(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Dozens of demonstrators have been killed since the revolution in the country began back in February.
Some of the victims have died under torture. Bahraini rights groups accuse the Al Khalifa regime of systematically torturing people who are opposed to its rule.
There is an interview with Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights in Manama, to further talk about the issue. The following is a rush transcript of the interview.
Q: The crackdown has apparently not been able to stop the protests has it?
Nabeel Rajab: Not at all. As you've probably seen last night and certainly in the area where I am tens of thousands of people have gathered. This has spread across Bahrain's villages and cities in different areas. Last night we witnessed hundreds of different protests in hundreds of places where gathered tens of thousands of people protesting.
After five or six months of the state emergency law and bloody crackdown backed by the Saudi and monarchy forces and mercenaries that were brought in from outside the country, things are back to the same day we started on fourteenth of February.
People were protesting last night since they have seen no political solution; since they have seen their government and ruling elite gone back to point number one. And I think this is going to continue in the coming days and weeks and months and it's not going to stop under people reach a political solution.
Q: Share with us what you know about the prisoner's hunger strike?
Nabeel Rajab: I think there is three different hunger strikes going on. One is by the head of the nursing society along with a leader of the teacher's society.
And then you hunger strikes by the soldiers or people working for military institutions that are from Shiite background. As you know, they have detained most of the Shiite people working in the police and military institutions for reasons that they had some messages in their telephone; or they have tweeted in a twitter account some statement criticizing the government; or put some unacceptable picture in Face Book - that has become a crime here that could put you in jail for four years.
Many of these soldiers have been sentenced for four or five or six years and they've been tortured very badly. So they are protesting by starting a hunger strike from last night.
Before yesterday we have a prisoner hunger strike because of the treatment and torture that they were receiving and complaining of. Many have been five months in detention and they don't know why they are detained; they don't have a file; they were not even taken to court; nobody knows anything about them at all. So they want to raise their issues and grievances by going on a hunger strike. We have three different hunger strikes in three different prisons at the moment.
Q: If you are aware, what are the plans for today and what do the protesters plan to do from this point on from what you're hearing?
Nabeel Rajab: I think it's going to be tough for them this time. I could see that from last night thousands of men and women and young children were in the street - And how the government reacted as violent as always. I am sure they have realized now with all these thousands of troops they brought from Pakistan, it did not work.
Today we are going to have a big protest organized that is expected to be attended by 60,000 to 70,000 people, but that is a permitted one by the government and I don't think it is going to be attacked.
But we are going to have continuous protest in each and every village until the government starts releasing all the prisoners and they should start a dialogue. We've got to maintain that our people don't turn to violence; not to be caught out in a trap of violence, which is what the government is trying to get us to do. We've got to maintain our peaceful means in protesting and continue our work and I think we are going to reach our goal through these peaceful means at the end of the day.
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Some of the victims have died under torture. Bahraini rights groups accuse the Al Khalifa regime of systematically torturing people who are opposed to its rule.
There is an interview with Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights in Manama, to further talk about the issue. The following is a rush transcript of the interview.
Q: The crackdown has apparently not been able to stop the protests has it?
Nabeel Rajab: Not at all. As you've probably seen last night and certainly in the area where I am tens of thousands of people have gathered. This has spread across Bahrain's villages and cities in different areas. Last night we witnessed hundreds of different protests in hundreds of places where gathered tens of thousands of people protesting.
After five or six months of the state emergency law and bloody crackdown backed by the Saudi and monarchy forces and mercenaries that were brought in from outside the country, things are back to the same day we started on fourteenth of February.
People were protesting last night since they have seen no political solution; since they have seen their government and ruling elite gone back to point number one. And I think this is going to continue in the coming days and weeks and months and it's not going to stop under people reach a political solution.
Q: Share with us what you know about the prisoner's hunger strike?
Nabeel Rajab: I think there is three different hunger strikes going on. One is by the head of the nursing society along with a leader of the teacher's society.
And then you hunger strikes by the soldiers or people working for military institutions that are from Shiite background. As you know, they have detained most of the Shiite people working in the police and military institutions for reasons that they had some messages in their telephone; or they have tweeted in a twitter account some statement criticizing the government; or put some unacceptable picture in Face Book - that has become a crime here that could put you in jail for four years.
Many of these soldiers have been sentenced for four or five or six years and they've been tortured very badly. So they are protesting by starting a hunger strike from last night.
Before yesterday we have a prisoner hunger strike because of the treatment and torture that they were receiving and complaining of. Many have been five months in detention and they don't know why they are detained; they don't have a file; they were not even taken to court; nobody knows anything about them at all. So they want to raise their issues and grievances by going on a hunger strike. We have three different hunger strikes in three different prisons at the moment.
Q: If you are aware, what are the plans for today and what do the protesters plan to do from this point on from what you're hearing?
Nabeel Rajab: I think it's going to be tough for them this time. I could see that from last night thousands of men and women and young children were in the street - And how the government reacted as violent as always. I am sure they have realized now with all these thousands of troops they brought from Pakistan, it did not work.
Today we are going to have a big protest organized that is expected to be attended by 60,000 to 70,000 people, but that is a permitted one by the government and I don't think it is going to be attacked.
But we are going to have continuous protest in each and every village until the government starts releasing all the prisoners and they should start a dialogue. We've got to maintain that our people don't turn to violence; not to be caught out in a trap of violence, which is what the government is trying to get us to do. We've got to maintain our peaceful means in protesting and continue our work and I think we are going to reach our goal through these peaceful means at the end of the day.
/129