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Scooped by Spencer Haskins onto Human Rights and the Will to be free |
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When I met with Matar’s colleagues from Al Wefaq in March, they explained they had no interest in toppling the regime. Rather, said Al Wefaq member Khaleel Marzooq, “We want the implementation of the 2001 National Charter, which is supposed to restore the constitution and was accepted by 98.4 percent of the voting public.” The mainstream opposition seeks to implement the constitutional monarchy that the majority of the country voted for a decade ago. Delete the scoop?
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Sheikh Ali Salman, al-Wifaq's leader, prefers to talk of universal rights. "What Bahrainis want is the same as people elsewhere in the Arab world," he said. "The government succeeded to some extent in portraying what happened here as a Shia-Sunni clash, though it was less successful in convincing anyone that there was Iranian involvement. It also tried to show that the opposition were terrorists. But there is one basic conflict – between those who support democracy and those who want to maintain the current dictatorship." Delete the scoop?
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Oil, the 5th Fleet, Arms deals, & combating Iran: The REAL motivations behind US policy towards Bahrain. View the Saudi sacrileges, hear the US foreign policy personel rationalize our policies, witness the American hypocrisy!
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Washington, D.C.—[/i]The U.S. government should immediately and publicly declare whether it still supports the Bahraini government’s National Dialogue after the country’s main opposition party, Al Wefaq, has officially withdrawn, said Human Rights First today.[/i]
“A wide range of human rights defenders in Bahrain told us last week the dialogue is cosmetic, and the U.S. government is losing credibility by being associated with it,” said Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley, who just returned from a fact finding mission in Bahrain. “Even as the dialogue sessions meet, the Bahraini government continues to shoot at civilians, detain opposition members, torture human rights defenders and intimidate all those who speak out.” Delete the scoop?
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Wefaq and six other political opposition groups, which were invited to take part in talks, have complained that their proposed political reforms would never be put into effect because the opposition received only 35 out of 300 seats at the talks
..... Wefaq said on Sunday it would withdraw because its views were not being taken seriously in talks it accused of being dominated by pro-government representatives. That decision still has to be ratified by the movement's higher council. Wefaq and six other political opposition groups, which were invited to take part in talks, have complained that their proposed political reforms would never be put into effect because the opposition received only 35 out of 300 seats at the talks ... The United Nations said on Monday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon believes authorities in Bahrain need to create the right conditions so that as many people as possible, including Wefaq, can participate fully in the dialogue. That would enable the dialogue to lead to "the kind of reforms that the Bahraini people are looking for," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York. Delete the scoop?
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The King of Bahrain's attempts to restore his island's reputation after a bloody crackdown on opposition protests are crumbling from political attack and repeated allegations of police brutality even from members of the island's middle classes.
... The government's National Dialogue, its forum for negotiation with opposition groups, lay in tatters yesterday after al-Wefaq, the biggest party in parliament, announced it intended to pull out. Meanwhile, two of the most prominent figures detained in the crackdown have described to The Daily Telegraph a routine of beatings they suffered while in captivity. One, Ayat al-Qurmezi .... The other, a senior surgeon at the main Salmaniya Hospital, who has asked not to be identified, said the behaviour of the authorities had alienated the non-political middle classes like himself. He was one of 48 doctors put on trial in the wake of the protests, 20 of whom remain in custody. He said he was hit round the head, kicked and beaten with a rubber hose until he was forced to confess to inflicting the wounds suffered by protesters he was treating for their injuries, or making them worse. Delete the scoop?
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DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahrain's largest Shi'ite opposition group Wefaq said on Sunday it planned to pull out of a national dialogue, which was aimed at reforms after mass pro-democracy protests rocked the Gulf Island...
"Wefaq tried with all seriousness to offer political solutions and it was always responded to with rejections, or it was ignored," he said. Mainstream opposition groups such as Wefaq have called for a more representative parliamentary system and greater powers to the elected lower council, whose powers are neutered by the upper Shura council, appointed by the king. But hardliners calling for the abolition of the monarchy have gained popularity since the crackdown by Bahrain's Sunni rulers. Security forces crushed weeks of protests in March led by the country's majority Shi'ite population, who were demanding a greater say in government. Delete the scoop?
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Bahrain'slargestoppositiongroupsaidonWednesdaytheyhavedocumentedthousandsofcasesofciti...
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الوفاق تنظيم سياسي إسلامي، ملتزم بالأحكام الشرعية، انبثق من نضالات شعب البحرين، ليهتم بشئون الوطن والمواطن؛ وليعمل على تنمية المجتمع وازدهاره، وتعزيز وحدته الوطنية، وفق رؤية شـاملة ومتكاملة مستمدة من تعاليم القرآن الكريم، والسنة النبوية الشريفة.
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Six months on, the Pearl Roundabout, where tens of thousands of Bahrainis converged to demand reforms, is gone but the problems that provoked the protests linger.
"We know it is difficult, but at least the government and the prime minister should be changed and all those who did this should be punished by the law," she said, referring to those she believes were responsible for the estimated 35 deaths since the crisis began. Delete the scoop?
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MANAMA, July 29 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands marched outside Bahrain's capital Manama on Friday to protest against the results of a "National Dialogue" they said had failed to bring real democratic reform in the Gulf island kingdom.
Shouting "We want freedom" and waving Bahraini flags and banners that read "No to dialogue", protesters marched along Budaiya highway as helicopters from the security forces buzzed overhead. ... The government thought the results were great. We thought they were nothing. There's no fully elected government, no reforms to the voting system -- it's a one-sided deal," said Wefaq leader Sayed al-Mousawi. Shi'ite Bahrainis have long complained of discrimination in jobs and services and accuse the government of gerrymandering electoral districts, charges the government denies. Some began to shout "Down, down (King) Hamad" in the Friday march, which organisers entitled "The people are the source of authority." Delete the scoop?
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In reality, the Al-Khalifa now have no legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the Bahraini population. Most of Bahrain's people are still Shi’a, despite the government’s determined attempts over the past decade to manipulate the sectarian imbalance by trying to naturalise large numbers of invited Sunni immigrants. The understandable Shi’a resentment at such policies and the discrimination they represent have since February 2011 been expressed in protests, most of which have been put down with bloody force.
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In addition, the forum has been constructed in such a way as to make the opposition a small minority. Representatives of seven legally recognized opposition political societies, including Wefaq, were allocated only 35 out of the 300 seats at the forum. The rest went to NGOs, professional associations and trade unions (which have been purged of protestors and people who went on strike), as well as representatives of the media (which routinely self-censors and avoids criticizing the government), and "prominent personalities." There are no representatives of the youth protestors, many of whom are now in prison. Overall, the forum is even less politically representative than the country's parliament, and has even fewer powers to implement any of its decisions.
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Cairo - Bahrain's liberal opposition Monday hinted it may quit reconciliation talks just days after the Sunni-ruled country's key Shiite opposition group, al-Wefaq, decided to withdraw.
Three liberal opposition groups, encompassing pan-Arabs, communists, and Baathists, said in a joint statement that none of the opposition's concerns or recommendations to ensure more political freedoms had been addressed or adopted since the talks, known as national dialogue, began on July 2. They added that the talks would be hard to carry out amid the continued detention of political activists, an 'aggressive sectarian media campaign,' and failure to reinstate those who had been sacked from their jobs for allegedly taking part in pro-reform protests. Delete the scoop?
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Wefaq is finally out of the Regime's monolgue 'dialogue'
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n a speech, Al-Wefaq chief Sheikh Ali Salman reiterated its demand for "radical reform centring on a government elected by the people and a parliament with full legislative powers."
He said the movement was not calling for the fall of the regime in Shiite-majority Bahrain, which is ruled by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa dynasty. Delete the scoop?
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Bahrain's main Shiite opposition party, Al-Wefaq, said Friday that it will partially pull out of workshops of the so-called National Consensus Dialogue, declaring the talks' conclusions appeared to be pre-ordained. ....
"It must be noted that the authorities designed the dialogue so that all opposing views are diluted," al-Mosawi told CNN. Only about 35 of the 300 participants represented the opposition, and the agenda "has been set so that it is directed towards a pre-determined outcome," he said. Delete the scoop?
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Wefaq displeasure with the non-representative nature of the Bahraini Monologue! Cynical about the efficacy of the talks......
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جمعية الوفاق الوطني الإسلامية - ~ ~ ~ - Work Info: a:0:{} - Education Info: a:0:{} | Facebook...
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