Bahraini protesters have once again held demonstrations against the Al Khalifa regime in several towns on Friday after the Eid al-Adha prayers, with protesters calling for the downfall of the Manama regime.

The demonstrators also demanded an end to the regime’s violent crackdown on peaceful protests.

Bahrain’s revolution began in mid-February 2011. The government promptly launched a brutal crackdown on the protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring Persian Gulf states to help crush the demonstrations.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Rodney Shakespeare, chairman of the Committee against Torture in Bahrain, from London, to further discuss the issue. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: A lot of people are asking how long is this going to take? We saw the other revolutions in the region. What’s making the uprising in Bahrain take so long to reach any kind of fruition or any solution to be reached, actually, for the current situation?

Shakespeare: The people of Bahrain are probably the most democratic people in the world with the possible exception of those in Iran, as a percentage of the population of democratic demonstrations in Bahrain are the biggest.

But they are ruled by a grotesque parody of monarchy – this is the killer Khalifa regime which stands for nothing except itself and represents a sort of vicious feudalism.

This regime [doesn’t] have any Bahraini soldiers. It relies on the Saudi troops and, of course, Pakistani mercenaries.

The regime has no political authority, no cultural authority, and no moral authority.

In fact, since it upholds torture, since it’s now indulging in collective punishment which is forbidden by international law, this regime is now an international pariah.

Some of its dirty work is done by its members. The crown prince Nasser likes to put on a mask of some sort and go down to the prisons and have his fun with powerless prisoners.

But let the Khalifas know this, that their time is limited and the great democratic movement throughout the Middle East will eventually displace them if they’re not displaced by the Americans and the British who will betray them at some point in the future because even the Americans and the British know that it is not in their interest to support these ghastly, autocratic regimes.

GMA/SS