Pakistan army exports new mercenaries to kill Bahraini protesters

Pakistanis serving in Bahrain’s security forces were reportedly involved in a crackdown on protestors in Manama in February in which seven people were killed and hundreds injured. Some injured protestors told the media that the police who beat them up spoke Urdu.

“They are uneducated, don’t speak Arabic and are difficult to communicate with,” said Maryam alKhawaja, the head of the Foreign Relations Office at the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, about the Pakistanis serving in the anti-riot police.

“Mostly they are Baloch. One story I heard from a witness was that a Baloch refused to shoot a protestor at close range, despite orders from his superior, because he was saying Allah o Akbar. The high-ranking officer, who was Bahraini, took the Baloch’s weapons, beat him and then shot the protestor himself.

According to Reuters, opposition activists estimate that up to half of Bahrain’s approximately 20,000-strong national security apparatus is made up of Sunnis from Pakistan, Jordan and Yemen.

Recruiting security personnel from these countries and any moves to naturalise them is viewed by the opposition as a way to increase the Sunni demographic, given that at least 70 per cent of Bahrain’s population is Shia. Thousands protested in Manama earlier this week against any move to give citizenship to Sunnis serving in the military.

“We can’t tell whether there has been an increase in Pakistanis (in the security forces) since the government refuses to give us any numbers on political naturalisation,” said alKhwaja.