After more than a year of harsh repression and violence in Bahrain, the Sunni dictatorship’s response to the youth’s protest movement is still generating a “human rights crisis,” according to Amnesty International.

 

Despite the regime’s claims of reform following international condemnation of their brutality, Amnesty warns “no one should be under any illusions that the country’s human rights crisis is over.”

“The authorities are trying to portray the country as being on the road to reform but we continue to receive reports of torture and use of unnecessary and excessive force against protests,” said Amnesty’s Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

Shiite Bahrainis – who make up about 70 percent of the population in the Gulf monarchy ruled by Sunnis – have been protesting for democratic reforms for over a year. The regime’s response was initially bloody, killing dozens of unarmed protesters in February 2011 when security forces shot at them with live rounds.