Maryam Al-Khawaja looks remarkably fresh faced for someone who has spent the last six months travelling around the world trying to raise awareness of the ongoing struggle in Bahrain. At only twenty four she is the Head of Foreign Relations for the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, an organisation that campaigns for liberty and political reform in the tiny gulf state. But she tells me that activism is in the blood, ”This idea of activism is something that runs within my family, my father is an activist, my mother is a activist, my sisters are also very outspoken’’
Raised in Denmark due to her father’s exile for campaigning for human rights in the gulf state, her family returned home when she was fourteen as when, ‘’The old amir died his son took over and because of the unrest of the 1990’s was forced to enact changes to calm the situation down’’. However, she adds that, ”Unfortunately the changes he made that were positive were never institutionalized, the situation just started deteriorating, so although at the beginning people had hope that Bahrain would turn into a real constitutional monarchy, ten years down the line this is where we are.’’ Indeed, the Sunni monarchy has in the last decade stepped up its restrictions on Bahrain’s Shia majority, something that Al-Khawaja campaigned against before the current outbreak of unrest.
On February 14th 2011, the current wave of protests began in Bahrain. While the underlying reasons for revolt were already present, events elsewhere in the Arab World were to prove the trigger the protests. ‘‘The Tunisian and the Egyptian revolutions really inspired people in Bahrain, in to really hoping and believing that they can actually create that kind of change, and probably that’s why the revolution happened.’’
Maryam tells me that to start with the protestors had fairly limited aims. ”To begin with they were asking for a new constitution, made by the people for the people and they also asked for more political involvement’’. The Bahraini government however met the peaceful protests with force using tear gas and rubber bullets, something which led from ‘’calls for a new constitution, to the entire regime needs to go. That’s the notion that we have today, that people want the regime to step down and there to be a democratic government that’s elected by the people.’’
In a country of only 600,000 citizens, the human cost of the protests has been high. Al Khawaja says that the protestors have ‘had around 2,700 people fired from their jobs for joining the protests, 44 people killed (including three members of the security forces) and 1,500 people arrested’’. Furthermore, she believes ‘’that between 90 and 95% (of those arrested) have been subject to severe torture’’. Perhaps most shockingly of all she claims ‘members of the royal family were actually directly involved in torturing people’’.
When she heard of the protests Maryam knew that she needed to get involved, ‘'[what] I saw during the days of the Pearl Square and because of the injustice and what people were willing to take to fight for their freedom and their rights, it just amazed me and really inspired me and believing that I had to help them reach that reach that aspiration.’’ Accordingly she flew back to Bahrain and started ‘’documenting and reporting on human rights violations’’. For the few weeks she was in the country, Maryam was right at the heart of protests. ‘’I was in the roundabout [in Pearl Square] at all times, documenting what was happening and I’d also be in the hospital documenting injuries and everything.’’
In early March she left Bahrain to try and rally support for the protestors overseas, something which Maryam views as crucial. ”I’ve always thought about going back, but I feel that the role I’m playing today is much more important than participating in the actual protest and because I’ve played a very important role in making sure that Bahrain is not forgotten. I meet with all kinds of governments all the time, especially the US government, to try and relate to them what’s going on the ground. I play an instrumental role in bringing information to the different NGO’s and organisation around the world.’’
This is something that she views as vital in stopping the oppression of protests and people’s liberties which has become the norm in Bahrain during the security crackdown of the last nine months. Indeed, Al-Khawaja believes that the international community has the power to convince the regime to later its course.
”There needs to be immense and urgent international pressure to stop human rights violations in Bahrain, the Bahraini people are more than capable of making their own demands and making sure that those demands are met, all we need to do is make sure that there is enough international pressure to stop the human rights violations.’’
She points out that twenty medical workers who were sent to prison by a special security court earlier this year are currently undergoing a civilian retrial, due to the regime coming in for fierce criticism from the UN and international rights’ groups for the verdict. Al-Khawaja takes the view that Bahrain, as such a small country, is uniquely susceptible to international pressure, in a way that relatively large countries such as Syria are not.
However, Al-Khawaja is adamant that the last thing the country needs is a Libyan style Western intervention. Rather she wants Western governments to exert diplomatic pressure to stop the abuses of human rights that are currently taking place in the country. She is clearly frustrated over the lack of international support and what she views as the hypocrisy of their stance. ‘‘Western government’s also praise human rights, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to convince them, which it is right now, to convince them to stand on the side of human rights.’’
The lack of willingness on the part of countries like the UK and the US to come out and support the protestors is not perhaps not surprising. Bahrain and its monarchy is after all an key Western ally in the region and hosts an important US airbase. Western reticence has however angered many protestors in Bahrain. Consequently the protestors have changed tack in their bid to win support around the world. They ”have stopped trying to reach out to governments, when they reach out now they’re reaching out to the public, they’re reaching out to people like you and me abroad, and that’s where they’re looking for support now.’’
This is why Maryam is so keen to talk to student groups as well as governments. Student and public support she believes can counteract the sense amongst the Bahraini people ‘that they’ve been completely abandoned by the international community’’. Such support according to Al-Khawaja can have a significant impact, as ‘any kind of motion coming from the outside for the Bahraini people, saying you know what, we know what you’re going through and we’re standing here with you and we’re going to do everything we can to support you, really changes things for people on the ground, it really raises their morale.’’
One thing Maryam is sure of though is that the protestors will ultimately succeed in their aims. ‘‘Whether it takes five years, ten years, fifteen years its going to happen, it’s just about how long its going to take and how many lives are going to have to be lost before change comes about.’’ However long it takes the Bahraini revolution, with such an eloquent and committed proponent as Al-Khawaja as its face abroad, it is unlikely to be forgotten.
Maryam Al-Khawaja was in Oxford to talk to OxWiP and the Oxford Islamic Society
