Bahrain expelling top U.S. official for meeting with Shiite group

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Source: Los Angeles Times

By Paul Richter
July 7, 2014, 5:32 PM
Reporting from Washington

hrain announced Monday that it was expelling a top State Department official for meddling in its affairs, sharpening tensions between the Obama administration and a strategically important Persian Gulf ally.

The state-run Bahrain News Agency said the government had declared Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor, persona non grata because he had "intervened flagrantly" in its internal affairs.

Malinowski had "held meetings with a particular party to the detriment of other interlocutors, thus discriminating between one people, contravening diplomatic norms and flouting normal interstate relations," the news agency said.

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Malinowski was a senior official of Human Rights Watch before entering government this year, and in that role was an outspoken advocate for greater rights for the Shiite minority. He had been denied entry to Bahrain while serving in his last job and had been arrested in Bahrain by mistake when he appeared at a protest, McInerney said.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-bahrain-seeks-to-expel-top-us-official-20140707-story.html

[bemildred]

1. That's what I thought it was. Thanks for the story. nt