“In the sweltering reaches of the petroleous Persian Gulf, where Britain maintains some of the last outposts of Empire, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser has waged a long, hot campaign of intrigue and propaganda to get the “imperialists” out—and himself in. Last week the British inflicted two significant defeats on their foe. The first setback for Nasser came in Bahrein, a tiny cluster of Persian Gulf islands where Sheik Isa bin Sulman al Khalifa unconditionally reaffirmed all existing agreements under which Whitehall uses his prosperous kingdom as a military and diplomatic pied-a-terre……….. For all his benevolence, however, the plump, diminutive Sheik is an unabashed autocrat …………..Consequently, many Bahreinis listen approvingly to broadcasts from Cairo and Baghdad denouncing Sheik Isa as a feudalist and a British stooge. Their chief source of resentment is the Sheik’s 800-man British-officered police force. When oil workers went on strike last March, the Sheik’s tough cops cracked down hard, killing twelve and wounding 50, repressed Nasser-inspired student riots last month with equal severity. Opponents of Sheik Isa often end up in a mystery-shrouded prison on desolate Jidah Island……………”

That was in 1965. Yet things have not improved in Bahrain in terms of freedom and equality and justice. They have gotten worse in the past decade.