Bahraini demonstration on May Day
Bahrain, Politics, 5/2/2002

More than 1000 persons held a demonstration on Wednesday on the occasion of May day ( May 1st), in the first demonstration of its kind in Bahrain and in the conservative Gulf states.

The demonstrators including scores of women took the street from Raas al-Rumman in al-Manama chanting slogans calling for considering the first of May as a national day off and to found workers trade unions in the country.

Other slogans voiced solidarity with the "Palestinian people and workers" and the demonstrators which was called upon by the Progressive Democratic Forum Society (political movement) raised the flags of Bahrain and Palestine and walked for 1.5 Km until the headquarters of the UN offices in Bahrain where scores of workers were observing a sit-in called upon by the general committee for the workers of Bahrain in solidarity with the "people and workers of Palestine."

In a statement on the occasion, the general committee of the workers of Bahrain circulated during the sit-in called for drawing "fundamental solutions for the problem of unemployment" in Bahrain as the announced rate of unemployment in the country is 14% of the total labor force. A situation which created an adverse situation on the general social stability and a waste for the opportunities of human resources development," according to the statement.

In front of the UN offices, the observers of the sit-in raised two memorandum. The first is addressed to the UN secretary general Kofi Annan calling for the implementation by Israel of international resolutions especially resolutions 242 and 338 and stressing the right of return back for the Palestinians" and also UN resolution 402 which calls on Israel "to lift the siege imposed on the occupied Palestinian territories and pull out from the Palestinian cities."

The memorandum also called for dispatching UN forces to protect the Palestinians and called on the UN Security Council "to form a neutral international investigation committee to investigate into the massacres committed by the Israeli forces at Jenin Camp" and lastly to force Israel to abide by the international law.

In the second memorandum which is directed to the director general of the International Labor Organization Juan Somaphia, the observers of the sit in called for "condemning the Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian territories and the systematic Israeli destruction operations of the Palestinian infrastructure" and "also condemning the policy of besieging, killing and expulsion which put the majority of the Palestinians under the poverty line." The memorandum urged the ILO secretary general to send a special mission for fact finding on the grave conditions of the Palestinian workers and to allocate necessary funds to help in rebuilding the Palestinian infrastructure and establishments which were destroyed.

Moreover, a statement by the "progressive democratic forum society' circulated during the demonstration said that the society backs the demands voiced by the workers of Bahrain to announce May first as an official day off, expressing "solidarity with the unemployed workers in the country." The society also called for rapid and serious measures according to a comprehensive national plan to solve the unemployment crisis and to putting an end to collective sacking, according to the statement.

Bahrain annually celebrates the May Day through honoring outstanding workers but it is the first time in which a demonstration is being held on this occasion in Bahrain.

Previous Stories:
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  Bahrain: increasing demands to expel the American ambassador   (4/15/2002)

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