AhlulBayt News Agency

source : IRNA
Thursday

16 June 2011

7:30:00 PM
247742

Activist slams UN role in arrest of Bahraini protesters

A prominent Bahraini human rights activist here Thursday lambasted the UN for handing over three female Bahraini protesters who staged a sit-in at the UNDP office in Manama, to police

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Speaking at Berlin's Free University (Freie Universitaet), Maryam al-Khawaja of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights stressed it was 'problematic' for the UN 'to call police in a country where people are tortured and sometimes even disappear.'

The three protesters, among them Maryam's sister Zeynab, were forcibly removed from the UN office and then transferred to a police station and later on interrogated by
a public prosecutor.

The group was released around midnight after a three to four hours of detention on Wednesday, according to al-Khawaja.

The protesters had refused to leave the UN compound unless UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would respond to their letter.

They also called for greater UN pressure on the Bahraini regime.

Al-Khawaja stressed the incident showed 'how dire' the situation in her country was that even a UN building was 'not safe anymore.'

The pro-freedom activist lashed out at the UN Human Rights Council for dealing selectively with the Arab revolutions.

'The UN Human Rights Council has been treating the situation very differently. It's one thing if you completely ignore a country because you have interests in it. This is what happened in Bahrain.'

Human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized especially western countries for being silent amid reports that Bahrain's Sunni-led government is waging a violent and bloody crackdown -- destroying Shiite mosques, illegally detaining and torturing dissidents, attacking medical personnel to prevent them from treating wounded protesters, abusing women and girls, and expelling journalists from the tiny island kingdom.

/106