مقال قوي التايمز اللندنية:المتظاهرون بالبحرين سوف ينفسوا عن غضبهم

محروم.كوم · #1 12-17-2012, 11:10 PM

The Times 17th December

Human rights protesters will vent anger in Bahrain again

Protestors have been jailed for voicing their opposition to the race
STR/AFP/Gett

Protestors have been jailed for voicing their opposition to the raceSTR/AFP/Getty

Kevin Eason Motor Racing Correspondent
Published at 12:01AM, December 17 2012

Zainab al-Khawaja could not make the track day set aside for women, nor could she queue for grand prix tickets on sale at a bigdiscount. The 28-year-old was thrown into jail for demonstrating for the release of her father from the Bahrain prison cell he has occupied for months.
The publicity machine for the 2013 Bahrain Grand Prix cranked up with the first tickets made available for the fourth race of the new season yesterday, embellished by a driving day for women around the £200 million Bahrain International Circuit. Even as the authorities were pressing buttons to ignite interest in the most controversial grand prix on the Formula One calendar, the petrol bombs were still being thrown in the streets and the justice system condemned worldwide was locking up protesters like al-Khawaja.
Top-level figures at the FIA, the sport’s governing body, are already nervous that the Bahrain Grand Prix is about to become another horrifying embarrassment, just as it was in April when the sport twisted its morals and tore up its own statutes to take $40 million (about £25 million) to perform for a ruling regime condemned around the world for its stance on human rights.
“It was a public-relations disaster on every level,” one source said yesterday. “The race will go on but you have to wonder what will happen this time. The demonstrators were not very organised in April and they probably feel they missed the chance to use the race as a platform. This time, they have plenty of warning that the race is on and plenty of time to make plans. It is fingers-crossed time.”
Amnesty International warns that Bahrain has not brought to justice police and army personnel responsible for deaths, beatings, and torture, and that reforms have still not been implemented more than a year after an international report — the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry — found widespread abuses of human rights. Covadonga de la Campa, Amnesty’s expert on Bahrain, warns that the grand prix could be the trigger for the release of pent-up anger and frustration.
“Formula One should consider its options very carefully,” she said. “There is a great degree of frustration at the hollow promises made. Things are much more tense because so little has been done toaddress human-rights issues that existed at the time of the last grand prix.”
The grand prix in April will also be a nerve-jangling test for Jean Todt, the FIA’s low-profile president. He is in a quandary because he faces re-election in November next year; he needs the crucial votes in the Middle East that can be delivered by a Bahrain Grand Prix, but an embarrassment on the scale of last April’s event will do little to convince wavering voters that the Frenchman and former CEO of Ferrari has the required moral steel and authoritative leadership.

When a petrol bomb landed a few feet from a bus carrying members of the Force India team days before last season’s race, Todt was nowhere to be seen as he wilfully ignored his organisation’s own statutes that Formula One must not be used as a political tool. Last season, the race was run under the official banner: “Unified” — a political message to the global community that all was well on the tiny island kingdom.
At the same time, protesters were holding banners calling for “Freedom, not Formula One” before they were chased down rubble-strewn streets by police firing tear gas, stun grenades and shotgun pellets. One man died during the weekend.
Eyes in Formula One, though, were shielded from the mass demonstrations, although few cared to look at the excesses that brought universal condemnation of the deaths of more than 50 demonstrators, the jailing of doctors and nurses and the harassment of dozens of innocent women and children.
King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa pardoned 247 inmates to mark Bahrain’s National Day at the weekend, but that came in the wake of demands from Michael Posner, the US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour to drop charges against activists involved in “non-violent political expression”. Nabeel Rajab is still in jail, although his sentence was last week reduced to two years for sending messages on Twitter deemed offensive to the Bahrain regime.
Al-Khawaja has been a thorn in the flesh of the authorities since her father, Abdulhadi, was jailed as one of the leaders of the uprising that led to the 2011 race being called off. She was jailed and fined last week for entering the Pearl Square area that was a focus of the violent 2011 demonstrations.
Dr Ala’a Shehabi, a British-born campaigner whose husband, Ghazi, was jailed during the uprising, believes that the government’s repression has robbed protesters of figureheads such as Rajab, who was a potent leader. She despairs of governments and sports, such as Britain and Formula One, that focus concerns according to political convenience. While the British government boycotted Ukraine during Euro 2012 for its human rights abuses, Bahrain revelled in its grand prix.
“I don’t know how the British Government can do that,” Dr Shehabi said. “The people in Bahrain are struggling. There is a containment policy that means they cannot move. Demonstrations were banned and more than 30 protest leaders were stripped of their citizenship, which means they are trapped. Formula One is only a sport, but it is a sport of the ruling regime in the eyes of the people. It will come to Bahrain, but the people will be waiting with their frustrations and anger.”

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