DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A decade after protesters flocked to Bahrain’s capital to call for the fall of his government in 2011, authorities continue to suppress all signs of dissent. Activists behind those turbulent days say that the memory of the protests that threatened the Sunni monarchy’s control over power is almost extinct.
But many live with the consequences.
“This was the beginning of the black era,” said Jawad Fairooz, a former exile leader from the now outlawed Shiite political party Al-Wefaq, who lost his nationality for his political work in 2012.
Although many activists and protesters have escaped into exile or have been arrested, the threat of dissent persists in this small kingdom with a majority Shi’ite population on the east coast of Saudi Arabia.
In contrast to neighboring Arab Gulf monarchies, low-level unrest has plagued Bahrain in recent years. The police took action on the streets of the city last week, residents say, taking no chances in further demonstrations.
A website by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, commissioned by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, which hosted an independent report on the 2011 protests and the government crackdown that ended them, was mysteriously offline before it was restored on Thursday. The government described this as a “technical failure”, without giving details.
For weeks from February 14, 2011, thousands of people crowded the streets of Bahrain, encouraged and energized by pro-democracy protests that rocked Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. Bahrain’s protests were organized mainly by the country’s Shiites in search of greater political rights in the state of the Persian Gulf, which is an important western ally and home to the 5th US Navy Fleet.
“It was overwhelming,” recalled Nazeeha Saeed, a reporter at the time of a French TV news channel, describing the intoxicating days at the Pearl Rotunda, the symbolic center of the capital Manama, later destroyed by the authorities. “I have never seen anything like this. People forgot that we were a Persian Gulf kingdom supported by powerful monarchies. “
Soon, Saeed said, everything went terribly wrong. Security forces tried to disperse the protest, responding to the protests with torrents of tear gas, rubber bullets and, in some cases, real fire. Police shot a demonstrator in the head just 20 meters in front of him. She said she was arrested and beaten for telling foreign journalists what she saw.
Now in exile in Berlin, Saeed said he cannot go home. Bahrain in 2017 fined her $ 2,650 for working with a government-issued press card. The government at the same time refused to accredit two Associated Press journalists and since then he has seen strictly controlled reporting on the island.
With the escalation of violence in the weeks of February 2011, the demonstrations became a popular movement that crossed sectarian divisions. Calls for constitutional reform have turned into demands to dismantle the country’s political structure. The monarchy asked for help from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, inviting foreign troops to crush the protests.
Following the crackdown, King Hamad ordered an internationally recognized commission of lawyers and academics from the late law professor Cherif Bassiouni to investigate. The resulting 500-page report, based on more than 5,100 interviews with protesters and residents, describes prisons filled with torture, dozens of arbitrary arrests and the extraction of forced confessions against those caught on the net. The detainees, he said, were beaten and forced to kiss pictures of the king and the prime minister.
A decade later, activists inside Bahrain and in exile say their country is far less free than it was in 2011. Portraying criticism of its government as an Iranian conspiracy to undermine the country, the government has stepped up its repression. Bahrain also blamed Iran for inciting the 2011 protests, although the report by Bassiouni and other experts found no evidence of this.
Tehran denies interfering in Bahrain, although the weapons seized on the island were related to Iran. Even Iran, under the former shah, tried to claim Bahrain as part of its territory.
Before the anniversary of the 2011 events, Bahrain authorities did not respond to repeated requests from The Associated Press for comment.
Since 2011, authorities have targeted not only Shiite political groups and religious leaders, but also human rights activists, journalists and online opponents. Mass trials have become commonplace. Political parties were dismantled. The independent collection of news on the island has become almost impossible. Meanwhile, sporadic and low-level attacks against the police and other targets by Shiite militant groups have occurred.
Even a tweet can lead someone to prison, despite Bahrain’s constitution guaranteeing the freedom of expression of its citizens. Nabeel Rajab, one of the most prominent leaders of the 2011 protests, was only released last year from house arrest due to the coronavirus pandemic after serving years of an internationally criticized prison sentence..
As the coronavirus pandemic hit the country last March, the government announced that it had arrested more than 40 people for spreading rumors about the virus and “disrupting public security”. And last fall, activists say, authorities searched the internet for dissent after the death of former prime minister, Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. One of the main demands of protesters in 2011 was for Prince Khalifa to resign and stand trial for corruption and human rights violations.
A Bahraini man, a former journalist who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals, said he was thrown into prison for two weeks after posting a verse from the Quran on social media that security forces said suggested he was rejoicing over the death of the prime minister. One detainee in the same cell posted some politically charged poetry, while another simply tweeted the words “good morning,” he said.
“Since 2011, we have only retreated,” said the 47-year-old. “Now, the only meaning of ‘opposition’ in Bahrain is to try to document your friends’ arrests.”
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Follow Isabel DeBre on Twitter at www.twitter.com/isabeldebre.