Senior Shia Cleric: Bahrain crackdown is bound to fail

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Immediately after the huge waves of public demonstrations started in Bahrain in February 2011, the government resorted to violence to stop the unrest. However, the protests continued to spread and people never hesitated to express their legitimate demands openly.After nearly one year since the beginning of the protests, the Bahraini government, backed by Saudi Arabia, is still continuing its harsh crackdown on peaceful protesters. The recent killings of innocent protesters in the tiny Persian Gulf island clearly indicate that the Al-Khalife rulers are not interested in any democratic solution to the crisis. Despite a violent crackdown the regime has failed to break the will of people to seek their legitimate demands for democracy and justice.The repression is getting harsher. However, the international community, especially the United Nations, has turned a blind eye on this cruelty by Bahrain which is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. The government’s initiative to establish a fact-finding committee to launch investigations into crackdown on pro-democracy protestors is regarded by many analysts as a Western-Saudi ploy to undermine the uprising. The committee did in fact nothing in favor of the opposition groups and the people, and surprisingly it exonerated the government from all the crimes it has committed over the past months.Based on the artificial facts produced by the committee, the responsibility of the crimes committed against the innocent protesters falls on the lower-ranking officials and not the members of the ruling family. This is really disgraceful as the lethal crackdowns were done under the direct order of the high-ranking officials, especially Prime Minister Khalifah ibn Sulman al-Khalifah.The committee’s false verdict on developments in Bahrain has faced no condemnation by the international community. This proves the hypocritical approach of the international organizations which claim to be the advocates of human rights and democracy. However, the popular resistance in Bahrain is not going to die out so soon and the brutal crackdown is bound to fail. The Bahraini regime’s violent repression will make the people more courageous in their struggle against tyranny and demand for justice and democracy.Hojatolislam Akhtari is the secretary general of Ahlul-Bait World Assembly who formerly served as Iran’s Ambassador to Syria./129