The protests must go on until we accomplish our goals!

Ok, so our Sunni King Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa replaced four members of the Cabinet on today… including two members of the royal family. He also slashed citizens’ monthly housing costs by 25% and urged the newly appointed housing minister to speed up plans for new housing projects…  Ok, good start your highness but not enough though! Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman al Khalifa is still PM (for the last 4 decades) and has blood on his hands. The cabinet is almost entirely from the Royal Family and we can’t even elect to the Shura Council which make all the laws/decisions.  Speaking of housing, the demographic changes your government are trying to engineer on your behalf must stop.  No more automatic award of citizenship to Sunni with a large grants and a villa while many of us languish in poverty.  Immigration rules must be rational, transparent and decided on by the new democratic government. First, and foremost: we need to take care of all the citizens and have a more equal distribution of wealth and equal opportunity for all Bahraini: Shi’a, Sunni, Men, Women, Gays, Asians and so on!  So no, the demonstrations must go on.  We want complete democracy, universal suffrage, free and fair elections to both houses, no more discrimination on any grounds whatsoever. We, the of Bahrain want a constitutional democracy, the power to elect to both houses, to determine the cabinet and to legislate! Until then we must not stop protesting.

My motivations for participating in Feb14 protests

Me and my friends who participate in the protests do not want to imitate what the Egyptian and Tunisians did (which we admire), by removing the regime, but to construct a very new government – a constitutional monarchy. We want fair and equal treatment to all people, and stop all the political strategy to change the demographic balance of the country between the Sunni and Shi’a !! The majority do not want be considered as second class citizens who has no word what so over in the running of their own country !! I also want this country to stop treating women and LGBT in a derogatory way.  In particular persecution of gay, lebsian, bi and transgender people must stop, there are many of us in the Kingdom, we do not ask for the moon, we recognise this is a step by step process. But in the new Bahrain I don’t want laws like offending “public morality” or “debauchery” twisted and used against us. This has to stop!!

 

Just because I am Shi’a…

Many people say as I and others are Shi’a-Muslim, our loyalty is to Iran and not to our own country.  This makes me sad and angry: just because I am a Shi’a, that doesn’t mean I am related to any Iranian relations or come originally from Iran. I am a Bahraini, no matter what my religious or division, ethnicity or sexuality is!! Shi’a, Sunni, Christian, Atheist, Jewish, White, Black, Arab, Bedouin, Asian, Gay, Straight, etc… can all be loyal Bahrainis who love and want the best for their country.

 

I accuse the Bahraini government of Crimes Against Humanity!

I have been hearing the shots and the screams from home… I have been watching video clips of the army attacking their people, people of my country are dying, injured and scared to even go out from their houses. A DEVIL of a government that order their police forces and army to this to their own people. Yet we hear many people linking everything to Iran just because the dissaffected and the protestors are mainly Shi’a. Bahrainis went out to ask for their rights, no matter what division they are from !! Clear and simple!