'Bahrain under siege, occupation'

A Bahraini tank carries a picture of King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa in the front as it patrols in Manama's Pearl Square. (File photo)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/173109.html

A Bahraini opposition leader has lashed out at the excessive use of violence against anti-regime protests, slamming the kingdom's oppressive policies.

“The people are under siege, under occupation. The regime has intensified its atrocious act[s],” Saeed al-Shahabi from the London-based opposition group of Bahrain Freedom Movement told Press TV on Monday.

More than 25 people have been killed from the government-authorized violence in Bahrain since February 14, when the public started a popular revolution against the monarchy, which has been ruling the Persian Gulf island for more than 200 years.

In March, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait deployed their troops to Bahrain to reinforce the armed attacks.

Shahabi said 3,000 people have also sustained injuries in the brutal crackdown.

“The [number of the] people, who have been taken into custody, over the past two weeks is now between 450 and 500, including senior figures and senior scholars,” he added, noting among the detainees were people more than 60 in age and, off course, some of them are less than 15.

“What we are witnessing is a real human tragedy unfolding by the day and it is not ending in any sense,” the opposition leader regretted.

“Instead of calming situation, these people, these raiders, these attackers, these occupiers are only fueling the sentiment and fueling the anger of the people and that's why we also see continuous opposition to regime,” Shahabi went on to say.

Shedding more light on the forces' heavy-handed treatment of the people was a recently-surfaced footage which showed the police repeatedly beating up a handcuffed protester in the northern village of Daih.

“I really don't know how our regime wants to be respected by their own people, when they see these images in (sic) the daily basis,” said Nabeel Rajab, the president of Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said, referring to the video.

The brutality transpiring on the streets of the kingdom is “much more than what you see” in the footage, Rajab said in an interview with Press TV.