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Rights groups urge crackdown on mercenaries in Bahrain

Tuesday, 02 June 2015 8:51 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 02 June 2015 8:51 PM ]

Amina Taylor

Press TV, London

Human rights activists have gathered in London to highlight the role foreign mercenaries play in the continued repression of Bahrainis who have been seeking equality and reforms in the Persian Gulf kingdom. Foreign recruits make up over half of the security forces in Bahrain. Campaigners say the international community must do more to stop this trend.

Effective and routinely brutal; foreign members of the Bahraini security forces are under scrutiny for their growing role in the oppression of the popular anti-government movement in the country. Of an estimated 25,000-strong security force, 13,000 are thought to have been from recruited from countries like Yemen, Jordan, Syria with the largest proportion from Pakistan.

Campaigners want the international community to probe rights violations.

Campaigners are hoping that Britain's long in close association with Bahrain will help to exert some kind of pressure on the regime to act responsibly they also want a guarantee from Manama that the safety and security of its citizens will be assured.

Any hope of the UK and its allies intervening and getting Manama to reverse its oppressive policies seems remote. Campaigners have promised to heap more pressure on until that position changes.

With scores dead, thousands injured, imprisoned or missing, those fighting for equality in Bahrain say they will not cowered into silence by the state’s brutality – whether the agents are imported or locally grown.

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