Bahrain: UK royal trip ends, fears of overlooked crackdown
MANAMA, Bahrain — As a commemoration for British dead from World War I attended by Britain’s Prince Charles reached its end, the call to Friday prayer in Bahrain from nearby Shiite mosques began.
For a carefully scripted royal visit, it marked the first time Shiites not allied with Bahrain’s Sunni rulers reached the Prince of Wales’ ears.
Prince Charles and his wife Camilla’s three-nation tour of the Gulf ended Friday in Bahrain, with the two waving goodbye from the door of their airplane. They left behind a Shiite-majority country in the grips of a crackdown on dissent, the like of which unseen since its 2011 Arab Spring protests.
“I don’t see what’s gone on behind closed doors or whether the prince raised any questions of human rights,” said Ebrahim Sharif, a leader in the secular Waad Party. “Bahrain’s government values its relations with the U.K. and if the U.K. puts its weight behind the improvement of human rights in Bahrain, the government will listen. They need friends.”