Bahrain poised for human rights report

After eight months of clashes that have claimed close to 40 lives, the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain is bracing itself for the findings of a major investigation into alleged human rights abuses, including torture.

The Bahrain Independent Commission of Enquiry (BICI) has heard more than 8,800 complaints and conducted more than 5,700 interviews. Composed of five members from outside Bahrain, it will be announcing its findings on 30 October and the government has promised a swift response.

But will the commission probe deep enough, will its recommendations be acted on, and will it help cure the worsening sectarian divisions on this once peaceful island state?

Ask almost any question about Bahrain's failed uprising this year and you are likely to get two widely differing responses, according to who you speak to.

Go into any one of the low-rise Shia villages west of the capital, Manama, and people will tell you this was a people's protest brutally suppressed by a regime they loathe.

You will hear stories of balaclava-clad security men smashing their way into private homes earlier this year, dragging suspected political activists from their beds, beating them in front of their families then dragging them off for interrogation in an undisclosed police station.

But talk to some of the hundreds of thousands of Sunnis and expatriate workers here and you hear a very different story.

Bahrain's uprising, they say, was a failed coup encouraged by Iran, a bid to end two centuries of Sunni monarchy and replace it with a theocratic Shia Islamic republic leaning towards Tehran.
Peace at a price

It is a fact often overlooked by the international media that while almost everyone welcomes reforms, a very sizable proportion of Bahrain's population do not want to replace their rulers.

But the peace and calm that now prevails on most of Bahrain's streets has come at a price. Hundreds of people were arrested and often held without their families knowing where they were. Five people have died in police custody, some believed tortured to death.

The international outcry over alleged human rights abuses has severely damaged Bahrain's name, prompting King Hamad Bin Issa al-Khalifa to order the investigation that is now poised to publish its findings.

Such is the depth of mistrust between the Sunni and Shia communities that many Shia fear the commission will be soft on the government, excusing it of any systematic abuse, or else equating any abuses committed by the security forces with actions committed by protesters.

The Bahraini government does not deny there have been abuses but its Minister for Human Rights, Fatima Al-Balouchi, said fault lay on both sides.

"There were abuses of human rights, those are mistakes, the government addressed them. Those mistakes were not just done by the government," she said.

"The abuses happened from everyone but were they systematic? Were they gross? No, they were not." 

NEWS BY:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15358707