Bahrain

During his brief period as Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi sought to suppress criticism by prosecuting citizens for the "crime" of "insulting the president." In fact he prosecuted more cases than all his predecessors back to King Farouk had done, something I blogged about here critically last January. Bahrain is now trying the same maneuver. On November 18, the Shura Council set a minimum sentence of one year and a maximum of seven, plus fines. A new report from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights entitled "Limited Freedom Of Expression In Bahrain:Arrested For Insulting The King" says that there were thirty prosecutions in 2013 for this "crime." There are three problems with this statute. First, it is ambiguous: the law only says “A prison sentence shall be the penalty for any person who offends the emir of the country...." But what is an insult to the King? Does a speech criticizing his handling of public affairs "offend" him? A speech condemning him for human rights abuses? A speech criticizing him for failing to fire his uncle the prime minister? Slogans at a demonstration? It is unfair to imprison people when the bounds of acceptable criticism are in fact unknown. Second, the statute violates free speech rights that Bahrain has agreed to protect under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The King himself handled it this way in an interview in Der Spiegel in 2012: SPIEGEL: Your Majesty, what would happen if we were to shout: "Down with the King?" Hamad: They do shout it on the streets. As I emphasized in my speech last year, this is not a reason to imprison someone. It’s just a case of manners. But when they shout: "Down with the king and up with Khomeini," that’s a problem for national unity. By that standard the King should be protesting the abuse of the statute to imprison people who "offend" him so long as they do not then shout their loyalty to Iran. In the thirty cases from 2013, there is no evidence (as I understand the cases) that people added statements about Iran to their criticism of the King. The third problem with the statute is practical: it won’t work. Bahrain is in a political crisis that can only be ended by negotiations between political groups representing the populace, which is majority Shia, and the royal family (which is Sunni) and the broader Sunni community. It won’t be ended by fiat, by imprisoning critics, or by passing laws that jail people for "offending the emir." In fact that sort of action by the government only exacerbates divisions and tensions, which indeed have been getting worse in Bahrain. Respect for the King will not be created by new laws demanding respect for the King, but by actions he takes to solve Bahrain’s crisis and respect the rights of all citizens. I am fully aware that there is a deep fear of Iranian subversion in Bahrain, and that some acts of protest can cross the line into actual criminal behavior--in Bahrain as everywhere. But if the government of Bahrain cannot distinguish between genuine protest and foreign subversion, and responds to criticism with jail sentences, one can only expect that 2014 will be even worse than 2013 for human rights and domestic stability.        

Two recent developments suggest that the long stand-off in Bahrain between the royal family and Shia political groups may be  moving toward resolution--or at least a chance of progress. First, the Saudis appear to have changed their own position. Instead of urging confrontation (and indeed, sending troops to Bahrain), the Saudi royals are said now to favor conciliation. The Financial Times reported this week that Saudi Arabia is encouraging the government of its neighbour and ally Bahrain to forge a settlement with its opposition after two years of unrest, in an apparent change of approach by the oil-rich kingdom. In an escalation of Riyadh’s behind-the-scenes role, a Saudi politician has for the first time established direct, informal contact with al-Wefaq, Bahrain’s main opposition group which represents the majority Shia. Saudi Arabia, together with the US and UK, is pushing for a political settlement in Bahrain to stem further radicalisation that could foment more protests among the Shia of its oil-rich Eastern Province. Then a few days later, Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain was appointed deputy Prime Minister. As the BBC noted The Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, widely viewed as a moderate, had been effectively shunted aside by hardliners in the ruling family since protest and unrest began in Bahrain more than two years ago. However his appointment by his father King Hamad is seen as a clear signal that the Crown Prince is back at the heart of efforts to resolve a political dispute between majority Shia Muslims and the Sunni royal family. Why did the Saudi position change? The speculation is that, as the FT put it, "since the death last year of Saudi Crown Prince Prince Nayef bin  Abdulaziz Al Saud – regarded as a hardliner on Shia issues – his son Mohammed  bin Nayef, the interior minister, has taken over responsibility for the  kingdom’s Bahrain policy. Western officials describe the new interior minister as more pragmatic,  leading Riyadh to shift away from Bahrain government hardliners who have sought  to limit compromises with the Shia. One opposition official says the Saudis are indicating that they are prepared  to back a deal that boosts ’rights for all,’ as long as Bahrain’s monarchy  remains in place." For the moment violence continues in Bahrain--if not in downtown Manama then in Shia villages, almost nightly.  Last Friday, there were additional confrontations at the funeral of a protester who had died a week before after being hit by a teargas canister fired by police. And whether Crown Prince Salman’s selection as deputy PM is meaningful or just symbolic remains to be seen, for in the past year he has been sidelined. But this is the first good news from Bahrain in quite a while, and at least offers hope that the Saudi and Bahraini royal families have finally decided to seek a compromise solution. A deal will require not only genuine flexibility on their part but of course on that of the opposition--where months of police attacks have hardened opinions and created a strong group opposed to the monarchy entirely. As I read of Secretary Kerry’s enthusiasm for that old holy grail, the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process," I wonder if his attentions and some of his energy might be better directed to Bahrain. Perhaps here American activism could do more good, and certainly our interests in the Gulf and in Bahrain, headquarters of the Fifth Fleet, give us reason for concern and for involvement. If we can help Bahrainis take advantage of this moment of opportunity, we should try.

Though there is not much Western reporting yet on this phenomenon, Shia unrest in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province appears to be growing. Two recent reports, including interesting amateur films of demonstrations and some violence, can be found in this Arab web site and buried in the New York Times here. The key question is whether the unrest is over or will spread among Saudi Shia. The proximate cause of the unrest is clear: Saudi security forces shot and wounded, while arresting, Shia leader Nimr al-Nimr last week after he called the death of the late Minister of the Interior and Crown Prince, Nayef, a cause for celebration. The deeper cause is Shia unhappiness with what they view as discrimination and indeed repression by the Saudi authorities. This violence will have repercussions in Bahrain. Whether or not it leads to more protests by Bahraini Shia, it will likely lead the Saudis to press the Bahraini government for more repressive measures rather than more compromise. The Saudi royal family’s harsh reaction to Nimr’s comments was predictable, and his comments were foolish and dangerous. Still, in the long run Shia complaints about second-class citizenship in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia cannot be successfully dealt with by arrests and repression. Compromise will have to come or more violence will. But moderates in both countries face not only the inherent difficulties of negotiating such compromises; they also face extremists, Sunni and Shia, who think they benefit from confrontations and who reject compromise. It will be 115 degrees today in Qatif. Hot summer indeed.

The country’s instability should not be viewed as a simple push for democratic reforms, and the outcome has implications for Iran’s role in the region, says CFR’s Ed Husain.

December 16 was Bahrain’s "National Day" and the secretary of state duly released a congratulatory statement. Here it is in its entirety: On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I am delighted to congratulate the people of Bahrain as you celebrate your National Day. Our two countries have shared a long history of partnership built on mutual interest and mutual respect. The United States values this friendship, rooted in the history of our people-to-people ties dating back to the early years of the 20th century. We look forward to working closely with the Government of Bahrain and all Bahrainis on the important endeavor of building a prosperous, secure, and peaceful future for your nation. Two months ago, when he spoke to the UN General Assembly, President Obama said more: In Bahrain, steps have been taken toward reform and accountability, but more are required. America is a close friend of Bahrain, and we will continue to call on the government and the main opposition bloc -- the Wifaq -- to pursue a meaningful dialogue that brings peaceful change that is responsive to the people. And we believe the patriotism that binds Bahrainis together must be more powerful than the sectarian forces that would tear them apart. In the interim the Bahraini Commission of Inquiry delivered its searing report, and the king suggested that he accepted all its conclusions and would implement them. Will he? That report may be the last chance for real reconciliation in Bahrain, and the British government used a visit to London by the king this week to push him in that direction: Prime Minister Cameron "urged the king to deliver swiftly on the commitments he has made to implement the recommendations from the inquiry and to drive forward reform and reconciliation in the country, engaging with the opposition as part of that process." So the secretary’s National Day statement was a foolishly wasted opportunity. The word "democracy" is blatantly missing, as are "reconciliation" and "reform." The absence of such terms will be seen by the Bahraini opposition as a possible shift in the U.S. position, and why not? I bet that the secretary never saw this statement before it was issued (she is reasonably busy), but I do wonder why the Near East bureau drafted it that way and why the Human Rights bureau let it slide. She ought to find out.

An anti-government protester marches with a Bahraini flag during a rally organised by all opposition societies of Bahrain in Budaiya (Hamad I Mohammed/Courtesy Reuters) Full text of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry’s report on human rights. Today’s Zaman looks at Moody’s Investors Service’s recent credit report on Turkey. Steven Heydemann writes on how Egypt’s elections will test the United States’ tolerance for Arab democracy.      

The report this week by the international commission on Bahrain represents the royal family’s, and that nation’s, last chance. If the conclusions of the report do not lead to compromise and reform, the future holds instability, violence, and in the end the demise of al-Khalifa rule. The existence of the report does great credit to King Hamad. When has an Arab government called for a truly honest international assessment of its handling of the most difficult moments of its rule? When has it accepted a report that accuses it of abuse of prisoners, lack of due process, and torture? The king pledged earlier this year that the commission would have a completely free hand, and he was as good as his word. The picture drawn by the commission is grim, for as one reads the five hundred page document it becomes very clear that the problem was not misconduct by individual officers but a wide pattern of Sunni official abuse of Shia citizens. That conclusion has not been accepted by the government, but it is unavoidable when one sees the magnitude of the abuses. It doesn’t matter, it seems to me, whether the king uses the word "pattern." What matters now is not what he says in reaction to the report, but what he does. There are still political prisoners in Bahrain, and hundreds of Shia men and women who have lost government jobs for partisan political reasons have never been reinstated. There are still hundreds of cases of torture and denial of due process whose perpetrators have never been punished. Many times the government has promised that officials who broke the law would be punished, and I have received such promises myself from Bahraini officials: "no impunity." The time has come to make good on those promises. It is hard to see how any of this will happen unless the king himself carries through. The royal family is divided, with the prime minister (who is the king’s uncle) leading a hard-line faction and the crown prince a reformist group. What has been missing is another firm decision by the king: having created the commission, and allowed it to do its work freely, he must now act on its findings. That means real reform and real movement toward constitutional monarchy. This year’s violence and abuses have in fact lost the Sunni al-Khalifa government the consent of the governed among Bahrain’s majority Shia population. Implementation of the report’s recommendations can win it back, and can form a new governing majority of Shia and Sunni who want social peace, economic progress, and a royal family that continues to modernize the country politically as well as economically. Needless to say this will require responsible action by the leading al-Wefaq party among the Shia, but signs are good that some of its key leaders would meet the king half way. If the king is the key actor, the United States has a critical role to play. The king will be pressured by the Saudi government not to reform at all, but instead to use a firm hand against the Shia. The Saudis want no progress toward constitutional monarchy in this nation on the border of their own heavily Shia Eastern province. They have sided with the prime minister and the hard line faction, and sent troops into Bahrain to press their point. To them, this is about keeping the Shia down not about reform. And to them it is about pushing back against Iranian interference, while the report found that there has been no direct Iranian interference (beyond the use of broadcasting to try to manufacture crises). The only counterbalance to that Saudi pressure is the United States. We have a serious interest in seeing moderate reform leading to social peace in Bahrain, in part because it is the home of the Fifth Fleet. As soon as this holiday weekend ends, the president should send a very high ranking official to Manama--someone like the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State--to make the point that we appreciated the king’s leadership in commissioning the report and now believe that he should follow its recommendations. This should be stated publicly, while at the same time we push very hard on the Shia political groups to agree to compromise and to turn away from their own hard line factions that seek confrontation and have excessive demands. We should organize whatever pressure we can for a compromise solution, asking the UK to weigh in with all its remaining influence in Bahrain, which is considerable, asking Shia leaders from Iraq to counsel their cousins to compromise, and seeking whatever moderate counsel from Arab leaders to the king we can round up. We should counsel the Bahraini Shia leaders to push back against their own extremists, and do whatever we can to show respect for the moderate leaders and help build a Shia majority for compromise. This is probably Bahrain’s last chance so it is worth a strenuous effort on our part. The international commission’s report can be a turning point toward continuing internal reforms and social peace, or a lost opportunity to save Bahrain from turmoil. Let’s hope King Hamad realizes the future of his dynasty depends on the decisions he makes in the coming months.

In this Markets and Democracy Brief, CFR’s Mark Lagon argues for a more consistent approach to human rights promotion than the United States has often pursued in the past.

A week ago, a Bahraini "National Safety Court" sentenced a group of doctors and nurses to lengthy sentences for their activities in February and March. Eight doctors got fifteen-year sentences for what they and their defenders said was simply tending to demonstrators who had been injured. These sentences and others suggested that the royal family had decided to forget about compromises and seek only to crush dissent. But there was better news this week: Bahrain’s Attorney General voided the sentences given to twenty medical workers and ordered new trials. As the New York Times reported, "The decision appeared to be at least a tactical retreat by Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy in the face of strong international protests over the punishments, including criticism from the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon." The English-language newspaper in neighboring Abu Dhabi called it “an apparent climbdown.” The Attorney General’s statement included these words: "By virtue of the retrials, the accused will have the benefit of full reevaluation of evidence and full opportunity to present their defence. " The Attorney General stressed that "no doctors or other medical personnel may be punished by reason of the fulfillment of their humanitarian duties or their political views. Pending the outcome of the retrials, the accused shall not be detained." So the medical personnel are free, and a senior figure in the Bahraini government seems dedicated to assuring due process. This is very good news for those still hoping that in place of confrontation there can be compromise between the government of Bahrain and the largely Shia demonstrators and political movements. It’s certainly the first bit of positive news in months. If the government will take the same approach to the many others who have been arrested or convicted--assuring due process, and investigating abuses by soldiers and police--perhaps it is not too late for Bahrain to turn away from the violence of recent months.