Exiled and 24: The Young Woman Fighting for Bahrain

Exiled and 24: The Young Woman Fighting for Bahrain

When Maryam al-Khawaja and I first met in March, in a dingy hospital hallway in Manama, Bahrain’s regime had just tear gassed hundreds of its staunchest detractors, shooting them with rubber bullets and live ammunition while they slept and prayed. The dead and wounded were brought to Salmaniya medical center, where their loved ones were met by an energetic girl in jeans and a head scarf, hopping from floor to floor directing foot traffic, doling out information to worried families, and escorting aid workers. 

Around 3 a.m., with the screams of a grieving mother echoing down the corridor, Maryam delivered a denunciation indictment of the U.S.’s silence on what was going on around her, calling Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s criticism of the regime a mere wrist slap. By May, she had found a bigger audience, having left Bahrain for the U.S. and Europe, her anecdotes and big brown eyes humanizing Bahrain’s faltering opposition for a West that did not fully understand it. 

From Brown University to the Oslo Freedom Forum to Voice of America, she preached the gospel that had been violently muted on Manama’s streets — the regime, she repeated, was doing grievous things, and the U.S. and its allies needed to step up their rhetoric. 

Last week, her work took on a new urgency, when father Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, the country’s best-known opposition activist, was marched into a closed-door military tribunal and sentenced to life in prison for anti-government propaganda. 

That a 24-year-old girl has become the face of one of the most repressed Arab Spring revolutions comes as a surprise only to those who don’t know her lineage. Maryam’s was born in Denmark to then-exiled Abdulhadi and his wife, Khadija, who had been banned from Bahrain in the mid-1980s. They lived in Denmark until returning to Manama in 2001, as soon as they were allowed re-entry. Maryam was 14

Read more at The Atlantic

[Image: Maryam in Manama before leaving the country / Twitter]

“Officially, the U.S. does not pay other governments for rights to military bases. The logic is straightforward: funneling money to the treasuries of foreign dictators cannot form the foundation of genuine strategic alliances. Yet, to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while staring down the mullahs in Iran, over the last decade the Pentagon has come to rely in an unprecedented way on a web of bases across the Middle East. And a NEWSWEEK investigation of Pentagon contracting practices in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and Bahrain has uncovered more than $14 billion paid mostly in sole-source contracts to companies controlled by ruling families across the Persian Gulf.

[…] Look at the kingdom of Bahrain, where Arab Spring protests have raged this past month. It’s also home to the 60-acre headquarters of the U.S.’s Fifth Fleet. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa rules the country, and as it happens, Bahrain is also host to the regional headquarters for the [Defense Logistics Agency’s] energy operations—the office that buys all fuel for the U.S. military in the first place. Every year Bahrain’s national oil company routinely wins a chunk of a huge Pentagon contract, called WestPac, to provide fuel to U.S. military operations in the western Pacific. Bahrain’s national fuel company has achieved a rare status: the kingdom, which has a population of barely more than 1 million people, has became one of the American military’s chief fuel suppliers, taking in billions. The DLA points out that Bahrain’s fuel sales are not a sole-source contract like the ones in Abu Dhabi. Instead, the Pentagon says, Bahrain always wins because its bid is low; it offers vast quantities of fuel; and it has few, if any, competitors among the ‘traditional suppliers’ in the region. David Kirsh, a director at the oil—consulting firm PFC Energy, says, ‘The Bahrain Petroleum Co. probably would not be winning these contracts if not for the base.’ The official at the DLA says the agency does its best to provide fuel at low cost to U.S. forces around the world.” - Aram Roston

Welfare for Dictators: A NEWSWEEK investigation reveals how Pentagon billions are flowing to strongmen in the Middle East

[Above: The tarmac at the Al Dhafra military base in the United Arab Emirates.]

Welfare for Dictators:

“[A] NEWSWEEK investigation of Pentagon contracting practices in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, and Bahrain has uncovered more than $14 billion paid mostly in sole-source contracts to companies controlled by ruling families across the Persian Gulf. The revelation raises a fundamental question: are U.S. taxpayer dollars enriching the ruling potentates of friendly regimes just as the youthful protesters and the Arab Spring have brought a new push for democracy across the region?”

Okay, this kind of bothers me.

Queen Sabika bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa

Sheikha Sabika bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa is the Queen and the first wife of the King of Bahrain, Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa. She is head of the Supreme Council for Women in Bahrain and has largely encouraged the expansion of women’s politicial rights in Bahrain. She was influential in encouraging women to vote in the 2001 elections. In June 2005 she hosted the first ladies of the Arab world in Bahrain for the second meeting of the Higher Council of Arab Women Organization. 

Photo

Honorable Moan of Bahrain protesters

Sitra today [June 25, 2011]

Human rights activist Nabeel Rajab in Sitra today [June 25, 2011]

Bahrain doctors in prison for daring to speak out
http://ping.fm/kp3fN 14feb

The Al-Khalifa Regime is Short Sighted
http://bit.ly/my3mgv Bahrain humanrights 14feb

Honorable Moan of Bahrain protesters
http://bit.ly/iSjRej 14feb