UK's PM urged to ban Bahrain's Olympic Chief from the games with e-petition

Posted : Tue 15 May 2012 - 3:07pm

Last Updated : Tue 15 May 2012 - 4:12pm 

An E-petition was launched on Tuesday calling on UK's prime minister David Cameron and Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to prohibit Nasser Bin Hamad, Bahrain's Olympic chief, from attending the London Olympics this summer.
Last week, Nasser Bin Hamad reportedly deleted all his tweets for fear of being banned from attending the games in London after Foreign Secretary William Hague said the government will not hesitate to use its powers to extend London 2012 travel bans to individuals and officials with connections to undesirable regimes. Nasser Bin Hamad's Twitter account shows more than 20,000 followers and zero tweets.
Since several screen captures of Bahrain's Olympic chief's tweets have been posted on Twitter by several activists. Last week, Dr Ala'a Shehabi, a lecturer, writer, and prominent Bahraini activist, posted a tweet in which Nasser Bin Hamad reportedly expressed "his desire for all athletes that were detained to get life imprisonment."
Today other prominent activists revealed two tweets in which he reportedly insults Al-Jazeera because of their "Shouting in the Dark" documentary about Bahrain and caused offense to Shi'ite clerics.
The petition states that:

Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Khalifa is the President of the Bahrain Olympic Committee. As such he is entitled to attend all events at this year's Olympic 2012 in London free of charge, receive discounted accommodation in a luxury hotel and be chauffeured to and from the Games in a BMW.

In last year's "Arab Spring" protests in Bahrain he publicly called on TV for "a wall to fall on the heads" of all those who demonstrated against the Government, including athletes and went on to head a committee that targeted 150 sportsmen and sports officials, including a disabled athlete.

They were arrested, imprisoned and many were tortured. Some prisoners claim that they were personally beaten or tortured by Sheikh Nasser himself. Their crime? Peacefully demonstrating and calling for the downfall of the Al Khalifa ruling monarchy of which Sheikh Nasser is a leading member and the King's son.

Two of Bahrain's national football team players, the brothers A’ala and Mohammed Hubail, were also arrested and prosecuted. When Mohammed, capped 52 times for Bahrain, was sentenced to 2 years in prison, Sheikh Nasser Tweeted, “If it was up to me, I’d give them all life.”

 

 

 

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