Human Rights in the US: How Are They?
Published in Al-Bilad
(Bahrain) on 4 August 2012
by Ahmad Sind Al-Bana'ly (link to original)
The annual U.S. Department of State human rights report shows that it is supposed that many states do not care about what is reported against them. Such reports do not express the truth of human rights in the world, despite those leaders who proclaim themselves judges of the world and who monitor others, while forgetting themselves in clear ignorance, applying the adage, “Study the other and forget yourself, you ignorant one.” Thus, that report is no more than an expression of U.S. political desires. It is formulated to serve U.S. interests and to be used as a scarecrow to frighten the others who believe in the importance of what is issued within it.
It is not necessary for us to criticize what the report states about many of the other countries. What interested us mainly is what it stated about our country, about which we know more than the U.S. does. This falsity also shows what the U.S. Department of State says about others, so we continue with what the report said about Bahrain in order to provide evidence to the other countries that what the report included is far from the truth.
At some points, the report discusses the lack of religious freedom in the kingdom and the types of discrimination the state practices toward citizens' rights. This suggests that whoever wrote the report based his writing of it on hearsay and not on truths, or that he deliberately obscured facts and stated the opposite of the truth. The practice of religious rites for all religious followers is completely available in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Religious followers practice their religions without objection or hindrance preventing them from practice at any time or from building religious buildings, such as synagogues, churches, mosques, funeral sites and others we do not want to name now.
This stands in contrast to other states that claim this freedom in their texts and forbid it in practice. For instance, the minaret controversy in Switzerland, which prevents Muslims from building [minarets] for reasons unrelated to freedom or the practice of religious rites, is not far from the minds of observers of such incidents. Rather, there have been a lot of arguments in order to prevent Muslims there from building one.
The situations is similar in the U.S., where there are countless restrictions when it comes to Islam and the different states disagree about laws to enforce such prevention, though the laws in those states differ from federal laws.
As for discrimination, this is the last thing that that country has the right to address with others: The U.S. has practiced and continues to practice discrimination of rights against all its citizens of Arab or Muslim descent, to the degree that it has banned them, in some situations, only for their being descendants of their nationality, being bearded or expressing some kind of similar commitment to Islam. Even now, Islam or "Arabness" represents a fault that obscures general rights for those who possess this trait.
Islam suffers a lot in that country, despite its followers being the largest of its minorities, growing at a greater rate than other religious groups. Nonetheless, they are treated with bias, despite efforts to make things appear otherwise. [President] Bush junior killed Muslims all over; then he received some of them at the White House during Ramadan and holidays, practicing a contradiction in words and action.
This country [the U.S.] is the biggest practitioner of discrimination in its establishment of the rights of Muslims and Arabs, even if we ignore its practices outside its territory as its rights and the rights of all. The past decade is not long behind us [in time or mind]. We lived it, and we lived what U.S. leaders did to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are still on YouTube and other social networking sites. Then it [the U.S.] comes around and says that Bahrain practices discrimination and wages war on religions, as if others cannot read and do not understand.
The glory is to God.
It is not necessary for us to criticize what the report states about many of the other countries. What interested us mainly is what it stated about our country, about which we know more than the U.S. does. This falsity also shows what the U.S. Department of State says about others, so we continue with what the report said about Bahrain in order to provide evidence to the other countries that what the report included is far from the truth.
At some points, the report discusses the lack of religious freedom in the kingdom and the types of discrimination the state practices toward citizens' rights. This suggests that whoever wrote the report based his writing of it on hearsay and not on truths, or that he deliberately obscured facts and stated the opposite of the truth. The practice of religious rites for all religious followers is completely available in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Religious followers practice their religions without objection or hindrance preventing them from practice at any time or from building religious buildings, such as synagogues, churches, mosques, funeral sites and others we do not want to name now.
This stands in contrast to other states that claim this freedom in their texts and forbid it in practice. For instance, the minaret controversy in Switzerland, which prevents Muslims from building [minarets] for reasons unrelated to freedom or the practice of religious rites, is not far from the minds of observers of such incidents. Rather, there have been a lot of arguments in order to prevent Muslims there from building one.
The situations is similar in the U.S., where there are countless restrictions when it comes to Islam and the different states disagree about laws to enforce such prevention, though the laws in those states differ from federal laws.
As for discrimination, this is the last thing that that country has the right to address with others: The U.S. has practiced and continues to practice discrimination of rights against all its citizens of Arab or Muslim descent, to the degree that it has banned them, in some situations, only for their being descendants of their nationality, being bearded or expressing some kind of similar commitment to Islam. Even now, Islam or "Arabness" represents a fault that obscures general rights for those who possess this trait.
Islam suffers a lot in that country, despite its followers being the largest of its minorities, growing at a greater rate than other religious groups. Nonetheless, they are treated with bias, despite efforts to make things appear otherwise. [President] Bush junior killed Muslims all over; then he received some of them at the White House during Ramadan and holidays, practicing a contradiction in words and action.
This country [the U.S.] is the biggest practitioner of discrimination in its establishment of the rights of Muslims and Arabs, even if we ignore its practices outside its territory as its rights and the rights of all. The past decade is not long behind us [in time or mind]. We lived it, and we lived what U.S. leaders did to Iraq and Afghanistan. Even Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are still on YouTube and other social networking sites. Then it [the U.S.] comes around and says that Bahrain practices discrimination and wages war on religions, as if others cannot read and do not understand.
The glory is to God.