What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Saeed Shehabi, here we have fifty of these activists who have been given sentences of fifteen years. This is getting to a point where obviously Amnesty has called it terrible act.
What can be done here in order to highlight the case of Bahrain more? Just Amnesty coming out and making these type of statements is not cutting it, so to speak?
Shehabi: I believe that the stupidity of the regime has ensured that the case of Bahrain is against more international exposure. Only last week Mr. Obama mentioned Bahrain alongside Syria and Iraq. So this is one thing that the authorities in Bahrain had not expected.
Now to put these fifty people on trial, I am one of those fifty and I have been sentenced now together with the others to fifteen years of in jail. To put them on trial for these trumped-up charges is just another ploy that has failed before and it is going to fail this time.
There is no point of imprisoning half the population and putting them behind bars and torturing them. There is simply no point and that is not going to solve the problem.
There is a political problem. When Mr. Obama said there is sectarian problem the ruling family said no, there is no sectarian problem. We agree with the ruling family here. This is the only time where we agree with them .
It is not a sectarian problem, it is a serious political movement that wants to achieve change in Bahrain but the regime continues and tries to woo the Arab voice by saying that it is sectarian. It is not sectarian. It is a genuine national political revolution that wants real and serious change in the country.
So I believe that the case of Bahrain is gradually imposing itself on the international arena and that those reports that we see by Amnesty or by Human Rights Watch or by the European Union or by the countries who signed the petition, the statement two weeks ago or mentioning Bahrain at the United Nations General Assembly, these are all signs of exposure [at] the international level.
So I believe that we are getting somewhere, we are heading for victory, the people’s hands will really become the dominant at the end and I do not think oppression, repression, dictatorship, despotism is going to win the day.
Press TV: The big question that remains of course one is US Fifth Fleet and the other is the relationship that the United States has with Saudi Arabia.
Do you think that Saudis have told the US to back off from Bahrain which is why we are kind of seeing the US in the many instances look the other way? I mean I think it was up to Saudi Arabia they would have a one man presidential election like they did in Yemen which was approved by the US but they cannot do that in the case of Bahrain. Is there a case true that Saudi is telling the US to back off from Bahrain?
Shehabi: Well the Saudis have been asking the United States and their allies in the West not to take any interest in Bahrain. Leave Bahrain to us, let us go, let us occupy the country, let us send our arms, let us destroy their mosques, let us rape their women and you have nothing to do with it, otherwise we will not give you back the billions of dollars that we get in money for oil.
But has that worked? I believe there is a limit to how much the Saudis can influence the West. At the end of the day there are people who are being killed, who are being tortured, there are international bodies which are talking about the plight of Bahrainis and the Saudis can only influence to that extent.
Other than that, the Saudis themselves are under fire now for violating the rights of their own people, in a country where even driving a car by women is not allowed and according to one of their Sheikhs it can cause physiological change in the women’s body, these really stupid comments cannot really cut ice with the world which is looking forward to democratization of the world.
Of course it is hypocritical in this aspect, it does not want to see democracy in the region but at the end of the day the sacrifices of the people will impose themselves and that the Saudis do not have and should not possess the ultimate power of veto power. They have lost in Syria, they are losing in Lebanon and they will be losing in Egypt where they staged a coup against the elected government.
So I do not think the Saudis is an alternative to democracy. The money is not the only thing in life and the people’s stands, their courage, their blood, their rights, their humanity, their dignity will dominate the scene at the end and those dictatorships will have nowhere but to go and to submit to the will of the people.
