Astute readers need not to look too far to find the ‘democracy’ Bahrain current protestors want to create. In 1979, a popular uprising in Iran removed the American-installed despot, Shah of Iran, promising a ‘representative government’. In less than a year, the ‘rule of the jurist’, read Khomeini, republic was created.

When the leader of the ‘Alliance for a Republic in Bahrain’, Hassan Mshaimaa returned to Bahrain from London, he chose Beirut, of all places to make his stopover. Now that Lebanon is under the de facto preeminence of Hizbullah, Mr. Mshaimaa, made the stop to consult with Hassan Nasrullah the head of Hizbullah on the protests next moves. It is a well-known fact that Beirut airport has been for years under the watch of Hizbullah. In the midst of the current crisis, Ali Salman, the head of the, all-Shiite, Wefaq Party threatened to demand Iranian ’protection’.

Unlike some activist commentators who lived in Bahrain for a year or two, Bahrainis have experienced first-hand how Isa Qasem, the local representative of the current jurist (Ali Khamenai, the current ruler of Iran) hijacked the votes of the people by issuing a fatwa rejecting the codification of the civil ‘family law’ because it undermines the power exercised by the jurists on their people.

Claiming that the most powerful President in the world is ‘harassed’ by a few articles in a local newspaper is such feeble characterization that is laughable. Using Bahrain as a bargaining chip to protect US troops in Iraq from Iranian-backed forces is what patriotic Bahrainis vehemently reject.
Bahrainis want a real democracy that cannot be hijacked by the ‘jurist’ who Ali Salman (the leader of the largest organized protesting party) declares “I am a servant, a sword and soldier in the hands of Ayatullah Isa Qasem’.

Al-Mahmood whom the writer refers to as a ‘rising’ political figure was the first signatory on the 1994 petition to the ruler of Bahrain to restore the parliament. The petition was the first cross-sectarian demand for restoration of democratic rule in the country following two decades of political stagnation.

It is not democracy that Bahrainis fear. It is Iranian-style theocracy they detest and will resist.

Almahmud is not a fanatic jihadist but rather a government puppet. This is a very important distinction. He's not the kind of clerks that would carry arms to fight the US.

Some background....

Almahmud retired from his position as a university lecturer at the faculty of Islamic studies - University of Bahrain. Ironically, he was fired in the nighties after he signed a petition with the Shiite opposition calling for a Parliament and an end to emergency laws. He was reinstated after he apologized for his "crime".

Anyway, this clerk after retirement from his position at the University of Bahrain, served as an adviser to boards of directors at some Islamic banks. So one needs to figure out how much he got from that kind of job, and more importantly how he managed to reach that position!

Last month there was some discontent among his religious followers, when he was photographed in the newspaper honoring university students at a ceremony, he was shown shaking hands with female students - a very unorthodox act by Islamic standards (the majority of Islamic scholars would declare it as a sin for a man to shake hands with an unrelated woman let alone a religious clerk doing that) - many of the female students didn't even wear hijab, this is not the kind of clerks that would lead Al-qaeda jihadists!

He's too liberal to be the Bahraini Bin Ladin or Zarqawi, he's only doing the dirty work of the ruling family. That's, he's the leader of the counter-revolution!

I gave this somehow long background to show you guys, that the ruling family is trying to play this awkward and clumsy game, i.e. convincing the rest of the world that after they are gone, Sunnis would wake up the next day to fight Americans and Shiite The Alqaeda style!. That does not work any more, and no one would believe that.

In times of tyranny an injustice when law oppresses the people, the outlaw takes this place in history. Unfortunately, for me as a citizen, my beloved country Bahrain at the turn of the 21 century was such a time.

Although King Hamad Al Khalifa agreed to FORM an INDEPENDENT COMMITTEE to reinstate all the sacked employees of both the private and the public sector before the advent of the Holy Month of Ramadan, some weird people resist this initiative by forming committees comprising of mainly hardliners and anti-reform thugs in order to probe claims of illegal sackings! It is sarcastically ironic simply because all dismissals have been unjust and illegal and targeted against a group of people of Bahrain regardless of names or ranks. In addition, those so-called disciplinary committees have been notorious for leading unfair police-like tribunals of hundreds of innocent people of a specific sect in the state departments, the government’s partially-owned companies and other companies. The formation of such committees was just window dressing – the fact is that such committees were formed and assigned with the task of legalizing previous decisions of unfair dismissals of staff prior to any actual investigation. This did not allow sacked people the opportunity to defend themselves (many cases were referred to police for further investigation).

On the other hand, at police checkpoints, people were interrogated about their whereabouts, religion, sect, political views etc, and were accordingly subject to brutal physical beating, torture, arrest or abduction, e.g. Abdulrasoon Al Hujairi who was abducted at a checkpoint and his corpse was found in the outskirt of Sakhir few days later and Sayed Hameed, a well off businessman from Saar – he was photocopying some documents at a stationary, he disappeared and found dead near Maqaba. Moreover, the inhumane treatment of prisoners in jail has forced many of them to plead themselves guilty in front of the state-run TV station (convicted of inciting hatred and sectarian tension) or resulted in killing more innocent people like Abdulkarim Fakhrawi, a well known businessman, he was complaining about attacking his compound and stealing his money and valuables at the police station, they arrested, tortured and murdered him. Ali Isa Saqir, a famous blogger, he was arrested and tortured to death. This aggressive crackdown also resulted in punishing journalists. An example is Journalist Nazeha Saeed, France 24 Reporter, who was interrogated by police and beaten until she lost consciousness, subsequently was taken to France for treatment at the French Embassy’s expense or at work like Aziz Ayad – a solider working for Bahrain Defense Force, Catering Unit – he is arrested among other Shiite soldiers at the time of “cleansing” the Pearl Roundabout without any cause and inhumanely tortured him to death; Jawad Mohamed Ali Al Shamlan - he was assuming the night shift and on his way to Khamis Police station, he was stabbed and shot dead by unknown criminals.

I hope an international independent committee is formed immediately to look into violations of human rights and pay site visits to villages and meet with prisoners and victims of conscience and their families to double check on these charges. Our noble innocent prisoners whom the pro government mercenary thugs call “traitors”!?

On dismissals of more than 2000 employees, Article 113 of the Bahraini Labour Law (and this might apply to the Civil Servants Legislation) provides for: “An employer shall not dismiss a worker without payment of indemnity allowance, notice or compensation except in the following instances: ….. (4) If the worker absents himself without reasonable cause for more than twenty days in one year or for more than ten consecutive days, provided that such dismissal shall be preceded by warning in writing by the employer to the worker after an absence of ten days in the former instance and an absence of five days in the latter instance”. It is law! Many people were not absent for more than 10 consecutive days and they were not given any kind of warning whether verbal or in writing. However, if some staff absent themselves from work for more than ten consecutive days, the question should be raised towards finding out the reasons behind that. How was the situation in Bahrain? Were the streets safe? Dare anyone travel from home to work then? Did the Government itself guarantee the safe arrival and departure of thousand citizens to and fro? The Kingdom following a Royal Decree was under a State of National Safety and was placed under a night-and-day time curfew throughout the country and particularly in areas of peaceful demonstrations and hence, the majority of people in villages were terribly so intimidated and frightened that they could not do the shopping for very essentials such as water, while it was not the case in other areas like Riffa, Muharraq etc. During the political impasse and the ferocious military crackdown of marshal law, it was really extremely dangerous and peoples’ lives were at immense risk as there were masked or unmasked squads and gangs of armed pro-government thugs and mercenaries (armed with clubs, axes, hatchets, swords, knives, steel bars and other sharp weapons video clips and photo shots are self explanatory) under the protection of riot policemen, BDF soldiers and GCC Peninsula Shield Troops at many checkpoints, preventing many people from going to work by examining their identities and assaulting them accordingly. This is not to mention subversion and acts of sabotage of people’s property.

On the other hand, it is good for the US troops to withdraw from Afganistan and Iraq gradually; it is good to intervene in Libya to save the lives of Libyans; it is good and legitiamate to intervene in Syria’s affairs, but by the same token, it is good to send a sternly worded warning letter to the regime in Bahrain to end violations of human rights while the so-called National Dialogue going on. The government should not be scolded, it must be instead warned explicitly to make serious manly courageous decisions aimed at stopping arbitrary arrests and dismissal of workers, releasing oppositions leaders and all prisoners, withdrawing mercenary police and GCC Peninsula Shield Troops from the streets of shi'ite community and villages in Bahrain, reinstating hundred Shiites to their jobs in both the sectors.

Finally, I find it difficult to accept a call for a national dialogue in the presence of many factions and puppets that have nothing to do with the freedom movement and who are part of the problem. Main opposition leaders and figures are still in jail! The catastrophe in Bahrain is political related to all Bahraini people’s rights and pro democracy supporters have taken to the streets and demonstrated peacefully with a flower in one hand and a dignified slogan in the other. Yet people are still oppressed and suppressed violently by hired mercenaries from Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, India, Iraqi and many others. There have been no sectarian clashes between Sunnis Shiites and the regime in Bahrain, in a bid to defame the freedom and reform movement the objective of the reform movement, has been provoking bitterness and violence, inciting hatred, promoting racism and discrimination and sowing seeds of sectarian civil war in the national media. Pro government privileged hardliners never want people to demand justice and equality. People’s freedom movement calls for a real reform, a constitutional monarchy with an elected prime minister and elected cabinet, abolition of apartheid, all kinds of racism and discrimination and implementation of legislation fighting sectarian separation and corruption, justice, equality, fair distribution of national wealth, promotion of good living standards in line with the country’s GPD growth, achievement of equal opportunities principle based on citizenship and repossession of all state-owned plundered property.

N.B.: It is always typical of anti-reform and pro-government priviledged supporters to touch upon Iran and Hizobllah’s interventions to get away from the real demands and to make international observers feel that there is a real threat… The movement to demand reform in Bahrain is dated back to early 1920’s the so-called Cleric Abdullatif Al Mahmooud is continually blaming the Americans and Iranians for instigating violence and unrest in Bahrain. He is a government puppet and he is the one who called for forming squads of pro-salafi thugs armed with swords, knives etc to defend the sunni lands!!!!????