MOSCOW, September 9 (RIA Novosti) – The United Nations and many international organizations call on Bahrain to release human rights activist Maryam al-Khawaja who was arrested in Manama on August 30 and charged with assaulting police officers after refusing to hand over her phone, The Guardian reported Tuesday.
Al-Khawaja’s arrest has been a matter of concern for thousands of activists, who speak for a democratic change in the state that has been recently widely supported by the West.
The crisis in Bahrain has erupted back in 2011, but the protests across the country in Shia villages continue until today. Demonstrations are often accompanied by clashes between protesters and local police using petrol bombs and rubber bullets.
The Bahraini government and its supporters are getting ready for a parliamentary election in November that is believed to change the situation in the country. But analysts predict that the polls will be boycotted by the country’s opposition parties.
Bahrain’s popular anti-government protests were tackled with the assistance of Saudi Arabia, the United States and Britain that had their own military and business interests in the country.
Currently, Bahrain is a US strategic ally as it is home to America’s 5th Fleet.
The UK has been accused of double standards after it picked up business opportunities in Bahrain, but failed to assist the country in implementing the political reforms. The British Foreign Office continues to insist that Bahrain “strikes an appropriate balance between the undoubted progress made in some areas and our continuing concerns in others."
At the moment, international organizations argue that the release of detained Maryam al-Khawaja is a necessary measure that would show that the country is actually making some steps toward democracy, and say that it is time for countries that initially supported democratic reforms in Bahrain to speak up.
