Noura Bint Ebrahim Al-Khalifa, Bahrain Princess, Accused Of Torture
"Over the course of the following months the country entered an acute human rights crisis: excessive force was repeatedly used by security forces against peaceful protesters and close to 50 people were killed and hundreds others injured. Hundreds of people were also arrested and tried before military courts, with many reporting they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention. More than 4,000 protesters were dismissed from their jobs or expelled from university for having participated in the protests."(Amnesty International)
Additional to the accusations against Nasser & Khalid bin Hamad,now there is one more member of the royal family of Bahrain who is linked to torture and human rights violations:
"Sheikha Noura Bint Ebrahim al-Khalifa, a member of Bahrain's ruling family, stood trial on Sunday for allegedly torturing two doctors who treated injured protesters during demonstrations in 2011, Reuters reports."
The news and the inactivity in order to end the violence and oppression of opposition in Bahrain is not going to help to end the political instability in the region....
More to read about the situation:
Bahrain
Excerpt from the article mentioned above:
"One way to solve your image problem would be
to welcome reform and stop committing gross human rights violations! Clearly that’s not on the table, so you need to spend millions on PR and invite journalists to your brand new Formula 1 racetrack to see how lovely it is. According to Bahrain Watch, that's what the country's regime has been doing: it's spent at least $32 million on image management since the start of the Arab Spring. I'm familiar with this because one of these companies threatened to sue the Guardian for libel after I wrote an article with
Nabeel Rajab which accused the Bahraini security forces of torturing employees at the F1 track.
The PR firm did not question that torture had taken place, just that it had not happened on the premises of the F1 track. The libel threat was eventually withdrawn after a footnote was added to the article, but the point was made: we have money, and we will bully and threaten you if you criticize us."
A BBC report where you can also see & hear the new police advisor,who was also involved in the UK phone hacking scandal and now advises the Royal family of Bahrain with his experience and doubt-worthy moral values...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qriWCMR478o
He said that reforms cannot "happen over night" even though the people have demanded more political representation and human rights for more than a decade...since 1920,there have been a lot of calls for more freedom of speech and many other rights that we take for granted in Europe and other parts of the world.
Wikipedia entry about John Yates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yates_(police_officer)
The part of the Wikipedia entry about Yate´s activities in Bahrain is particularly interesting:
Advisor to Bahrain
After findings that the security forces of Bahrain
used excessive force, torture and summary justice to crush a popular protest movement, Yates was appointed to oversee reform of the police force.[27]
Subsequent to his appointment, Human Rights Watch criticized the Kingdom's authorities for failing to adopt "critical recommendations" made by an independent commission that looked into extensive human rights violations during the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 2011.[28] Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said Bahrain's authorities had failed to investigate the involvement of high-ranking officials in "rampant torture or unlawful killings." [29]
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph Yates said kettling "would work really well around here" in the face of "wanton damage" and "vandalism".[30]
Prior to the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix, Yates condemned what he said were "criminals" attacking unarmed police. He told Channel 4 News: "Bahrain is a place, a beautiful place. But there are some problems in some of the villages. There are some daily skirmishes, very dangerous skirmishes between what can only be described as criminals who are throwing petrol bombs at police and otherwise attacking the police... What we see in the villages is nothing like peaceful protest. These are attacks on police officers, unarmed police officers." [31]
Yates claimed that reporting of events presented a "distorted picture" and that he felt "completely safe. Indeed, safer than I have often felt in London".[32][33] The day after his comments, a child was admitted to intensive care after being shot in the chest by anti-riot police firing live ammunition and tear gas during a funeral procession for an activist killed the previous month.[34]
Strong criticism has been directed at Yates for comments he has made on policing in Bahrain. New Statesman senior editor Mehdi Hasan branded the former Met chief a "disgrace",[35] while Bahrani pro-democracy activist Ali Mushaima called for Yates to leave the country, saying: "John Yates is not welcome in Bahrain."[32] Despite a man being beaten to death by police on the eve of the Grand Prix,[36] and despite the arrests of Japanese and Western journalists (their Bahraini associates were also badly beaten),[37] the day after the race Yates had an article in the Telegraph in which he claimed that Bahrain was "bewildered by the world's hostility" and said the country "is not Syria". He added: "The abiding image I have of the Grand Prix last weekend was of thousands of people enjoying themselves at the post‑event parties."[38]
A week later, Human Rights Watch released another report on Bahrain:
"
The police are beating and torturing detainees, including minors, despite public commitments to end torture and police impunity. . . . Bahrain has displaced the problem of torture and police brutality from inside police stations to the point of arrest and transfer to police stations. . . . Human Rights Watch raised the issue of police brutality and torture during arrest and at informal facilities with Bahrain's chief of public security, Major General Tariq al-Hasan, and his two senior international advisers, John Yates and John Timoney, on April 17. Timoney and Yates said they had visited some of the facilities identified by Human Rights Watch but found no evidence at the time of their visits of detainees being taken there and mistreated."[39]
A few weeks later, the Bahraini government was forced to deny independent autopsy evidence that Yousef Mowali, a 23-year-old man with mental health problems, had been electrocuted and otherwise tortured by the police until he lost consciousness; Mowali was then dumped in water while still unconscious, and he drowned.[40]"
