Bahrain absolute monarchy update

This video from Bahrain says about itself:

Bahrain police target women [in a] car by teargas directly, [causing] them to suffocate.

From Associated Press:

Bahrain opposition defies ban on meeting diplomats

Updated September 20, 2013 – 10:51am

MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain’s main Shiite opposition group is defying a ban by the island’s Sunni government to have direct contacts with foreign diplomats.

Al Wefaq‘s secretary-general, Sheik Ali Salman, met Norwegian political affairs envoy Hakon Smedsvig on Thursday in the Bahraini capital, Manama.

Bahrain’s Western-backed monarchy earlier this month banned all diplomatic contacts by political groups unless they receive official permission. The move was sharply criticized by Western governments, including the U.S.

This week, authorities detained a top Al Wefaq official on allegations of inciting violence. In return, the group announced a boycott of reconciliation talks with the government.

The strategic Gulf nation has been gripped by unrest since an uprising launched in early 2011 by [the] majority seeking a greater political voice.

Bahrain arrests opposition leader; U.S. shrugs: here.

Dispatches: US Thinks Arresting Peaceful Opposition is OK – in Bahrain, at Least: here.

Bahrain: US Embraces Cruel Dictators Who Host the Navy and Supply Our Oil: here.

Ham and Iron: America’s Middle East Policies in Action: here.

Amnesty urges Bahrain to free opposition ex-MP: here. And here.

A Bahrain court yesterday jailed five Shias for periods up to 10 years: here.

Bahrain: Targeting the Healers: When Governments Attack Health Workers in Times of Conflict: here.

Bahrain is mourning the death of a five-year-old boy who was left on a school bus for up to six hours with outside temperatures soaring above 30 degrees Celcius: here.

Security forces in Bahrain “routinely detain children without cause and subject them to ill-treatment that may rise to the level of torture,” a report by Human Rights Watch claimed today: here.

Bahrain’s rebellion continues in spite of domestic and regional pressures: here.

So you remember John Timoney, right? Philadelphia’s police commissioner in the late 1990s/early 2000s, the man responsible for a) fairly effective crime control but b) civil liberties fiascoes like this one in the City of Brotherly Love in 2000 and this even worse one in Miami, where he ended up. As I wrote early last year in a Daily News cover story, our man John of Arabia took the money and ran to Bahrain, where the monarchs (yes, they still have these) needed some advice on how to put down the Arab Spring and pro-democracy protesters without getting all torture-y about it. Timoney is still earning his king’s ransom: here.

Zainab al-Khawaja, an opposition activist in Bahrain who charted the uprising in the country on her @AngryArabiya Twitter feed until she was detained this year, has sent an audio message to her supporters from prison: here.

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• Bahrain regime violence (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Bahrain absolute monarchy arrests blogger’s lawyer (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)