[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 28, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S1494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                BAHRAIN

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President. 6 years ago this month, more than 100,000 
Bahrainis of all ages and backgrounds joined together to protest their 
government. Although these men and women took to the streets 
peacefully, they were met with violence as the regime unleashed its 
state security forces. Using threats and intimidation, tear gas, live 
ammunition, and even torture, the regime brutally repressed the 
peaceful demonstrations. Following widespread international 
condemnation, the regime agreed to create an independent body to look 
into the crackdown and propose reforms--the Bahrain Independent 
Commission of Inquiry or BICI--and when the BICI came back with 26 
recommendations, the KING promised to urgently implement them all.
  Six years later, the regime has not upheld that commitment. When our 
own State Department last reported on each BICI recommendation, it 
could only identify a handful that had been fully implemented--a far 
cry from the regime's claim of full implementation. The chairman of the 
BICI admitted last year that most recommendations have not been fully 
implemented. NGOs following these issues have been even more critical, 
noting with alarm that the regime has actually reversed BICI 
recommendations. Earlier this year, for example, the regime restored 
the power to arrest and detain Bahrainis to Bahrain's National Security 
Agency--a power that had been stripped following the BICI report's 
recommendation in 2011.
  That decision follows a year in which the regime has moved 
aggressively to close the space for peaceful opposition. Since last 
February, the regime disbanded the largest opposition party, al-Wifaq, 
doubled the prison sentence of the party's leader, Sheikh Ali Salman, 
and detained numerous human rights advocates like Nabeel Rajab simply 
for speaking out. Advocates told my staff recently that the regime's 
escalating violence over the past year reached levels unseen since the 
2011 protests.
  The United States should not hesitate to raise its voice when foreign 
governments clamp down on speech and expression. This is even truer 
when the government in question is a U.S. ally, as the Bahrain regime 
is. I was disappointed that more administration officials did not 
appear to share this view with respect to Bahrain Indeed the State 
Department chose to lift self-imposed holds on weapons sales to Bahrain 
in 2015, a decision that I and many in the advocacy community saw as 
rewarding bad behavior and incentivizing more of it. In fact, I 
introduced bipartisan legislation last Congress that would have 
reinstated the ban on certain weapons sales until the administration 
could certify that the regime had implemented all 26 BICI 
recommendations. Congress adjourned last December without passing our 
bill, but I intend to resume my efforts this Congress.
  As I sometimes remind my colleagues here, my goal here is neither to 
insult nor to undermine a U.S. ally. My hope is that someday I will be 
able to stop reading these statements into the record every February 
because the Bahraini regime has stopped repressing its citizens and has 
instead entered into a real and inclusive dialogue with them. 
Unfortunately, this regime has shown itself so unwilling to pursue 
dialogue and reconciliation that I must continue my calls for 
accountability. For that reason, I speak out today, on the sixth 
anniversary of the peaceful uprising, to call again for reform in 
Bahrain and an end to further oppression.

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