[Debate] Maryam al-Khawaja: "My Father Is Dying" (Maryam's father Abdulhadi is on his 57th day of hunger strike today)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://bit.ly/HhHn3l>
My Father Is Dying
5 Apr 2012

* Maryam al-Khawaja - Bahraini Activist and Head of Foreign Relations
for the Bahrain Center for Human Rights

This is the thought constantly running through my head.

As a human rights defender I have learned to numb my emotions and
continue working. I have been working on covering human rights
violations in Bahrain for more than two years now, documenting all the
arbitrary arrests, systematic torture, rapes, kidnappings,
extra-judicial killings; the list goes on.

At 24 years old I’ve come to learn how the world quantifies the value
of a life. In Bahrain, the livelihood of an entire nation is not worth
the value of one barrel of oil sold to the west by Saudi Arabia.
Politics and geopolitical interests are what decide whether a people
can live with dignity or if they are viewed as sub-human.

This politicization of the human condition is not only present in the
policies of nation states, but in the international mechanisms
supposedly set up to protect human rights. The so-called Arab spring
proved, once again, that we are still living in an age where  the UN
Human Rights Council has little agency to act on its own accord. It,
like all other agencies must bow to the powers that be.

Faced with the enormous obstacle that is geopolitics, it has become
increasingly more difficult for me to remain hopeful and motivated. It
is difficult to remain impartial and refuse to take up personal cases
of my family members who have been imprisoned and tortured.

I constantly fear the phone call bearing the message that I will never
see my father again. I cannot imagine a life without my father, and I
cannot come to terms with a world that would allow my father to die.

Today, April 5th, is my fathers birthday. Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, the man
who dedicated himself to fighting for human rights, who trained tens
of other activists, is known as the Godfather of human rights in
Bahrain. My father, who was beaten unconscious in front of his family,
arrested, then severely tortured for months. My father, sentenced to
life imprisonment in a military court. My father, on his 57th day of
hunger strike as his only way of protesting the daily human rights
violations of the Bahraini regime against the people of Bahrain.

My father, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja is dying to live. Literally.

This is what propels my activism. This is why I will continue to fight.

<https://twitter.com/#!/angryarabiya/status/187961813051252737>
My father, on his 57th day of hungerstrike, God give us strength and
patience #bahrain http://twitpic.com/95zoo6

<https://twitter.com/#!/BahrainRights/status/187992618184093696>
The voice of Zainab Alkhawaja can be heard as she calls for her dying
father "Baba" at the gate of the prison http://www.twitvid.com/DXR24
#Bahrain
--
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://mrzine.org/>