'Divide, Repress & Rule!'

I hear that Alain Gresh got kicket off an Al Arabiya's show with Gizelle Khoury, for having mentioned "Bahrain" more than once...

"... The leader of the National Unity Gathering, Sheikh Abdalatif Al-Mahmoud, a Sunni and close to Bahrain’s royal family, justified these measures in an interview with the daily Asharq Al-Awsat on 20 March. He said the Shia had planned to seize power through a coup, and this had to be prevented. He sees his Shia compatriots as divided into three categories: those who are working with Iran; those who are waiting to see how the confrontation turns out; and those who support the regime: these, he disclosed, are no more than 20% of the country’s Shia Muslims. Al-Mahmoud went further; he admitted that the majority of Bahrain’s Shia are opposed to the regime. Rarely in Bahrain has a political figure accused the majority of his countrymen of being active or potential agents of foreign powers....

Dissatisfaction grew and on 14 February, in the wake of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Bahrain’s first demonstration against the reigning dynasty took place. One demonstrator was killed, and at his funeral the next day another young man died. In a spectacular gesture, the king apologised for the deaths and the opposition parties, who were demanding democratic reforms and a constitutional monarchy, peacefully occupied the Pearl Roundabout in Manama’s financial district...

The blow to the movement came, however, from outside the country ...Exasperated by the stalemate in negotiations, Saudi Arabia eventually issued an ultimatum: Bahrain must stop the demonstrations or Saudi Arabia would step in.... A violent sectarian crackdown was unleashed on the Bahraini opposition, including Sunnis, and on the majority of the Shia population. The police, all Sunni and many of them naturalised foreigners who regard the Shia as sub-human, exhibited horrific brutality.

The United States was at first concerned at Saudi Arabia’s military intervention — it had tried to broker an agreement between the king and the opposition but Saudi Arabia thwarted the initiative..."