Bahrain Interview: 4 Activists Analyse "The Story That Should Be Covered" (Rajab/Mohammed/Khalaf/Shehabi)
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 8:18
Ala'a Shehabi with FamilyAl Jazeera English interviews Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, before his detention on Saturday; "Mohammed", an activist; Abdulhadi Khalaf, professor of sociology at Lund University in Sweden; and Ala'a Shehabi, economist and activist:
What is the story that's not being covered?
Mohammed: The scale of the ongoing and continual violations of human rights are not being explained by the media. Even compared with Syria, the numbers of Bahrainis who have been tortured and otherwise abused and killed is quite high.
Nabeel Rajab: The problem is still that most commentators focus on the Sunni-Shia split as the most important issue, when the real story is about a nation fighting for democracy and a proper political and economic system, free from corruption.
Ala'a Shehabi: If we want to get away from general terms and move to more specific stories about people's daily lives during the uprising, the way people are living with being tear-gassed on a daily basis and the long term effects of tear gas on people's health is an important story.