Al Khalifah deportations, cultural genocide: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Saeed Shahabi, a member of Bahrain Freedom Movement in London, to discuss the alarming surge in the expulsion of Bahraini citizens stripped of their nationality.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How is the Bahraini government getting away with deporting its own nationals?

Shahabi: The Al Khalifah regime is getting away with murder. They are murdering people, torturing them to death, maiming them, arresting them and then they are getting away with it simply because they are getting the support of the Western powers. This is number one.

Number two, they have now embarked on denying the natives of their natural right of having their own nationality and passport and of course to stay and residence in the country. In the past three years, they have adopted the policy of revoking nationality of the natives and then deporting them. Of course at the moment, today as we know several people had their nationalities revoked and some of them have been deported including Dr. Masoud al-Jahromi who is a senior academic. We know that four, five years ago in 2011 he was arrested together with other academics as the regime had attacked the liberties of those people, but subsequently under a lot of pressure from outside he was released but now they have decided to deport him in line with others. Ali Esfandiar has been tried and a decision has been made to deport him as well as Ibrahim Karimi.

It seems to me that at this moment of time they are trying to deport native Bahrainis whose ethnicity belongs to Iran, I mean they are of Iranian, Persian origin but they are Bahrainis. They were born and bred in Bahrain. Their fathers may have been born and bred in Bahrain and this is at the same time as they are giving Bahraini nationality to foreigners. So this is a very clearly sectarian attitude and policy and the aim is to discriminate against the natives in order to marginalize them and subsequently what they are doing is amounting to genocide, to cultural genocide of Bahrainis.

Press TV: What needs to happen? Now this has been going on for years in Bahrain and still no change. We see the repression continuing, the crackdown continuing, and we also see capitals like where you are sitting, London and Washington, being silent on the one hand about the human rights abuses and also even supporting the Bahraini regime. What has to happen to change this current status quo?

Shahabi: I think gradually that will change. What we know for example today that the Saudis have been defeated in Yemen and they have been forced to negotiate with the Houthis. We know that and you know that and they are going to negotiate with them in the next few days. This is the first defeat of those counter-revolution forces headed by Saudis. We know the Bahrainis are depending on the Saudis. We know the British are giving material, military, political and security support to the Al Khalifah. They are saying it openly. You just read what is being said in parliament, the answers of the government to the questions by the Members of Parliament about Bahrain and you will see how partisan the British government has become especially in the past three, four years.

Now this is not good for the British policy or their interests. So I think they will find themselves compelled to change their policy because these are not good friends, Al Khalifah and Al Saud are not good friends. You cannot be happy to have them as your friend because simply they embark on crimes, criminal activity, crime against humanity, war crimes in Yemen. So I think the British will sooner or later find out that they will be implicated in these crimes if they do not distance themselves from both - Al Khalifah and Al Saud at the same time.  

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