London, UK, April 26th 2011 – On Sunday 24th April, Bahraini government forces raided a girls’ secondary school in the town of Hamad, arresting several female teachers as part of a crackdown on anti-regime protesters. The school faced a similar assault on Monday 18th April when around 8 female teachers and several students were taken by Bahraini security forces, followed on Tuesday by the abduction of 6 female teachers from a school in Muharraq. In their violent suppression of demonstrators, the Bahraini government has shot at, arrested, tortured, and killed its women. Many have been abducted, some of whom were pregnant, simply to deter their relatives from protesting. Those abducted and physically assaulted include female medical workers whose crime has been to treat protesters injured due to government brutality.
There has been a notable absence of condemnation of any of this from Western governments. Rather, while the British government bombs Libya under the false pretence of liberating it from dictatorship, it has accepted to host despotic monarchs from across the Muslim world at the royal wedding this Friday, including Crown Prince of Bahrain Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa. The Crown Prince has declined the invitation, presumably too busy terrorising his people and arresting school children. Over the last year, the UK government has approved exports of tear gas and crowd control ammunition to its autocratic Bahraini ally, while in a speech in Manama in February this year, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague stated, “Britain and Bahrain have many common interests and indeed many common opinions and approaches.” The common interest Mr Hague talks about is presumably subjugating the people of the region in the name of economic and political gain.
Dr. Nazreen Nawaz, Women’s Media Representative, Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain commented, “The utter desperation of this brutal dictatorship is unmistakable when it has to resort to arresting school girls and the educators of the nation in order to cling to power. We hope that these despicable acts signify the dying throes of this failing regime.”
“The shear hypocrisy of Western governments in their foreign policy is breathtaking. While claiming to be the saviour of the Libyan people from a dictator, they continue to stand resolutely behind their despotic allies in the Arab and Muslim world and turn a blind-eye to the blood-soaked repression of their citizens – all to secure their strategic interests and the free flow of oil through the region. These governments have demonstrated time and again that their capitalist colonial foreign policy recognises only one motive for foreign intervention – material and strategic gain. They have shown that their priorities will always lie in protecting the dollar or pound rather than protecting human life or dignity. Therefore, to place hopes in such governments liberating Libya is political suicide. How can those who buttressed the dictator Gadhafi for decades and continue to provide the tools of subjugation to autocratic regimes across the world ever be trusted to intervene in the affairs of the Muslim world?”
“The Muslim world needs to take its affairs back into its own hands. The Egyptian army alone would suffice to remove dictators of the likes of Gadhafi. It and other armies of the region need to be mobilised to fulfil their true purpose as protectors of their Ummah. Moreover, replacing fallen regimes with a few constitutional reforms or with constitutional monarchies can never herald the positive, stable, just, and oppression-free future that so many have sacrificed their lives for. How can it ever be acceptable for those whose hands are stained with the blood of their people to continue in their thrones as heads of state?”
“A new dawn can only break through a radical change of system through the establishment of the Khilafah state that will implement the Islamic laws comprehensively. This is a state that sincerely cares for all its citizens – Sunni or Shia, Muslim or non-Muslim, male or female, providing them with equal rights of citizenship. It is a state based upon an elected, accountable ruler, a state that will return the wealth of the region back to its people, lift this Ummah from its knees, heal any rifts between Sunnis and Shias, and bring security and dignity to the Muslim lands.”
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