‘Arab media bias over Bahrain crisis’ – Bahrain Freedom Movement

27/01/2012 – 3:32 p | Hits: 389

Saudi-backed forces in Bahrain have killed four anti-regime protesters during the past 24 hours. Reports say one protester -identified as Muhammad Ali Ya’qhoub- lost his life after a police car ran over him in Sitra on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, two other protesters died due to teargas inhalation during an anti-regime rally outside the capital Manama. This comes as a fourth protester was tortured to death by regime forces. 

Bahrain is in the midst of a revolution that started in mid-February last year. Regime forces have killed scores of people and arrested many more during their brutal crackdown on peaceful anti-government protests. 

Press TV has conducted an interview with Hesham Tillawi, host of Current Issues TV and Radio from Lafayette, Los Angeles, regarding the issue. What follows is the transcript of the interview: 

Press TV: Mr. Tillawi, at what stage do you think the revolution in Bahrain is? 

Tillawi: I think the revolution in Bahrain is … it is going to take very long time before anything happens in Bahrain. You know, I am watching the news coverage in the Arab world, as far as what is happening in Syria and what is happening in Bahrain and you can tell the bias in the two coverage of those two countries. 

On the one hand, in Bahrain, they talk about the terrorists who are attacking the security forces with Molotov cocktail bombs and rocks, etcetera, but then in Syria, you are seeing a totally different coverage where the government is killing innocent people, even though, in Syria, the innocent people ‘have guns and they have rockets and they are killing the security forces’. 

But yet the Arab world media is only talking about how this Syrian regime is killing its own innocent civilians, but yet in Bahrain, the innocent civilians are the terrorists and they are the ones attacking security forces and they identify them as Shiite villagers. But they are not saying anything. 

So there is a huge gap and a huge problem for the people of Bahrain that democracy is far from being accomplished and I do not think the revolution in Bahrain, which by the way is one of the oldest revolutions in the Arab world that has been going on for over two or three decades of asking for democracy, asking to be treated as equals. 

But yet the world and the Arab media are not paying attention to it because the news media in the Arab world is basically telling a story that is not what is going on in the streets of Bahrain which is basically terrorist in Bahrain, even though they are unarmed civilians; they are men, women and children going out in the streets but the news media in the Arab world are calling them terrorists, but yet the terrorists in Syria, they are not even mentioning anything and they are the innocent people of Syria. 

So there is a problem for the people of Bahrain and for the revolution in Bahrain. 

Press TV: How do you explain the US double standards towards the issue of Bahrain? 

Tillawi: It is the same double standards that the media in the Arab world is taking on both of these. It is double standards. Let’s not kid each other. What is going on in the Middle East is controlled by the United States except what is going on in Bahrain. 

Because probably Bahrain is the only Arab country that the United States is not able to actually get in there and control the revolution just like the rest of the Arab world. They are controlling the one in Yemen; they control the one in Libya; they control the one in Syria; they control the one in Egypt all over the place but the one in Bahrain, so that is what double standard is. 

In those other Arab countries, they can control them; they can go in there and talk to these people and mold them the one they want, but in Bahrain, it is a totally different story. The United States is on the other side. The United States is in the government side in Bahrain. 

That is why they have basically allowed the Saudi army to go in and control the situation there in Bahrain a couple of months ago. But again, it is the double standards in the media; the double standards with the governments and the people of Bahrain unfortunately got caught in this Arab spring which I do not really call it Arab spring but that is the phrase they have used. 

It is not an Arab spring but the people of Bahrain are caught between in this situation and that is what they find. It is a very tough situation, a very unfortunate situation for the people of Bahrain.