'UN silence on Bahrain astonishing'

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177596.html

Click on link for full video and interview

The United Nations' silence on the atrocities committed by Bahraini regime forces against anti-regime protesters in the Persian Gulf country is astonishing, an observer says.

“That [the crackdown on protesters] is completely against the Geneva Convention[s] in any warfare or any protest situation; so to be breaking the Geneva Convention[s]... and to (be) basically committing genocide, I think it's ... an amazing situation that the UN isn't looking further into these things,” London-based documentary filmmaker David Lawley told Press TV on Saturday.

Lawley went on to give an account of the brutal manner in which the Saudi-backed Bahraini regime forces crack down on peaceful anti-government protesters.


“Each little village [in Bahrain] is surrounded by police cars and occasionally, two tanks and at least five or six police cars around each little village. So, in the evenings when there are peaceful protests, all the people in the village go up on the roofs and chant 'God is great' and then the police storm into the villages with these police cars and then the tanks roll through and they disperse the crowd with tear gas and shooting birdshot from guns,” he said.

“The medical teams out there ... are treating children as young as twelve for beatings, and we have seen numerous cases of birdshot in peoples' arms and eyes. Some people have lost their sight,” he noted.

Lawley described the UN's inaction in the face of the Bahraini regime atrocities as an instance of “double standards” and said, “Why are they [the UN authorities] not touching Bahrain when genocide is actually taking place on the streets?”

Anti-government protests against the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain began in mid-February.

In March, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait deployed their troops in crisis-hit Bahrain to reinforce the brutal armed crackdown on Bahraini protesters.

Scores of protesters have been killed and many others have gone missing during the harsh crackdowns.

Most Bahraini media outlets have been blocked and several mosques have been demolished by the Bahraini government.

Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch have also condemned the Bahraini and Saudi regimes for their heavy-handed tactics against the Bahraini population.