Their latest challenge is to make amendments to a 1976 law to allow people to carry daggers !!!
Now without having daggers around their waistlines, the number of people who have been stabbed over the previous few days makes living in Bahrain feel surreal.
There is no way the Ministry of Interior would come forward and give us statistics of the number of people stabbed or threatened or terrorised at knife point because Bahrain is a country which loathes the idea of hanging out its dirty underwear for all to see.
Lemme skim some of the news in my favourite (die you spiteful lot out there!) paper the Gulf Daily News:
** This appeared on February 2, 2005:
Stabbed, beaten and tortured
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POLICE were yesterday hunting three Bahraini men following a brutal attack in which Filipino hairdresser Albert Gayo was beaten, stabbed and tortured.Mr Gayo, 44, is in Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) with multiple injuries, after jumping from his second floor flat window to escape, on Sunday night.
He landed on a car roof and crawled across the road to the Umm Al Hassam Police Station.
"I'm lucky to be alive, but I am still very scared that these men will come to finish me off," Mr Gayo told the GDN from his hospital bed yesterday.
One of the attackers was an acquaintance who called Mr Gayo on his mobile while he was out for dinner with Filipino friend Jaime Dineros, earlier in the evening.
He asked if Mr Gayo was interested in decorating a planned restaurant.
"Unfortunately, I do not know his full name, I know him only as Mohammed," said Mr Gayo, who is also a fashion designer, interior decorator, photographer and impresario.
He and Mr Dineros agreed to meet Mohammed that night at the Dolphin Park in Manama and followed him to the restaurant.
Mr Dineros told the GDN that he didn't think Mohammed was "in his right frame of mind".
"I told Albert that we better leave because Mohammed looked suspiciously drunk or maybe on drugs and he wasn't making much sense," he said.
"There were also two men with Mohammed, who didn't leave the car from the time we met them. They weren't introduced to us."
Mr Gayo dropped Mr Dineros home at about 9.30pm and was home in bed by 10.30pm.
He was woken by his seven-year-old Yorkshire terrier dog, Kanufa, barking.
"The door to my room opened and I saw the silhouette of a man and he turned on the light and it was Mohammed. He was holding a long piece of wooden board and demanded money," said Mr Gayo.
"I told him I had no money and he screamed at me and called me a liar. He started hitting me and I used my arm to shield my head. He took out a knife and told me to get up and open the front door."
When Mr Gayo opened the main door, the two men who he had seen earlier that night walked in, while Mohammed dragged him to the spare room.
"He kept on demanding I give him money," said Mr Gayo.
"He then pulled my hair and started slicing large portions of my hair off."
The dog kept barking, which annoyed the attacker.
"He said to wait in the room while he went to kill my dog," said Mr Gayo.
"He also said he was going to put the knife through my heart, cut my neck and leave my head in the room.
"He started stabbing me in my arms and I started bleeding profusely. He also slashed my arms.
"When he left the room to go after my dog I went straight to the window, opened it and jumped."
Mr Gayo landed on his side on a neighbour's Pajero roof. The impact left him with a three broken ribs, a dislocated right shoulder and his right arm, wrist and hand were also broken in several places.
Seven of his teeth were also broken when the side of his face slammed against the vehicle roof.
He crawled to the police station, where police called an ambulance which took him to the SMC, where he underwent emergency surgery.
Police yesterday got a new lead when Mr Dineros recognised the car Mohammed was driving.
It was found still parked outside Mr Gayo's flat.
Mr Gayo is too frightened to return to the same address and will be moving home.
"My life is never going to be the same again. I never expected anything like this to happen to me, not in the 22 years I have lived in Bahrain," he said.
Philippine Embassy officials yesterday visited Mr Gayo, offering to help.
Friends found his dog alive in his flat yesterday.
It is thought the attacker climbed in through the kitchen window, which opens on to a balcony at the back. There were shoe prints all over the kitchen sink, counter and floor.
Nothing was stolen, but the attackers left behind a pack of three sandwiches.
**On Thursday, February 3, 2005, this appeared:
Worker is stabbed to death
MANAMA: A Thai man has been stabbed to death in an argument with a workmate at a Bahrain labour camp, reports Vinitha Viswanath. Samran Khalswan, 47, was stabbed in his stomach and heart, said sources. The attack happened during an argument with the workmate at company accommodation in Ma'amir Industrial Area, at around 9pm on Tuesday. Mr Khalswan was declared dead at the scene by ambulancemen.
**On Saturday, February 5, 2004, this followed:
Worker murdered with metal bar
Fifty-five-year-old Mohan Lal, a construction worker, died of haemorrhage after suffering fatal head injuries. The suspect, who was stabbed in various parts of his body, is in critical condition at Salmaniya Medical Complex's intensive care unit.
The incident allegedly happened yesterday afternoon at their flat in Zinj.
Now, what I am trying to say in plain and simple English is that carrying daggers is not a good idea in our peaceful and secure beloved kingdom.
Have a good night. Please remember to lock all your doors and windows as this place is no longer secure.
9 comments:
Skimmed the papers today...no more incidents to add.
Let's wait and see ;)
Why would they make an amendment for that? Have there been protests and demands for the right to carry daggers?
that reminds me,
i almost got my pace burgled the other nite because i was too sleepy to make any sense of the identity of a person who had come ringing my bell on the pretext that he was sent by the landlord.
Fuunily enuff, he knew the home owner's name, but things got suspicious when he asked me for my cell phone to make a call and i just bluntly replied i have none, then he was like give me yo home tel # and i was like the real estate and maintainance dudes have all tht info - after 10 minutes i managed to get him to leave the place, & immediately rang up the real estate ppl to enquire if they had sent anyone - and i got a bold NO - they were like its someone come to rob u - next time get their cpr# & i was like - Toronto, Bahrain - not much of a difference anymore, i guess
Toronto - u get mugged, happens in bahrain too
Toronto - gang wars, don't see much of that in bahrain
Toronto - drunk ppl fight with each other stab them, etc - happens in bahrain and anywhere else i guess
oh well...
I like how the first article ends with "a pack of three sandwiches."
And they wanna allow Khanjars ...
Well... Even this poor woman's tyres were not spared.
This is what appeared in today's GDN:
"Ordeal as man slashes Bahraini woman's tyres
By MONTHER AL ARRAYEDH
A KNIFE-wielding motorist slashed a Bahraini woman's tyres as she sat petrified in her car, after she blocked his garage entrance.
One of his brothers then allegedly threatened her 26-year-old son with a knife, as he went to her rescue.
Fatima Abdul Muhsin, aged 52, said yesterday that she thought the man would attack her and her 58-year-old sister.
The sisters were in Naim to watch the Hussaini processions, when the incident happened.
Ms Abdul Muhsin said she parked her car in front of a garage, which was already blocked by four other cars and went to watch the processions.
When she came back, she found the angry garage car owner standing next to her car, demanding to know if it was hers.
Although Ms Abdul Muhsin says she apologised to him over and over again, he took a knife from his car and slashed all four of her car tyres.
"I parked my car in front of the garage at around 3.15pm," said Ms Abdul Muhsin.
"The garage was already blocked by at least four other cars, so my car would not make a difference.
"I came back an hour-and-a-half later to find a man standing next to my car and asking if it was mine.
"He seemed very angry and started yelling and shouting about how I blocked him in.
"I apologised over and over again.
"But he kept on yelling and swearing at me so I just got into the car, started it and waited for my sister to get in.
"The next thing I knew was the man taking out a knife from his car and slicing through my tyres.
"My sister and I were petrified. We thought he was going to come at us with the knife once he was done."
A crowd gathered and the man's elder brother appeared and tried to calm things.
"He said that he was willing to get me new tyres if I did not file a complaint against his brother," she said.
"But then his brother started threatening that he would burn both his brother's and mine if he changed my tyres.
"Another brother appeared with a knife and tried to attack my son, who came to my rescue."
Police arrested a 26-year-old man, who it is understood was detained for two days, then released on bail."
This also appeared in the GDN of Feb 24, 2005:
"Worker stabs himself in front of room-mates
By VINITHA VISWANATH
MANAMA: An Indian worker who stabbed himself in the stomach in front of flat-mates was said to be stable in hospital yesterday.
Nagarajan Chinnaian, 30, walked into his Gudaibiya home while two of his flat-mates were having lunch on Tuesday, picked up a knife and plunged it into his stomach.
"The room-mates panicked and went to a nearby pharmacy and told them about the incident," said sources.
The pharmacy called for the ambulance and police. Paramedics gave Mr Chinnaian preliminary treatment, before taking him to Salmaniya Medical Complex.
He underwent a four-hour operation the same day and the knife was removed. Police are waiting for him to recover enough to question him. Mr Chinnaian is from Madras, South India and works for a cleaning company in Bahrain."
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