“The violations would include, not limited to, the use of unnecessary force against unarmed protesters, the extra-judicial killings of a number of people, systematic torture — a policy of systematic torture. I’ve personally met with people from the Department of Defense, I’ve met with people from the State Department, from Congress and so on, and I have been told over and over again that moving the Fifth Fleet is just not on the table. So, it is not something that we are necessarily demanding at the moment, but I think what is really frustrating and what is very shameful, to put it that way, is the fact that not only are they not thinking about moving the Fifth Fleet — just a few months ago, the head of the Navy came out in a public statement and said they are expanding the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. Everyone saw this as being an appeasement to Saudi after the Iran deal, but why is it that the Bahraini population is being thrown under the bus because they wanted to appease the Saudis. I think especially at a time when the Bahraini government has offered absolutely no reforms, have offered absolutely no stopping of the human rights violations that are ongoing right now, it really is sending the wrong message when they tell the Bahraini government, well, we’re going to expand our Fifth Fleet operations in the country.”
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 06:45:32 +0000
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