Photo from Pearl Roundabout, by @AngryArabiya, used with permission

Monday’s New York Times has an article by Ethan Bronner which pleads the anti-democracy case in terms anyone here fighting the Big Bank MOTU’s will find chilling. Titled “Crackdown Was Only Option, Bahrain Sunnis Say,” Bronner tells us:

But in the past week or two, the nature of the protest shifted — and so did any hope that demands for change would cross sectarian lines and unite Bahrainis in a cohesive democracy movement. The mainly Shiite demonstrators moved beyond Pearl Square, taking over areas leading to the financial and diplomatic districts of the capital. They closed off streets with makeshift roadblocks and shouted slogans calling for the death of the royal family.

“Twenty-five percent of Bahrain’s G.D.P. comes from banks,” Mr. Abdulmalik said as he sat in the soft Persian Gulf sunshine. “I sympathize with many of the demands of the demonstrators. But no country would allow the takeover of its financial district. The economic future of the country was at stake. What happened this week, as sad as it is, is good.”

Adulmalik is a Bahraini banker and, of course, is very liberal and urbane.

Bronner goes on to write:

To many around the world, the events of the past week … seem like the brutal work of a desperate autocracy.

He works in excuses for the siege of Salmaniya hospital and never once mentions the dead and wounded – and then continues with the following – notice that the 70% Shia are now just 2/3:

But for Sunnis, who make up about a third of the country’s citizenry but hold the main levers of power, it was the only choice of a country facing a rising tide of chaos that imperiled its livelihood and future.

Bronner, after considerable Iran and Lebanon scare talk, goes on to describe a private tour of a historic district being restored with Adulmalik’s company’s support and where Adulmalik’s “guests” just happen to run into the Bahrain culture minister – a woman whose Western attire is specifically noted – who:

told the demonstrators, ‘This country is developing, and you will stifle it.’ Something had to be done, and it was.”

Perhaps Mr. Bronner would like to consider these things that just “had to be done”. . .

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is extremely worried at the security condition of its deputy Secretary General, Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

On Sunday, March 20th 2011, after they visited his father’s house, around 20 plain clothes policemen, armed with guns and wearing masks, entered Nabeel Rajab’s house at 2:00 am and started to search the house, as Nabeel, his wife and their young children were standing in the bedroom. After a search of 45 minutes, the police confiscated the computers and took some bags, books and CDs. 

Nabeel Rajab was then tightly handcuffed in front of his family and taken into the back of a 4×4 car, where he was blindfolded.

For more than one hour, the police kept him in the car and started to insult him and to force him to praise the Bahraini highest authorities, by saying « Long live the Prime Minister, I love the Prime Minister ». As he refused to obey the orders, Rajab was insulted once more and kicked in the face by one of the policemen, while another one was threatening to rape him.

After more than one hour of physical and psychological abuse, Nabeel Rajab was transferred to another car, taken to some premises belonging to the Ministry of Interior for interrogation.

There, he was told by an officer that the police were following what he was saying on Twitter and troublemakers like him should leave the country.

He was finally sent back home at 4 am.

Or perhaps this:

Ali AbdulEmam, know by some by his nickname “the blog-father” for setting up the first free uncensored online forum in Bahrain for political and social debate, is today missing from his home and his family are unable to establish contact with him…

At around quarter past one in the morning of the 18th of March the housing complex in Aali were Ali rented a flat from one of his cousins who awoke to hear the metal gate outside being riddled with bullets.

Around 50 masked and heavily armed security personnel then proceeded to break down the wooden door of the house. Ali’s cousin, his wife and his daughter were asleep in the ground floor flat. They burst in on them before the wife or the daughter had a chance to cover up and demanded to know where Ali was while pointing a gun at their faces.

They replied that Ali and his wife had not been home for three days and they had no idea where he was. Incensed that their repeated questions were not yielding any results, they trashed the house and then moved up a floor where there were two more flats and kicked the doors in…

After tearing the flats apart and breaking everything they could, they filled a large suitcase with every kind of camera, hard drive, video recorder or DVD that they could find.

They then returned to the terrified occupants of the ground floor and repeated their demands, this time threatening to take the daughter instead. The Father and Mother said they would take their daughter only over their dead bodies, after a short stand off the police backed off, possibly realizing that the family really had no idea where Ali or his wife and children were.

Ali, who had heard security was looking for him, had left the house 3 days earlier and now no one is sure if he has been arrested or is in hiding.

Maybe Mr. Bronner would like to ask his new friend in the Ministry of Culture, where Ali is?

A note on the photo: Taken by AngryArabiya, the photo is of a painting done by an unknown demonstrator near the Pearl Roundabout. It was been removed at the same time Pearl was destroyed by the government. Thanks to AngryArabiya for permission to use at FDL.