'US opposes democracy in Arab world'

Protesters face police riot close to Pearl Square in Bahrain's capital Manama.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/170502.html

The US does not desire any form of democracy in the Arab world and only favors a kind of democracy that it can control, says Chairman of the Committee against Torture in Bahrain.

“For all their talk about democracy, they (the US) support the cold, torturing, oppressive regimes around this world,” Rodney Shakespeare told Press TV on Wednesday.

Shakespeare also described Wednesday's attacks by Bahraini riot police and Saudi forces on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain as a “deliberate, organized, large-scale massacre of unarmed people.”

“These are people who for decades have made moderate demands and have protested in a non-violent way,” Shakespeare said.

He held the US responsible for the killing of the protesters, saying that the signal for the brutal crackdown came when US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Saudi Arabia.

“He didn't have the guts to do it himself so he got the Saudis to do it,” Shakespeare noted.

Shakespeare also insisted that Saudi Arabia is participating in the Bahraini suppression of anti-government protests because it is “scared of its own people rising in protest.”

“If there were free elections in Saudi Arabia, 99 percent of the people would vote against the regime and that is why they are scared of the little wisp of democracy on a tiny island in the Persian Gulf, “Shakespeare added.

At least six people were killed in Bahrain when Saudi and Bahraini forces launched a brutal attack against anti-government protesters in the Bahrain's capital Manama on Wednesday.

Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) says state-organized murder is taking place on the Streets of the country.

BCHR also said that doctors at Ibn al-Nafees hospital complain that the army has raided the building and taken the body of a dead protester as well as several of the wounded.

In a report released on Thursday, Amnesty International also called on Western governments to stop sending weapons to Bahrain, as the regime is stepping up its “unwarranted” crackdown on protesters, using arms supplied by the West.

More than 1,000 Saudi Arabian troops and 500 policemen from the United Arab Emirates, backed by tanks and helicopters, are in the oil-rich nation of Bahrain to help crush the month-long anti-government protests.