Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

-----have been arrested and detained without trial. The daughter of one of these people is on hunger strike in protest. It is a brutal situation. Saudi Arabia has been involved in supporting this regime. I suggest we need more than expressions of concern from the European Union. Ireland should challenge at European level and also with our US friends the unbelievable inconsistency of sending bombers to deal with one brutal dictatorship in Libya while doing nothing more than expressing concern and talking about investigations when it comes to the suppression of a democracy movement in Bahrain. Is the inconsistency in this matter something to do with the fact that Ireland, the European Union in general and the western powers in general, have major trade links with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and in the case of the bigger European powers and the US are arming these regimes to the teeth? This is why they want to do nothing to support actively the pro-democracy movements in Bahrain nor do they wish to take any serious action to restrain the authorities from crushing a pro-democracy movement.

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