Bahrain: Dangerous Statistics and Facts about the National Security Apparatus

Bahrain: Dangerous Statistics and Facts about the National Security Apparatus: Its role in the escalation of violence 5th March 2009 The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) expresses again its deep concern regarding the mounting dangerous role of the National Security Apparatus (NSA) at the expense of liberties and human rights in Bahrain. A list which the BCHR has obtained reveals that amongst the more than 1000 employees working for the NSA, 64% of them are non-citizens, mostly of Asian nationalities. The king’s relatives occupy the highest posts in the NSA; Sheikh Khalifa bin Abdulla Al-Khalifa heads it, in addition to three others from the King’s family. The aforementioned list also reveals that the NSA is formed on sectarian basis. The percentage of Shiite citizens employed at the NSA does not exceed 4%, and they work as informants and in the low level jobs. While the Shiites, who form two thirds of the Bahraini citizens, are the main target for the NSA. This appears when verifying the sectarian identity of the villages and areas that the Security Special Forces are besieging on an almost daily basis, the organizations that are being targeted, the protest events that are being suppressed, the hundreds of people being arrested and trialed on security charges, and the activists targeted with smearing media campaigns. The general budget, which the government presented for the years 2009/2010 for the National Assembly, revealed an increase of 34% in NSA budget compared with the previous one. This is the largest increase in any of the governmental institutions in recent years. On the other hand, the BCHR issued a statement last month expressing its worry about the issuance of a Royal Decree amending some of the provisions of Decree (14) for the year 2002 which provides for granting the members of the National Security Apparatus: law enforcement authority; judicial power to arrest and interrogate suspects, and immunity from prosecution in regular courts, bearing in mind that the NSA is not accountable before the Council of Representatives or any other monitoring body. The NSA first appeared in May 2002 as an alternative for the “General Directorate for State Security Investigations” which was part of the Ministry of Interior. Thus, the NSA became a parallel directorate to other government bodies, instead of being part of them. Its authorities overlap the Ministry of Interior and the judiciary system, while it extends its influence to the Central Informatics Organisation, the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Social Development. The NSA derives its managerial influence from its connection to, and its role as an executive arm of, the Supreme Defense Council which is considered the highest authority in the country, as it consists of the King, the Crown Prince, the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Royal Court and ten others from the King’s family who occupy leading political and security posts in the country. The Royal Decree for the establishment of the NSA stated that “the NSA is a subordinate of the President of the Council of Ministries (the Prime Minister), and its president is appointed by a Royal Decree with a rank of a minister”. In the year 2004, the Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, issued an order regarding the organizational structure of the NSA, where it consists of a number of units and departments, amongst them: special operations department, international affairs department, political security department, counter-terrorism department, central department for information and documentation, department of information technology, department of association and coordination and department of legal affairs. The first president for the NSA was Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Atiyat-Allah Al-Khalifa, who was appointed in May 2002, then the NSA was headed by Sheikh Khalifa bin Ali bin Rashid Al-Khalifa since 26 September 2005. The current president is Sheikh Khalifa bin Abdulla Al-Khalifa. Both previous and current presidents occupied the post of an ambassador for Bahrain in the United Kingdom before heading the NSA. The NSA, according to the decree it was established by, specializes in “preserving national security” and in order to do so, “it monitors and detects all activities that harm the national security of the Kingdom or its institutions and systems, or anything that threatens the security and the safety of the country” and also “develops necessary security plans to face all normal and exceptional circumstances in cooperation with the specialized government bodies”. Since its establishment in 2002, the NSA, has been playing an escalating role in penetrating civil society institutions and monitoring and pursuing political opponents and human rights defenders, at home and abroad. The NSA is directly responsible for the death of the activist Ali Jassim Mohammed in December 2007, subjecting tens of citizens to wounds and suffocation due to the use of excessive force and suppressing seminars, demonstrations and other protest activities. Furthermore, it is also responsible for arresting hundreds of human rights defenders and activists, systematic torture which returned to Bahrain again since December 2007, fabricating or exaggerating terror events or plans to justify intensive security measures, running media campaigns in the inside and outside to smear the reputation of activists and to justify arrests, and unfair trials and extreme sentences against activists considered dissidents of the political regime. The NSA supervises the field work of the Special Security Forces (SSF). The SSF is a paramilitary force which adds up to more than 20 thousand, 90% of who are non-Bahrainis, headed by high ranking officers from the King’s family or other Bedouin tribes that are in political alliance with them. There isn’t a single Shiite citizen among these forces. The SSF have been used effectively in the surroundings of the villages or areas where the majority of residents are Shiite. They penetrate these areas with tear gas and rubber bullets, which cause injuries and suffocation of hundreds of people, amongst them women, children, and elderly citizens. Properties, houses and mosques were damaged. The SSF also use armed militias, who sometimes wear civil clothes and black masks. They attack villages and chase the demonstrators and abuse them. According to the international standards, the composition and role of the SSF falls in the prohibition of the use of mercenaries, the non-Bahrainis recruited to the SSF can be categorized as mercenaries as they were brought selectively from outside the country, they are used for security or military purposes outside the regular security and military bodies, they are trained and prepared in a special manner, and they are provided with careers and advantages not provided to other foreign or Bahraini employees, such as housing, travel expenses and family reunifications. Most of them live with their families in “Safra”, an isolated area which lies south of Riffa city where most relatives of the king reside. The majority of these recruits were granted the Bahraini citizenship in order to nationalize them within the hidden ongoing project of demographic sectarian change to marginalize the Shiite citizens in Bahrain. The votes of those mercenaries were used effectively to marginalize the opposition and the Shiite majority in the elections of the council of representatives in 2006. In his comment, Nabeel Rajab – president of the BCHR said, “What increases the danger of supporting the role, powers, influence, and budget of the National Security Apparatus is its full dependence on mercenary men who do not have any relation with Bahrain. This also reveals the policy of the regime to use an external force to face the citizens, which shows its loss of confidence in the country’s native residents, Sunnis and Shiite. Thus, the authority is creating a new suppressive reality, more organized and dangerous than the measures taken in the previous State Security era. Hence, the National Security Apparatus is treading in the same footsteps as the Iranian “SAVAK” Service, which caused wide violations to human rights in Iran during the era of the Shah, and was a main reason for both the wide international criticism, and for the people’s revolution which ended the Shah’s reign in 1979”. Based on the above, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights renews it demand for the following: 1. To end the policy of bringing non-Bahraini mercenaries to work for the National Security Apparatus and the Special Security Forces in order to suppress citizens who practice basic rights and freedoms. 2. To dissolve the National Security Apparatus and the Special Security Forces and to give their powers back to the regular security bodies. 3. To stop the current methodology of using laws, institutions and practices that restrict and suppress public liberties, and instead guarantee and maintain civil and political rights, and the rights related to freedom of expression, assembly and association. 4. To end the continuous targeting of human rights defenders and political opponents, and to guarantee an appropriate and healthy environment for the work of human rights organizations and civil society institutions away from restrictive laws, interference, and threats of security apparatuses and forces. 5. To guarantee the independence of the judiciary system, to ensure the right of citizens in prosecuting public officials in all functions and levels, and to end any form of immunity and impunity, especially in relation to arbitrary arrest, torture, and unjust trials, and targeting human rights defenders

Bahrain: 21 Rights activists and political opposition leaders jailed, some for life

Written by Stephen Lendman

Date: June 23, 2011

Bahrain Sues to Suppress Police State Terror Truths - by Stephen Lendman

On June 14, London Independent writer Robert Fisk headlined, “I saw these brave doctors trying to save lives - these charges are a pack of lies,” saying:

The Khalifa monarchy “started an utterly fraudulent trial of 48 surgeons, doctors, paramedics and nurses, accusing them of trying to topple the tin-pot monarchy of this Sunni minority emirate.”

One of many Bahrain articles addressed this topic, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/06/torturing-bahraini-doctors.html

Fisk said he witnessed medical heroism firsthand, “drenched in their patients’ blood, desperately trying to staunch the bullet wounds of pro-democracy demonstrators, shot in cold blood” by state security force thugs, a Khalifa monarchy specialty.

“The idea that (these doctors) are guilty of (state crimes) is not just preposterous. It is insane, a total perversion, (the) total opposite (of) truth….(Bahrain is) a Saudi palatinate, a confederated province of Saudi Arabia, a pocket-sized weasel state from which all journalists should in future use the dateline: Manama, Occupied Bahrain.”

On June 15, Independent writer Richard Hall headlined, “Bahrain ‘to sue over Independent reporting,’ ” saying:

The Khalifa monarchy “commissioned a UK-based law firm to file a case against The Independent for its reporting on the crackdowns on (internal) protests….”

Mainly directed against Fisk’s article, it also claims that:

“using columns, features and news to publish misinformation in repeated attacks on our people and rulers amounts to libel and will be treated as such in accordance with the law.”

The monarchy, of course, spurns international law and its own constitution, reigning daily terror since mid-February on pro-democracy supporters. In fact, every imaginable barbarity is being inflicted, including Obama administration supported cold-blooded murder, mass arrests, detentions, torture, and bogusly charging medical providers helping victims with baseless crimes.

Lawyers for London contributor David Banks asked, “Can Bahrain’s government sue the Independent for libel?” saying:

If it succeeds, it will defy “the well-established principle that governments cannot sue for libel,” instituted in 1993 by the House of Lords in the Derbyshire County Council v. Times newspapers case.

Two Times articles “questioned the propriety of investments for the Council’s superannuation fund. The authority sued for libel for the damage done to its reputation.” The lower court denied it. The Council appealed. Dismissing it, the House of Lords said:

“It was of the highest importance that a democratically elected governmental body should be open to uninhibited public criticism, and since the threat of civil actions for defamation would place an undesirable fetter on the freedom to express such criticism, it would be contrary to the public interest for institutions of central or local government to have any right at common law to maintain an action for damages for defamation.”

Since then, central and local governments weren’t able to sue for libel, knowing they’d be denied. However, Banks cautioned that Britain’s libel principle applies to UK “democratic governments,” not police state monarchies like Bahrain, dismissing legal standards to further their own lawlessness with impunity.

Nonetheless, it would “set a curious precedent” if British courts let UK libel laws protect unelected despots, but not their own governmental bodies.

However, while authorities themselves can’t sue, individuals may do so even if governments fund them. As a result, a Bahraini minister, perhaps one or more royal family members, or King Hamad, could file libel charges on their own, whether or not it could work. Facing incontrovertible evidence, that very much is in doubt.

Moreover, the “Reynolds defence” would apply - namely, that “The Independent was responsibly and fairly reporting matters of the highest public interest.”

Perhaps Bahrain aims more to intimidate than prevail by pursuing expensive proceedings it can afford better than publications, giving others pause on what they say.

Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) on Bahrain

On June 15, an IHRC action alert headlined, “Bahrain to Chair UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee whilst destroying its own heritage,” saying:

On June 19, Bahrain began chairing the 35th Session of The World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Paris. At the same time, it’s been demolishing mosques, as well as ravaging its Shia majority with impunity.

Moreover, the Khalifa monarchy has systematically destroyed Bahrain’s culture for decades, including old buildings, palm tree huts, other traditions, and 21 ancient licensed mosques, including one over 640 years old.

Its membership on the World Heritage Committee is outrageous. Chairing it is intolerable. Write to Irina Bokova, UNESCO’s Director-General demanding its removal, expulsion, and censure for its actions.

Bahrain Expels Independent Journalist

On June 18, Finian Cunningham was deported for reporting critically on Bahraini abuses, despite living there for three years and covering the uprising from its mid-February inception.

In a June 12 interview, he said the monarchy’s call for “national dialogue” was hollow, cynical public relations, while reigning terror on its citizens. He also criticized Washington and Britain for turning a blind eye to its brazen abuses, including cold-blooded murder, torture, lawless arrests, and sham trials against innocent defendants.

Now in Belfast, he said:

“My lasting impression of Bahrain is not the brutish nation of its illegitimate rulers, but the bravery and decency of its ordinary men, women, and youths in their noble struggle for freedom.”

The night he left, he witnessed 150,000 in Sitra demanding legitimate freedoms. Despite months of police state terror, “(t)he people are stronger than ever and are more determined than ever to bring democracy and freedom to Bahrain.”

Western media and governments barely notice or care, supporting ruthless terror states like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and many others, instead of condemning, isolating, sanctioning, and ending diplomatic and economic relations.

Bahrain also threatens arrests and prosecutions for anyone speaking freely with media sources regarding human rights abuses and denial of democratic freedoms. As a result, persons appearing on camera or known to speak openly face severe recriminations.

In fact, CNN reporter Amber Lyon said sources who spoke to her later disappeared, their family members explaining they’d been arrested or forced into hiding after security forces raided their homes and threatened them. Yet Article 10 of Bahrain’s Human Rights Act says:

“(E)veryone has the right of freedom expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”

The Khalifa monarchy, in fact, spurns fundamental human rights, governing despotically, targeting anyone challenging its authority ruthlessly.

On June 20, Independent writer Alistair Dawber headlined, “Bahraini leadership faces new claims that torture took place in hospital,” saying:

Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontieres - MSF) “alleges that (state) security forces…. regularly beat hospital patients who had injuries….sustained during the rallies that started in February.”

MSF, in fact, confirmed the existence of “a torture chamber maintained by Bahraini forces within the hospital. And it provide(d) fresh evidence that retribution was not limited to the alleged ringleaders of the protests.”

A Bahraini surgeon’s March 15 email to the British professor who trained him said:

“I am in the hospital exhausted and overwhelmed by the number of young lethally injured casualties. It’s genocide to our people and our hospital doctors and nurses are targeted for helping patients by pro-government militia.”

Two days later, Bahraini security force thugs stormed the hospital, reigning terror on pro-democracy patients and medical providers helping them.

On June 20, Bahrain 14Feb. Revolution said mentally disabled Hassan Nooh was maliciously held incommunicado for over two years.

On March 28, security forces stormed Nooh Yahya Abdalqahir’s home. He was out, and Hassan there at the time was seized to force his surrender. On March 29, Abdalqahir submitted to arrest. Hassan remains in custody. Family members know nothing, expressing concern because he can’t care for himself.

On June 19, Bahrain 14Feb. Revolution also said 70-year old Hasan Al-Sitri was murdered while walking in the Nuwaidrat area. Evidence showed his neck broken and a large wound on his back.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry issued conflicting reports. One said he died naturally, another that he was struck with a heavy object, and a third that he fell during a confrontation with three men, hitting his head on rocks.

The Ministry also demanded family members sign a death certificate, claiming his death was “normal.” They refused, wanting an autopsy. It confirmed death from two blows with heavy objects, causing severe neck fractures.

A Final Comment

Bahrain is a lawless terror state. Its people wanting to live free are brutalized. Western media hardly notice. Washington offers wholehearted support. In early June, Obama met with crown prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa at the White House, the equivalent of welcoming a serial killer.

Afterwards he met with Hillary Clinton. She called Bahrain “a partner, and a very important one….and we are supportive of a national dialogue and the kinds of important work that the Crown Prince has been doing in his nation, and we look forward to it continuing.”

Unexplained was her support for preventing Bahraini democracy, no matter the body count to achieve it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

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Bahrain has sentenced eight prominent activists to life in prison on charges of plotting a coup in the country during protests earlier this year.

The Bahrain News Agency said the sentences were issued against a prominent Shia political leader, Hassan Mushaima; activists Abdulhady al-Khawaja, Abduljalil al-Singace and five other people.

The court also sentenced several other defendants to between two and 15 years in jail.

The state news agency reports: 

The Military Prosecutor of the National Safety Court issued the Court’s verdicts in its trial today against those charged of plotting to topple the leadership of the Kingdom of Bahrain. 

Al Jazeera English spoke to Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, who said many people are unhappy about the sentences. 

AJE reports: 

“Abdulhady al-Khawaja is one of the most respected human rights activist in the whole Arab region, so people are very angry,” Rajab said.

“Hundreds of people have been brought up for charges in the past few days, and hundreds more are waiting to be tried.”

Read the rest of the AJE article here.

Bahrain: 21 Rights activists and political opposition leaders jailed, some for life:

Eight Bahraini rights activists have been given life sentences by a military court, which found them guilty of plotting a coup against the government during two months of unrest that rattled the country earlier this year.

Another 13 [political and rights activists] were given sentences of between two to 15 years, as the government attempts to crush dissent that has erupted in the tiny kingdom in February following popular uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.

The verdicts were immediately condemned by rights groups who said all those found guilty had been campaigning to end discrimination at the hands of the Sunni dynasty. Almost all activists who took to the streets of Manama in February and March were Shia Muslims, who make up 70% of Bahrain’s population, but feel largely disenfranchised.

Rights groups have urged Bahrain to halt the special military court proceedings, with Human Rights Watch deeming them a violation of international law.