Police said that several people were arrested for chanting anti-government slogans.
The following is the transcript of a Press TV interview with Ralph Schoenman, a political analyst in Berkeley, California, and author of The Hidden History of Zionism, regarding the continuing crackdown on the Bahraini protesters (This interview is also supported by director of Institute for [Persian] Gulf Affairs (IGA), Ali al-Ahmed).
Press TV: Mr. Schoenman, Mr. Ali al-Ahmad there just described the blatant hypocrisy of Washington stance on Bahrain. As he pointed it out, it says that it supports dialogue yet it does not let for example the opposition members enter the United States, etc. and it does not really support the people at the end of the day by its actions. Why do you feel that everyone is essentially letting the United States get away with especially its own media? I mean, in the UK media at least we have had for example articles in The Independent, etc. criticizing the US's double standards and even the UK's double standards. But in the US media, we have still had a fairly muted reaction to all of this.
Schoenman: Well, yes. But it has to be pointed out that The New York Times has run on its front page a very vivid account of the torture that is being inflicted upon the medical doctors who have been detained, the sexual abuse, the urination on the part of women doctors who have been held in custody. This has been set forth in a direct detail.
However, of course, when it comes to editorial denunciation of the position of the United States the US press is not doing that but I would point out that in The New York Times they announced Bahrain's trial opens for 47 doctors and nurses, dozens of doctors and nurses who treated injured anti-government protesters doing the months of unrest in Bahrain have gone on trials on charges they participated in efforts to overthrow the monarchy. Forty seven health professionals were arraigned in a closed hearing and security court. The Shia majority has been protesting to demand greater freedom and equal rights in an elected government. During the unrest, the medical professionals considered it their duty to treat everyone and rejected accusations for treating protesters was kin to supporting their cause. So you see the American press is feeling the pressure.
I would point out, as to what has been discussed just now, as our colleague said and Reuters 34 minutes ago published the following: “Obama urges Bahrain to hold rights abusers accountable,” and he does that in a meeting as you mentioned with crowned king sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa receiving him and then paying lip service to holding accountable those responsible for human rights abuses in a crackdown on pro-democracy protests. But he does that by way of sanctioning the regime and issuing an entirely cosmetic verb call for dialogue and for holding the human rights abuses responsible when he is meetings with the head of the human rights abusers and giving him sanction. So we have to understand that what is at work here is the universal condemnation of the Bahraini regime and its brutality and the documentation of the nerve gas and the evisceration of the people who have been in hospitals and the torture of both male and female doctors that has been widely documented now.
The very day that they were put on trial in a military court we have Obama speaking out of both sides of his mouth. But I would say this, Reuters in spite of reporting this, points out Bahrain is home to the US Fifth Fleet and they called on the security forces in Saudi Arabia and other [Persian] Gulf Arab countries to squash demonstrations. The critics here said the United States and Western nations reacted softly to the crackdown in Bahrain and the White House is not getting a pass from the established media because of the enormity of the expose of crimes that have now been proceeding on a world scale. The question you asked, US imperialism is responsible for these country-selling regimes, the arms are US arms, the Cobra helicopters are US helicopters, the F16 jets are US airplanes. All of the attack bears the signature of the imperium of the United States.
Press TV: Mr. Schoenman, Mr. Ali al-Ahmad spoke about the endorsements and this past month there have been a lot of controversy about the Formula One race going ahead in Bahrain and obviously the FIA, the board of the Formula One group, said that it would in fact be holding that race in Bahrain in October. We have just got news now that the teams in fact, who were supposed to participate in that, have sent a letter to that board saying that they do not want to be a part of this race because they fear for their security, etc. How do you feel about this?
Schoenman:Not only that but the prominent former president of the FIA Mosley here is a headline in The Independenttoday [Wednesday Wednesday, 8 June 2011]: “Mosley adds to outrage as pressure grows on FIA to reverse Bahrain call.” The former president ridiculed the FIA governing body's method of checking a Middle East country as safe to host the race. There is a universal condemnation for the extraordinary performance of Jean Todt, the president of the FIA governing body, who insisted the situation in Bahrain is currently stable and peaceful, an opinion that appears to be based solely on a simplistic report compiled by an FIA commission after a two-day visit organized and supervised by government officials.
The former FIA President, Max Mosley, has let the ridiculed these gentlemen at the FIA have sent to play essentially cricket, speak no English and speak no Arabic, Mosley said. There is a ridicule and condemnation of this agreement to run the FIA race in Bahrain that is condemned on the front page of The Independent and indeed the report that has been published by National Public Radio today in the United States reads as follows:
“The mass protest movement that swept Bahrain in February and March has since turned into a bitter sectarian confrontation. The tiny island nation - a key US ally in the Persian Gulf -is mostly populated by Shiites, but it's ruled by a Sunni royal family.
Analysts say the family is now pushing a sectarian agenda that might eventually be its undoing.
From the very beginning, it was no secret that most of the protesters in Bahrain were Shiites. They are the underdogs in Bahrain: They're generally poorer than the average Bahraini, and they're kept out of top positions in the government.
Meanwhile, the government imports Sunnis from Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere to tip the scales in favor of Sunnis...The rhetoric is particularly ugly online. One government-sanctioned website recently threatened violence against an American diplomat because he had documented abuses against Shiites. The site posted a photograph from the diplomat's wedding and gave his address.... authorities have demolished at least 47 Shiite mosques across Bahrain, like Al Alawiyat mosque, which used to stand in the middle of the capital, Manama.”
This is a very detailed report, again, distributed throughout the US which is exactly what the Obama regime is fearing because they are appearing to be exactly what they are: which is the creators of these country-selling regimes and the principle military financial prop of the al-Khalifas and the Wahhabi sheikhdom in Saudi Arabia and throughout the region.
Press TV: Some say that it is not bad for Bahraini protester's if Bahrain stages this year's popular Formula One (F1) auto race because it can bring more attention to their cause. Does that show that the Bahraini monarchy miscalculated at every step in its reaction to these protests?
Schoenman: So has the American imperialism in the US. In the article in today's (Wednesday, 8 June 2011) Independent which describes the former FIA president [Max Mosley]'s outrage over the FIA's decision to hold this race, the following statement is made: “It has not helped Todt's credibility that his son Nicolas's ART Grand Prix team - which explored the possibility of entering Formula One for the 2011 season before ultimately failing to secure sufficient backing - is 30 per cent funded by the Crown Prince of Bahrain.”
The press is ridiculing this agreement to hold this race because public opinion has completely distanced the support of imperialism for the Bahraini regime, it is reflected in the daily report in the press, the video that is on the National Public Radio and in the Guardian as well, Bahrain police used rubber bullet sound grenades to break up Shia religious marches across the country because the opposition is growing not lessening and the isolation of the regime and of the American policy is spreading across the world. That is the growing reality, the daily reality. By October there will be no al-Khalifa regime I venture you to predict.
Press TV: Do you feel at this point, it boggles the mind when you look at the Bahraini regimes' reactions to all this, that they think they will survive all of this. Because as Mr. al-Ahmad has said the West's patience and the West's stance will eventually will run out and it will eventually has to take a stance against the regime because it sees people so overwhelmingly are against it. Certainly the calculations that the regime has been making, it must be realizing at some point that it has made a mistake here.
Schoenman: I would point out to you that these regimes always rely on brutal repression and enjoy not only the support but also the armed sustaining of that repression by their sponsors in the imperium, by the US, by the UK, by the NATO powers, the US in particular. But the measure of the isolation of these policies is the fact that Obama, the hypocrite, had to make a statement that the stability of the [Persian] Gulf kingdom depends on the respect for the universal human rights. That statement is being made by Obama as Physician for Human Rights are testifying before the Congress that the US arms and US support for the al-Khalifa regime are directly linked to the torture that has been inflected on its opponents to the disappearance, detention and abuse of doctors and of the mass of the population in Bahrain.
Like King Farouk, like King Faysal in Iraq, this old order is indeed doomed and US control depends on it for now, they may attempt to replace as they did with former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, with the same apparatus minus Mubarak, they may attempt to apply such formula to Bahrain but it will not succeed because the basic reality in the region at large is impoverishment of the country selling regimes that sell out the natural resources and the national sovereignty of the respective counties, the masses are on the move through the region, this cannot be contained by the verbal gestures from the US while on the ground they support the oppression and the apparatus of the corruption and betrayal of the very identity and the aspirations of the people in the region. As in Bahrain, so in the region, this revolution will continue and advance and imperialism is on the defensive at home as well as abroad.
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