Thirty-five people died during the unrest and two months of martial law that followed, but the opposition says that number has risen to more than 80. The government rejects the figure.
While martial law has ended and the government has introduced what most observers regard as minor reforms, the opposition says the measures are cosmetic.
Fifteen months ago, the King of Bahrain received a 500-page report from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI). The report contained the Commission's findings regarding the February-March 2011 popular uprising and the government's heavy-handed response.
The King and his government were widely hailed for commissioning and then personally receiving the report, which described in detail the frequent use of excessive force by security forces, the systemic abuse and torture of detainees, mass discrimination and dismissals of workers and students, and grave violations of medical neutrality.
It highlighted a culture of impunity prevalent among government officials at all levels, concluding that many abuses "could not have happened without the knowledge of higher echelons of the command structure."
This report was no inside job. The shocker here was that the report was commissioned by the King himself, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, and funded and carried out under the supervision of an independent team headed by an Egyptian judge with an impeccable reputation for fairness.
The King's decisions to both commission and accept the report was hailed by some in the international community as an extraordinary act of political leadership. It was seen by many as a potentially critical step toward resolving the country's escalating political crisis.
But world leaders wondered: Could this really be happening? Would the Sovereign really be prepared to expose the shortcomings of his regime to the very adversaries who focused public attention on these very same shortcomings?
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