•  washington
• Friday, March 23, 2012
• Inter Press Service

Months after an independent commission presented damning evidence of the Bahraini government's crackdown on pro- democracy demonstrators, thousands press on with a reinvigorated protest movement for genuine reform.

Earlier this month, an estimated 100,000 civilians filled the streets in what, according to observers, has been the largest demonstrations the gulf nation has experienced since protests began last year.

The continued crackdown of the near-daily protests since then prompted a U.N. condemnation on Tuesday of the Bahraini security officials' 'disproportionate use of force' to suppress protesters.

On the same day, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, one of the few human rights advocacy groups operating in the country, released evidence of the deaths of two civilians last week from tear gas asphyxiation.

'Since Nov. 23, when the King received the Bahrain Independent Commission on Inquiry report, there have been 31 civilian deaths that were allegedly caused by unrest, and zero deaths of members of the security forces,' Bill Marczak, director of Bahrain Watch, a human rights watchdog and advocacy group, told IPS.

'Three of the deaths seem to be attributable to long-term declines in physical or mental health that may have been caused by unrest before 23 November,' he said.

The Bahraini government has restricted entry for journalists and human rights observers, as independent witnesses continue to document abuses, including torture, arbitrary detention, sexual harassment, beatings, and a growing number of deaths and serious injuries from rubber bullets and tear gas, some of which are supplied by U.S. manufacturers.

'While the U.S. has paused a 53-million-dollar arms sale to Bahrain, other smaller arms sales are ongoing, and the U.S. government still apparently issues licenses for direct commercial sales of tear gas and other items to Bahrain,' Marczak said.

'(T)here has been no known investigation of the use of likely U.S.- origin weapons against protesters, such as M113 APCs fitted with .50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns that were used last year…The use of these weapons against unarmed protesters is likely violation of U.S. law, and in violation of the end-use conditions agreed to when the M113s were originally donated to Bahrain at little or no cost in the 1990s and 2000s under the Excess Defense Articles programme.'

The commission was funded by the Bahraini government and chaired by M. Cherif Bassiouni, a professor of international human rights law at DePaul University. Despite its findings, which contained unequivocal evidence of human rights abuses and made recommendations for reform, the likelihood for genuine reform or a political settlement seems to be dwindling, according to analysts here.

Earlier this year the Bahraini government resumed trials, after indicating that the charges would be dropped, of 20 doctors who were indicted for fomenting armed insurrection against the government and subsequently received sentences from five to 15 years after supposedly forced confessions from torture.

© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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