Within a few hours of the announcement that the FIA has confirmed Formula 1′s return to Bahrain in April, the Bahrain Health Ministry issued a statement saying that a woman who was seriously hurt during recent anti-government protests has died of her injuries. The 27-year-old woman sustained head injuries last month in a Shiite village near the capital Manama. Local rights groups say that she was hit on the head by a metal rod during a protest and blame the security forces.
An independent commission, funded by the government, recently released a report confirming all the stories about what really happened during the uprisings in the spring, which were denied at the time by the administration. Confirming a race in 2012 is in effect a vote in favour of the government, despite the proven abuses and as yet no concrete signs of any actual reforms.
The FIA Statutes state that the federation “shall refrain from manifesting racial, political or religious discrimination in the course of its activities and from taking any action in this respect”. There is a fair argument that the decision by the World Council to confirm Bahrain’s date on the F1 calendar, and various other events, is in breach of these regulations.
Mr. Saward I understand your concern, but I just want to correct your information on a major part of the story. The woman was hit by the protesters on her way home with an iron rod that got stuck in her head, not the security forces! The security forces we the ones who rescued her and took her to the hospital where she remained there for a few weeks until she sadly passed away today. The hit may not have been intentional, but it was the protesters who threw that rod.
Thank you, just had to clarify
.
LAK,
I believe if you read the story you will see that it says “local rights groups say that she was hit on the head by a metal rod during a protest and blame the security forces”. Thus I did not say she was hit on the head by security forces. I was very careful not to say that. I would like to know why you think that I should believe you any more than I should believe any other sources of information available to me.
Should the US race be on the calendar then? Amnesty International has continually reported on human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay and “continued reports of police brutality and ill-treatment in prisons, jails and immigration detention facilities”
The FIA are damned if they do and damned if they don’t with Bahrain. If they refuse to sanction next year’s race now due to the troubles in the country, then they risk protestors in any country being able to threaten the safety of a Grand Prix as a political weapon. Likewise, confirming the race reinforces the government’s position as explained by Joe above, risking a GP being used by pro-government groups for political purposes.
The “return” to Bahrain is really a continuation of the existing contract, rather than a new initiative. The 2011 race was cancelled, but the intention to continue racing there in 2012 and beyond was never officially questioned. Had it been a new race on the calendar for 2012, it would be an entirely different proposition.
The government now is, as far as I understand, essentially the same government that has been in place for as long as F1 has been going to Bahrain. For the FIA to say today that the Bahrain Government is no longer fit to host a race when no major international government or the UN has taken any similar position would be a dangerous precedent.
Surely it is better to announce the calendar with Bahrain in place, and make a decision to cancel it at the last reasonable moment (allowing for insurance issues and the logistics required to get the F1 circus there) if it can’t safely be held? As far as I know, there are no diplomatic issues surrounding Bahrain’s government (compared to, say, Syria), and UK Government travel warnings are aimed at the safety of visitors rather than international political opposition to the Bahrain government.
The situation in that region has changed so dramatically in the last 12 months, who knows what will happen in the next 12 months? If the country is considered safe to visit at the time the circus needs to start shipping out, then it should go ahead. A reasonable allowance should be made for those who are morally/politically opposed to travelling to Bahrain, and freelancers, spectators, etc. can obviously make their own decisions
I realise this is all easy to say for an armchair critic, but if I was working in F1 I would be expecting to go until told otherwise. Personally I could do with Bahrain on the calendar, especially since nearby Abu Dhabi is able to represent the region quite well and there are other places I’d rather see on the calendar (e.g. – France), but the FIA would have been hypocritical to give Bahrain the chop today.
It is apparent to me that this is a decision that is entirely influenced by money, no right minded person would want to be associated with Bahrain right now, or in the immediate future…
…. what I would hope, for the future, is that the FIA would revisit this decision and that the sponsors would put pressure on the teams and the FIA… after all why would they want to appear to endorse, across a race weekend, a regime that is killing, unlawfully, its own citizens?
I don’t understand what the big deal is for confirming the race on the calendar. I agree, that there is no way F1 should hold the race in Bahrain and they won’t. They will cancel it. However, F1 is a business that is contract driven. Why are so many reporters up in arms that the released schedule includes Bahrain today when we all know the race will not go ahead next April?
Todays FIA WMSC decision is scandalous, pretentious and totally shameful.
Bahrain has never really belonged to the F1 community, I’ve never swallowed that marketing bullshit that an F1 track in the middle of the desert “adds to the spectacle of the sport”. The circuit was painfully soulless and it never offered a spectacular race during 7 years of existece.
On a human level, what the local government has done to protestors in February through March is scandalous. The FIA WMSC should have sent a strict message to the political leaders of Bahrain – instead they stuck to the race to be held. With FOTA getting weaker by the loss of Ferrari and RBR, I wonder if there will be any man (or body) brave enough to let his/its voice be heard against this scandalous decision.
F1 should not be there full stop.
Bernie & co, the FIA, whoever should make a stand out of principle. Instead, they’ve added it until there’s an uproar, when it will be removed.
They’re testing the water so they can earn more cash, when they should be saying to the regime “we don’t play in places that don’t look after its citizens”.
Keep at it Joe. They won’t be going. But how refreshing it would be to have a clear lead now, and not a contrived cop-out at the last minute !
I wish you would leave politics to the politickers and stick to what you’re good at (Formula 1). Its beginning to get tiresome to hear you pushing down YOUR political views on your blog…
utterly wrong but I think everybody has come to accept that F1 is no sport anymore.
but it`s fine really, I’ll just stream in to see the broadcasts (scrapped the cable for years now) so “my” business is doing fine…:)
Biggest clashes since february taking place right now around what used to be lulu roundabout.
Highway is closed down, the whole country is very tense with very heavy police presence.
Hence why staying in Europe is good. He is destroying good races for races by governments who destroy good people
davcuk,
Not a very global way pf looking at things.
Putting my devil’s advocate hat on briefly : you could argue that withdrawing a grand prix from a country on the grounds that you don’t agree with its politics (of bopping protesters on the head) is in fact manifesting political discrimination and as such the FIA’s hands are tied.
Being more sensible : the FIA tries to take a totally neutral stance throughout, some may argue rightly so, and hence should not cancel a grand prix for anything other than safety or sporting (or financial) reasons.
Being idealist : I’d be happy to see the FIA take a political stance and use the desire of various nations to host races as a way of pressuring them into making political changes.
Jem,
There is a big difference between not agreeing with the politics of a country and it being an unwise place to go.
Interestingly Mark Webber was one of the very few drivers to comment so emphatically about Bahrain this year.
According to one source I’ve read (and I know these could be wrong), but it appears Webber is sticking to it and commented again recently
“It’s obviously a very serious matter that went on, and potentially could be going on,” Red Bull driver Webber told the Daily Mail newspaper.
And I’m not sure if the following is from this year or about next year:
“That’s why Bernie (Ecclestone) has so many races on the calendar knowing that there could be a few, whether it’s a commercial reason, or a political reason in terms of Bahrain’s case, that could make it (the calendar) a little bit vulnerable.”
Joe,
I agree entirely (as per my previous discussion of the situation), that Bahrain is largely out of the news says nothing for the safety or internal security of the country. The FIA must do a better job of assessing the situation than it did last year.
Hopefully the situation will calm down and peace will return for all concerned. Or at the very least that the FIA will make a thorough assessment and make a sensible informed choice.
F1 cannot afford to get caught in any cross-fire, literally or figuratively speaking.
Jem,
I hear there is big trouble kicking off again right now. I am trying to confirm that at the moment.
Joe. You do such a good job of reporting but what is *your* personal view on this?
George,
My opinion is that it is a serious mistake for F1 to go to Bahrain at the present moment. The sad thing is that the sport made the mistake 12 months ago and has obviously nothing from its mistakes. If the leadership continues to make such mistakes they must expect criticism. I think that tomorrow you will see a whole lot of negative press for F1 as the human rights agencies and such people react to the news. I like Bahrain and I wish we could go back there, but right now it is wrong. The country needs three or four years to get its house properly in order and it is not the right time to be trying to present a glowing picture to the world, when clearly there is still serious trouble going on. And I would argue the same thing if this was happening in my own country.
Quite interesting to find- more or less – the same strong sentiments held, with regards to the question of Bahrain, as there were on your blog and Adam Cooper’s during February/March and May/June of this year. I would hope that the FIA are merely being extremely naive, ignorant and arrogant in involving the circuit on a number of its calenders, especially that of F1; that they believe that a programme of sport – however distant motorsport can appear to be to most people – can magically transform and heal a country.
Oops, final sentence in my rant was supposed to be “Personally I could do without Bahrain…” rather than “with”.
sahir,
you wrote: “Its beginning to get tiresome to hear you pushing down YOUR political views on your blog…”
Yes, it´s JOE´s blog. Get over it. He can claim the Earth is flat and made of sirup if he wants to.
So now that the affair is off the front pages, the FIA thinks its safe to quietly slip a grand prix back into a nation where protesters facing the death penalty have had appeal trials postponed and medical staff are facing 15 years in the clink for daring to patch up said protesters, the authorities having ‘found’ machine guns amongst other weapons at the medical center.
But His Majesty has mentioned the possibility of reform and US and British police are to be asked for advice so I guess that now we can let bygones be bygones and look forward to the rosy future.
Jakob Schmidt
I totally agree. I read it the first time and could not believe my eyes what sahir wrote. It is really funny.
“Its beginning to get tiresome to hear YOU pushing down YOUR political views on YOUR blog…”
Can’t make up these things.
Joe, I feel the pain with some of the comments…. really.
“shall refrain from manifesting racial, political or religious discrimination in the course of its activities and from taking any action in this respect”
What about moral discrimination, as in, legitimate descrimination aginst the immoral?
Business is business, as they say. But human welfare is human sodding welfare.
Thank you for clarifying Sir, but I just wanted to clarify incase people would think otherwise. I know you have been following the events here in Bahrain closely, and one thing that is still lacking is information available to the International media. Since the events in February, the Government have been very slow in their response to any questions the International media have thus resulting in one sided stories. Unfortunately what is been happening is that each side has their own version of the story, each trying to blame the other.
Now we live here and know what happens, as you Bahrain is a tiny island so it doesn’t take long for information to come out. Yes I am pro-government, and I’m not saying this to defend the government, but they have been honest in every single incident that occurred. They hold press conferences and detailed investigations on how and why a certain event happened. They explained to the public in detail how this lady was injured. So when I read that it may imply that she may have been injured by the security forces (because this is what the protesters are surprisingly saying) I felt I had to explain.
Things in Bahrain are much calmer and nowhere near the events of February and March. I don’t know if you read the BICI report? It is a very good one, yes it’s a never ending 500 page report, but it has everything in it. It describes both the mistakes of the government, and the atrocities committed by the protesters. HM the King vowed to see those who over abused prisoners and who made mistakes to be held responsible, and already created a committee to oversee the changes and recommendations suggested by the report. Bahrain is the first government to ever bring an International committee to judge and criticize their actions. And then present it publicly in front of the world. This shows the true intentions of our government, they never intended to abuse or harm any citizen. What happened were mistakes in reaction to the violence and terrorism we were all faced with by the protesters. This bold move was hailed by many countries, and shows Bahrain’s sincere will to fix things and move forward to help build a better Bahrain.
On the hand, what have the opposition done? So far nothing, which is very sad to see! Until when will they stay like this? We’ve had enough of their violence, enough of their terrorist Hezbolla acts. We are ready to move on, and will happily move forward without their backward violent thinking.
Sorry for the long post!
LAK,
I read the entire report and summarised here on the blog.
What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?
This is motor racing, not civics.
Moreover, there’s a legitimate argument to be made that those countries “the West” wants to see changed would be more inclined and pressured to do so were they included in international affairs rather than systematically excluded. All one has to do is look at the impoverished and suffering populations of Cuba and North Korea to see that political and economic isolation doesn’t necessarily work.
As much as it’s on the calendar now,I honestly don’t think it’ll go ahead if the riots and protests continue. It’s just not safe!. Heaven forbid protesters got into the track or some lone nut decides to throw something on the track.
All this for the sake of money and looking good to the rest of the world when in reality the country is in dire need of change and that only blood shed will sort out. This country has other issues to worry about than the luxury of a F1 race.
It was pulled off the calendar before and it can be pulled off the calendar again. or is Bernie that determined to pay off his $5.00 overdraft !
While I personally think it is cynical, despicable and money grabbingly grubby there is a strong argument that taking a “life goes on” stance is actually quite apolitical.