecclestone doesnt care about the situation, just the money he'd get from staging a F1 Grand Prix.

Edit - oh yeah, that the USA isnt speaking out, yeah thats just hypocritical politics as you say...
Egypt: "we wish both sides to achieve a peaceful settlement"
Iran: "Yeah, rebels!! you rock!! we'll fund and help you!!"
Bahrain: "we wish both sides to achieve a peaceful settlement"
Libya: "Yeah, rebels!! you rock!! we'll fund and help you!!"

Disgusting how goverments in the west are totally ignoring this brutal crackdown the bahrian goverment are bringing down mosques people detained and beaten that bad they have died hospital staff being beaten it go's on and on i herd the other day on aljazerra that pupils in a school were arrested sickening the double standards of the west.

reply to post by alfa1


Ok- here is a google news search in regards to Libya

Results 1 – 10 of about 23,952 for Libya. (0.06 seconds)News

Here is a google news search in regards to Syria

Results 1 – 10 of about 14,871 for Syria. (0.06 seconds)News

Here is a google news search in regards to Iran

Results 1 – 10 of about 17,430 for Iran. (0.06 seconds)

Here is a google news search in regards to Hamas

Results 1 – 10 of about 17,167 for Hamas. (0.04 seconds)

And now, here is a google news search in regards to Bahrain

Results 1 – 10 of about 9,352 for Bahrain. (0.05 seconds)News

It is significantlly lower and many of it does not relate to the political situation and the act of marshal law being comitted against the people. In-fact the most Western news source on the first page is Associated Press. When journalists report however, they do not ask the right questions and they don't pay attention to the right things. How much time has the fact that Saudi and UAE troops are inacting Marshal Law alongside Bahrains armed forces with equipment they got from America? Not alot, I can tell you that.

I found there is little interest in Bahrain. I made a pretty in depth thread when the crackdown started, but it never got much attention.

I do not know if Bahrain is as bad as Syria, but it is as bad as Libya was when the West began their intervention.

There is a considerable amount of online coverage of bahrian, but on mainstream evening news it is under reported. Syria and Iran get far more attention than Bahrain or Yemen. Why? Because the US benefits politically from the status quo in Bahrain and Yemen. Syria and Iran are "enemies."

It shows what we already know. Mainstream media reports according to the interests of the political and economic power structures.

Now that they've shot or killed the protesters, locked up doctors who were trying to help them, and got Saudi thugs to beat up the rest,
"Things are calm now, life is back to normal."

And they want their F1 Grand Prix back again.
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