US refusing to air reports on Bahrain crackdown: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Colin Cavell, a former lecturer with the University of Bahrain, about the steadfastness of Bahraini people in staging protest rallies against the Al Khalifa regime in Bahrain.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Looks [like that] despite the heavy crackdown on opposition and on pro-democracy protesters, these protests continue in Bahrain.

Cavell: This is true. Most of the opposition leaders and all the political societies are in jail currently. We have Dr. Abduljalil Abdullah al-Singace, Ibrahim Sharif, Hassan Mushaima, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, we have Sheikh al-Salman, Ali Isa al-Tahiya, Nabil Rajab, Zainab al-Khawaja and many many others all in jail, rotting in jail, because this regime is violating international law, violating the UN covenant on human rights, violating the UN covenant on several political rights.

This is an outlaw regime that is supported by the West, supported by the United States to keep its hegemony in the region and it is illegal and has no legitimacy at all.

Press TV: How do you think a regime like the one in Bahrain can get away with all its human rights abuses and the crimes against humanity it’s committing against the opposition, silencing the opposition?

Cavell: Well, it gets away with it because the United States does not air any type of news about Bahrain, just like we air very little news about the most atrocious country in the world – Saudi Arabia – with all of its violation of human rights. None of that news is pictured on the US media. So, the American people have no idea what type of regimes we’re supporting.

Now, people in the Middle East and Europe and elsewhere in the world, they do know they were hypocritical. They do know our country, our government, is entirely hypocritical and violating democratic rights all the time.

But American people do not know that. And so, the country gets away with supporting these autocratic regimes that are not supported by the people and that just imprison their population, imprison anybody who speaks out for democratic rights. And they’re doing it peacefully. They’re not even calling for violence. They do in a peaceful manner and yet they go to jail and get tortured and killed for doing so.

Press TV: Do you think these movements in Bahrain will ever get anywhere given that the United States does not support them and not only the United States, the UK and many other Western countries, when it comes to dictatorships in some countries, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia?

Cavell: Dictatorships never last forever. The long hard road of resistance can be quite difficult at times, can be quite lonely at times, but slowly but surely the word spreads and the movement develops regionally and then nationally and then around the world to support the human rights of oppressed peoples.

And the Bahraini people are definitely being oppressed by this autocratic dictatorship, this single family, the Al Khalifas, who have no legitimacy at all. And [the] US has blood on its hands and its hypocrisy is glaring for all to see.

So, yes, eventually the Bahraini people will get their freedom, because they’re steadfast and they’re determined and they are definitely doing the right thing by seeking self-determination.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk