Bahrain activists set off Grand Prix protests – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.
The story above was taken from Al Jazeera and even if it is somewhat limited in its content, it is sufficient to refute Bernie Ecclestone’s contention that politics should not be allowed to interfere with the formula one race and his statement that Bahrain is “very quiet and peaceful”. The fact is Mr Ecclestone, if this race were not going ahead, Bahrain would be even quieter and more peaceful today.
Unfortunately, as the English edition of Al Jazeera seems to be falling increasingly under the agenda of its Qatari owners, we have to content ourselves with a rather limited report regarding the demonstrations. Apart from the statement, “hundreds of Bahraini protesters have taken to the streets of Manama, the country’s capital, after an opposition call for a week of anti-government demonstrations to coincide with the Formula One Grand Prix set to be hosted by the Gulf state“, there are no details of the actual demonstrations.
However, these are provided by The Cable, which writes: “The Bahraini police briefly detained two American human rights activists Sunday along with about 20 Bahraini citizens who were protesting ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix Formula One race scheduled for next weekend.” This information, of course, might facilitate our adding to the original statement directed at Mr Ecclestone in this post and not only would Bahrain be even quieter and more peaceful today, if the race was cancelled, but at least twenty-two people would not be finding themselves in police custody. Furthermore, while the two American employees of Human Rights Watch are saying that they were “treated well” while they were in custody, we can only speculate as to whether the other twenty people who were arrested can say the same thing.
The Fifth Estate 