MANAMA, Bahrain — An independent commission examining the unrest that occurred in Bahrain earlier this year will document and detail the widespread attacks by anti-government protestors on South Asian citizens that left at least four dead and almost 100 injured.
That report will be the first public examination of the scale and suffering caused by those attacks against Bahrain’s South Asian citizens. Those attacks have been largely ignored by the media primarily because they do not fit the commonly accepted narrative of the Arab Spring.
According to documents received by the independent commission, which is to report its findings on November 23, at the peak of the unrest in March 2011 a series of violent attacks erupted against the South Asian expatriate community. The attacks were primarily orchestrated by mobs of masked armed men roaming the neighborhoods where expatriates were known to live, according to information provided to the independent commission.
The anti-government mobs broke into the houses of the expatriates, brutally beating everyone in their way and vandalizing the properties, according to reports collected by the commission. According to testimony and documentation presented to the commission, the attackers’ rage against the Asian expatriates is said to have been driven by the sentiment that foreigners are taking away jobs from native born Bahrainians. Moreover, in some cases, the expatriates — particularly the Pakistanis – were also targeted because they were believed to be associated with policemen, the commission has found. Many South Asian citizens are members of the police force in Bahrain.
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