Freed From Prison, Bahraini Activist Nabeel Rajab Urges U.S. to Stop Backing Regime’s Crackdown | Democracy Now!
Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, joins us after nearly two years behind bars for his role in pro-democracy protests. With the critical backing of the U.S. and neighboring Gulf states, the Bahraini government has waged a crackdown on opposition protesters since an uprising broke out in February 2011. "We have been abandoned by the American government, we have been ignored completely," Rajab says. "They support a dictatorship here... no one can change their policy except the American people." We are also joined by Human Rights Watch’s Josh Colangelo, author of a new report that finds Bahrain’s courts have played a key role in maintaining the country’s highly repressive political order, routinely sentencing peaceful protesters to lengthy prison terms.
