Flick through the passport of any regular visitor to Bahrain, and you'll come across a familiar slogan stamped onto its pages: 'Welcome to business friendly Bahrain'. The campaign, which ran until recently, was a key part of the Gulf state's efforts to consolidate its position as a regional centre for financial services.
Only now, amid the wreckage of six months of violence and brutal government repression, those passport stamps serve as a grim reminder of what Bahrain has lost, and may never recover.
At least 30 Bahrainis were killed and thousands injured in clashes with the army during anti-government protests in February and March.
The violence led to the imposition of emergency law, which was revoked on June 1. However, opposition groups have since claimed that as many as 400 people, most of them from the country's majority Shi'a population, are on trial on charges stemming from the protests.
No comments:
Post a Comment