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One of America’s best friends and allies is torturing children, even as they continue to receive U.S. aid, weapons, training, and defense guarantees.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International<\/a>:<\/p>\n Children are being routinely detained, ill-treated and tortured in Bahrain, said Amnesty International in a\u00a0new briefing<\/a>\u00a0published today.<\/p>\n Scores of children arrested on suspicion of participating in anti-government protests \u2013 including some as young as 13 \u2013 were blindfolded, beaten and tortured in detention over the past two years the organization said. Others were threatened with rape in order to extract forced confessions.<\/p>\n \u201cBy rounding up suspected under-age offenders and locking them up, Bahrain\u2019s authorities are displaying an appalling disregard for its international human rights obligations,\u201d said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International\u2019s Middle East and North Africa Programme.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n These are not the first revelations of Bahraini children being abused by the U.S. backed regime.\u00a0\u201cBahrain\u00a0security forces routinely detain children without cause and subject them to ill-treatment that may rise to the level of torture,\u201d Human Rights Watch said in a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0last September.<\/p>\n \u201cRounding up kids, throwing them in jail and beating and threatening them is no way for a country to treat its children,\u201d said\u00a0Joe Stork, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe Bahraini authorities need to look into these allegations and immediately call a halt to any arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of children.\u201d<\/p>\n And it’s not just the children. The regime continues to imprison political dissidents<\/a>.\u00a0Protests have been outlawed, specifically \u201csit-ins, rallies and gatherings in the capital Manama.\u201d\u00a0It is also illegal to \u201cincite hatred\u201d against the security forces (whatever that means), and people can be thrown in prison for calling the king a \u201cdictator\u201d on Twitter (something that has happened to\u00a0at least eleven people<\/a>).<\/p>\n Virtually anyone who dissents from the brutal authority of the Bahraini crown is labeled a “terrorist,” a buzzword fashionable among U.S. allies.<\/p>\n None of this prompts the Obama administration to bat an eye, because Bahrain is a strategic asset.\u00a0The U.S. Navy\u2019s Fifth Fleet is stationed in the tiny Persian Gulf island, giving Washington control over the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf, through which over 40 percent of the world\u2019s seaborne oil transits.<\/p>\n