Human Rights and the Will to be free

Five civilians, including women, physically disabled and a five-year-old boy, have died so far from suffocation resulting from regime forces firing tear gas canisters into homes. In such attacks, the dwellings quickly become thick with the acrid smoke released by these weapons. The elderly and weak cannot escape from the lethal exposure.

In the last two weeks, state military forces have stepped up attacks on family homes in mainly Shia villages, which are seen as supportive of the pro-democracy movement.

“This is a deliberate, systematic tactic of terrorising people,” says Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights. “This is not just a case of a few officers behaving randomly. We are seeing entire villages coming under sustained attack with thousands of gas canisters thrown into homes by uniformed riot police who ride into villages in Ministry of Interior jeeps. These deadly attacks could only be carried out on the orders of the regime’s rulers.”...

Both Washington and London backed a Saudi-led invasion force into Bahrain in mid-March to crush the peaceful protests. Since then, military from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have supported Bahraini forces in a brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protesters. The crackdown has resulted in some 40 civilians deaths, over 1,000 illegal detentions, torture of detainees and hundreds of show trial prosecutions held in military courts.

Among those prosecuted are doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers and journalists, who have been charged with ludicrous crimes such as “inciting hatred against the rulers” and “subversion on behalf of a foreign enemy” (implying Iran). ...“This shows that the repression by the regime and its allies has failed,” says Rajab. “They have not intimidated the people from demanding their democratic rights.”

Rajab, who last month was awarded the Ion Ratiu Democracy Award by the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for his human rights work, says that the inability to suppress calls for democratic change is why the Bahraini regime has now resorted to a new tactic of “collective punishment” of civilians.

“Despite extrajudicial killings, mass incarcerations and routine torture, the regime realises that these methods have failed to defeat the popular opposition. Now they have moved to collective punishment by going into villages and terrorising people with deadly use of tear gas,” says Rajab.

In the following two months, on the back of visits to Islamabad by senior Saudi and Bahraini officials, sources say at least 2,500 former servicemen were recruited by Bahrainis and brought to Manama, increasing the size of their national guard and riot police by as much as 50 per cent.
"We know that continued airplanes are coming to Bahrain and bringing soldiers from Pakistan," Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera.
"We do not know the exact number, but we know that it is much more than 1,500 or 2,000 people."
Recruited into the special forces, the national guard, and the riot police, the Pakistani citizens are tasked with suppressing Shia protesters that are reportedly demanding equal rights after years of alleged oppression at the hands of the royal family, part of Bahrain's Sunni minority.
"Our own Shia cannot join the security forces, but the government recruits from abroad," said Rajab.
On the ground in Pakistan, the recruitments were handled by the Fauji Foundation, one of the largest conglomerates in the country with close ties to the Pakistani military. In addition to the Overseas Employment Services, which is tasked with providing job opportunities for retired military personnel, the foundation owns large cereal and gas companies, sugar mills, security firms, as well as hospitals and universities.