With hospitals closed to the wounded in Bahrain, people have taken to performing operations were they can. Without anaesthetic, fingers probe gaping holes for bullets, and tend to the wounds with whatever medicines can be smuggled from the guarded hospitals or found in the bathroom cabinet.
Outside vigilantes roam the streets, attacking those that defy the curfew, chasing others back to their homes and breaking into the ransack them.
In Manama calls of ‘Allah Akbar’ ring out at night in defiance against the curfew and crackdown.
People dare not take their dog for a walk beyond the four walls of the corridor of their apartment block. They pace backward and forwards and drop the mess out of the window; after checking the street for snipers.
The internet is intermittent, foreign journalists are being stopped at the borders, and the printing press of the opposition newspaper, Al Wasat, was attacked yesterday by men with knives and clubs.
The state broadcaster continues to pump out the message that the demonstrators are attacking the government and are responsible for the chaos. Often using footage of the same wrecked police cars, that hours earlier have appeared on YouTube being smashed up by police officers.
Yet still the people dare to march and demonstrate, despite Lulu being ‘cleansed’.
Sixteen are reported dead today.
And 250 miles away, a cancerous old man pulls the strings of his pan-Arabic empire that has been carefully built on coercion and bribery, paid for by oil money, bolstered by blind religious adherence and the blackmail of a return to 1973; as he fights to stave off reform, and prove himself independent of the United States and the rest of the world.
The FIA will decide on May 1st whether to hold a Grand Prix.
No comments:
Post a Comment