Saeed Shahabi: Saudis, lackeys influence international politics

Press TV has conducted an interview with Saeed Shahabi, a political analyst and Middle East expert from London, about a Bahraini court’s decision to sentence five protesters to life in prison.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of all give us your thoughts on the recent life sentences handed down by the Bahraini court.

Shahabi: We are living in the era in which the Saudis and their lackeys in the [Persian] Gulf are having some influence on the international politics, and this is why they feel free to do whatever they like with their own citizens, like what the Saudis did in the last few days, when they sentenced another man to death from the Eastern Province in Awamiyah.

The Bahraini government is also doing the same with the people. They are passing death sentences as well as life sentences on people who have been opposing them. Today Bahrain has become really a fortress of complete silence. Nobody is allowed to say a word.

If anybody says a word and he is going to go to jail. This is what happens to al-Wefaq members and also other scholars including Sheikh Mohammed Mansi, who is now languishing in jail because he said a few words last week that the regime did not like. So the sentencing of those people to life imprisonment is just in line with their ongoing policy.

Press TV: And what about the silence of the United States and Britain, which are in fact staunch allies of the Al Khalifah as well?

Shahabi: If it is only silence, that’s fine, that’s understandable, but it is more than silence. It is connivance. It is complicity probably. Many people are pointing to both countries as being complicit in encouraging, abetting, aiding, supporting the regime in doing what it does.

People were astonished that when Mr. Obama went to Saudi Arabia a few days ago. He did not raise the issue of human rights as far as we can see from what is published in the media. Now, both UK and the United States are supporting Saudi Arabia and their allies.

A Foreign Policy report in the last few days has said clearly that both countries are supporting Saudi Arabia within the United Nations Security Council and they have been preventing the issuing of any resolution about Yemen, investigating the war crimes by the Saudis, the Al Khalifah and the Emiratis in Yemen.

So both countries are really putting their weight behind the Saudis and the Al Khalifah in order to influence the decisions and also to have a foothold in the region. So this is very very serious negative escalation in the geopolitics and also on the international strategic alliances.

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