(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Reports circulate that many journalists have been denied permission to enter the Persian Gulf nation to cover the unfolding events.
Doctors and nurses of a major hospital in Manama have also been threatened by the government not to speak to the media.
The following is a rush transcript of a Press TV interview with Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. He described the current developments across his country, saying that what is taking place in Bahrain is “an internal issue.”
Q: Would you please tell us about the unfolding situation in Bahrain now?
Rjab: We are seeing the government is creating the atmosphere of fear so that the people in the street stop demanding their legitimate rights. As you know, one man has recently died in detention, and according to the government he was sick. We have had hundreds of detained people so far. Their families cannot give them their medicine, because it is not allowed by the security forces. I received a lot of phone calls from the families. They were worried about their loved ones. They have also gone to the ministry of interior to give their loved ones medicine, but the ministry would not receive it.
There is a culture of torture regarding the political prisoners in Bahrain. Even the criminal prisoners are tortured. Many human rights organizations have issued reports on Bahrain, and a lot of concern has been raised by those organizations. But the government never opened an investigation to the accusations. A lot of people, who were studying abroad, receiving government scholarship, were told to come back. The scholarships were suspended and they were not allowed to continue their studies. Hundreds of students' scholarships were stopped. The government stopped any financial support for those students, who were doing their studies in England, Kuwait, Oman, Australia and Egypt, etc. because some of them were criticizing the prime minister, so the government is not anymore willing to give scholarship to anybody criticizing it.
The regime that we have deals with the Bahrainis as if they are working in a company or farm that belongs to the ruling elite. They can terminate whoever criticizes them. They have been terminating hundreds of people. I could imagine they try to make those people critical to the government's policy hungry. So they think “Once we can make them hungry there will be no more demands of any kind of political reform or respect for human rights.” A Shia center was also attacked yesterday. The government tries to give the current issue a sectarian dimension by targeting one sect -- that is the Shia.
The journalists coming to Bahrain in the past few days have been given files at the airport, telling them that what is going on in Bahrain is linked to the Iranian government which has been supporting this uprising, and there is nothing about the people's demands; nothing about human rights; but just one thing: the Iranian government tries to make problems in Bahrain by supporting some people who work for that government.
This is while the Bahraini government has invited another country (Saudi Arabia) to intervene in our internal issues. They are the ones who broke the red line by inviting other people. We say that this is an internal issue. We do not think anybody should get into that internal issue. But unfortunately the Bahraini government has not only dealt with it in a violent way by sending its troops and security forces, but they have invited outsiders. Now they try to link the people, who raise their demands and grievances, with Iran.
Although some of the protesters are leftists, some Communists, some Sunnis, yet the majority of them are Shias -- which is normal because the majority of the Bahraini population is Shia. There are extra discrimination; extra marginalization, targeting all the Shias. Although the Shias represent two third of the majority, they have been marginalized in governmental institutions. For example, they make up something like zero to one percent of the army. That is why you see more Shias in the streets than others. But the protest has been headed by Shias and also Sunnis. The government tries to link the protest to Iran; we say no, it is an internal issue. None of those journalists coming to Bahrain believe the government's claim that Iran is linked to the protest. It is very clear that people have peaceful and legitimate demands, and the government is cracking down on them. The government tries to mislead the public opinion, but it is not working and functioning as they want.
Q : The major Salmaniya Hospital in Manama has been under strict control of security forces with checkpoints surrounding the building. What is your comment on what is going on there regarding the treatment of the wounded?
Rjab: First I would like to say a couple of days ago I was being interviewed by CNN when suddenly there was a helicopter over my house at a very close range, and it was over my house for half an hour. And then when I came out of the house with the crew of six people, we were surrounded by a lot of masked men in cars. They were carrying machine guns and they told us to face the wall and put our hands up. For half an hour my hands were up and I was facing the wall, and they were interrogating us. Then later I was told to go back home. The CNN crew was taken to a police station, where they were interrogated for six hours and then they were released, but with some government official to accompany them wherever they go. Although the CNN crew was arrested in my house, a statement was issued that they were arrested in an area where they were not supposed to be which is not true at all. CNN also previously had a reporter who was deported. Many journalists came, and they were not allowed in as their cameras were discovered. Some of them were allowed, but many were not given permission.
Regarding the hospital, it used to be the place where journalists picked information -- the number of casualties, the type of injuries, etc. -- which was going on international media very much. But the government decided the way to stop this would be by harassing the doctors. Doctors have been harassed and beaten and arrested on a daily basis. Many nurses were attacked, and some of them were admitted later to hospital because of their injury. They are living in a state of fear. The government is continuing to arrest these professional doctors who are respected in the society. It is trying to spread fears among the doctors and nurses' society so that they do not keep speaking to the media and that is, in fact, what has happened. None of them would be willing to speak to the media because of this fear.
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