Protest over award to Bahraini prime minister

DEMONSTRATORS gathered outside one of the country’s leading medical school yesterday to protest against the granting of an academic award to the prime minister of Bahrain.

Nationals of the Middle-Eastern country living in Ireland protested outside the entrance to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, on Dublin's Stephen's Green where Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa was receiving an honorary fellowship from the institution.

"The invitation of Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa to the Republic is an insult to the people of this country and the democratic values it strives to uphold," said Abdulhadi, a spokesman for the protestors.

Abdulhadi said Bahrain had carried out human rights abuses over the last three decades.

"Along the years incidents of torture, rape, murder, intimidation and ethnic cleansing have ravaged the kingdom."

He said as prime minister, Sheikh Al-Khalifa, was the man ultimately responsible.

In its 2003 annual report, Amnesty International said positive steps had been taken to improve the human rights situation in the country.

But it added: "A few human rights violations were reported during the year. Security forces used excessive force against demonstrators and a student died when he was hit by rubber bullets. Two people were detained and severely beaten. An Ethiopian woman remained under sentence of death."