(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Several protesters have been seriously wounded and are in critical condition. Activists say the situation is tense in the city of Qatif and the nearby villages. They say military vehicles have surrounded the city. The protesters in the region have been taking to the streets since last year calling for more freedom and financial security. Saudi forces have killed six protesters since November. Rights groups have slammed Riyadh for its persecution of protesters and called for an investigation into the killings. We have conducted an interview with Mahan Abedin, director of Research Center for the Study of Terrorism in London, to further discuss the issue. Below is the transcription of the interview: Q: One killed, at least 14 others injured in the latest protests in the oil-rich region of Qatif. Please break it down for our viewers what is the root cause of the protests in Saudi Arabia, which is a very wealthy country? Why are the people out on the streets despite the harsh crackdown? Abedin: Thanks for having me on your program. The answer to your question regarding the root cause is of course the Shia disempowerment and historic and widespread discrimination against the Shia community in Saudi Arabia and this is nothing new. There have been periodic protests going back decades. In fact, we have got very bloody and in some point in early 1980s when dozens were being killed. Now the latest spark with this violence, of course violence on the part of the authorities and demonstrations on the part of the aggrieved Shia community has been the Arab Spring or the Islamic Awakening that has taken place in the region. Demonstrators in Qatif were inspired by what occurred in Egypt and of course what occurred in Bahrain, even though Bahrain’s revolution has been stifled for now and they are coming out more and more into the open to protest against the authorities and to demand their intrinsic rights. And the rights which they are demanding are not particularly dramatic or controversial, just basic human rights; like recognition for their faith, the ability to practice their faith without obstruction and of course proper political representations and all the rights that ensue from that. Q: Saudi Arabia has been blamed for a counterrevolution but at the same time, when we look at the recent reports for example saying that Saudi Arabia perhaps is going through the slow motion of a revolution within itself and uprising within the kingdom. So in that respect, how do you see the protest movement which is happening in the oil-rich Eastern Province spreading and of course what is going to come of it? Abedin: There is a potential for it to spread but there is a strong sectarian divide in Saudi Arabia and one of the ploys that the regime uses is that it uses the fear of Shia empowerment to stifle dissent in the Sunni majority areas. That said, at the same time there is a growing discourse of supra-sectarian solidarity of the Saudis or whatever religious background coming together to demand their rights because, as your viewers would very well know, Saudi Arabia is one of the most, if not the most, politically backward country in the world. It offers hardly any representations and in any case, direct representations to its people and it has gained notorious throughout the world for suppressing basic cultural rights. For instance, women do not even have the right to drive in that country. So in answer to your question, there is the potential for the demonstrations to spread but it will require time and it also depends on to what extent the elites of the Shia community in Qatif are able to establish good links with the dissidents in other parts of Saudi Arabia. Q: Of course you touched on Bahrain. Tell us more, if you can, and elaborate on how the protests there can have an effect on the protests that are happening in Saudi Arabia. Abedin: There are two communities that are close in the majority Shia population of Bahrain has historically had close ties to the embattled Shia communities in Qatif and the authorities in these two countries have done their best to try to limits these ties with very limited success and even though Saudi Arabia led the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council in basically using military means to suppress the revolution in Bahrain in march 2011, there are growing signs that the revolution in Bahrain is being revived in the face of hypocrisy by the international community. The international community or the Western powers, to be specific, they take it upon themselves to denounce Syria for alleged human rights violations, yet they say very little about Bahrain. In fact, there is some evidence that some Western countries have been complicit in the security service abuses in Bahrain. Q: Since you talked about the international community, we know that David Cameron made his first visit as Prime Minister to Saudi Arabia. Isn’t he afraid that that is going to reflect badly on the image that London is going to play or the UK is going to play when it comes to what is happening in Saudi Arabia, as opposed to as you mentioned for example Syria? Abedin: Of course, it does play badly even amongst the British public because nobody has any illusions about the nature of the Saudi regime. It is well known that it is highly repressive; it is not representational and it engages in the most outrageous cultural forms of suppression, for instance, not allowing women to drive. This does not go down well with the Western public as a whole. But I think Western governments, in particular the British government, have learned over the decades to manage public opinion and of course one issue here is the question of arms sales. Both the UK and the US has huge arms sales with Saudi Arabia and this plays well with the Western public and particularly the constituency which benefits from the arms sales, i.e. the local communities that work for the arms manufacturers. So being able to supply Saudi Arabia with arms and of course benefiting from that financially and commercially and in a larger sense, economically in terms of jobs, it is an important plank of British foreign policy. So in direct reply to your question, no matter how badly that plays in certain sections of public opinions, that is not going to change their policy.
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