In the background of this Bahrain protesters are still out on the streets almost every day and still determined to win their liberty and democracy for Bahrain after withstanding well over a year of violence, torture, killings, life sentences and systematic crackdown from the al-Khalifa government forces and Saudi Arabian security forces and Western interference all while maintaining an unarmed and peaceful position.

Press TV has interviewed Mr. Qasim al-Hashmi, Bahrain International Mission, London about this issue. The following is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Bahrainis have marked the new year with a new protest against the al-Khlifa dynasty. What kind of a year do you foresee for Bahrainis?

al-Hashmi: I wish for 2013 no doubt to be a peaceful year all over the globe. It’s a new year and a new tactic in Bahrain that we are using to reach our revolutionary goals. We can call it a general public peaceful strike… We want it to turn every singly corner in Bahrain around to Pearl Square where they have denied people to reach that place.

We aim to send message internationally outside Bahrain and also domestically saying that we are strong even though we are struggling, even though we are against the odds of international forces and domestic forces like the Saudi army, Bahrain army, even the Americans and the British, European and the others. Still we are very strong and we carry on. Every day we have a new tactic to reach our goals.

In Bahrain it will be starting today at 6 o’clock all over Bahrain; it will be peaceful as planned… It will be a statement.

We are not aiming to have clashes with the forces or others. If they start to attack us we just try to withdraw, after all, but we are going to go back again, this is a continuum. It’s a new tactic to make the world aware of our struggle and continue to our goal and we will never go back.

SC/JR