While Washington and much of the West turns away, citizens must continue raising their voices. Anthony Shadid writes in the New York Times:
Activists trade stories of colleagues forced to eat feces in prison and high-ranking Shiite bureaucrats compelled to crawl in their offices like infants. Human rights groups say 43 Shiite mosques and religious structures were destroyed or damaged by a government that contended that it faced an Iranian-inspired plot, without offering any evidence that Tehran played a role. Backed by the armed intervention of Saudi Arabia, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa declared martial law in March, and though it was repealed June 1, the reverberations of the repression still echo across the island.
“They told me, ”˜There are two ways we can deal with you — as a human or as an animal,’… ” Matar Matar, 45, recalled being told after he was arrested by men in civilian clothes in May and jailed for three months.