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21 April 2012

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F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone ‘like sports mercenaries in apartheid South Africa’

‘Bahrain is about the Arab Spring and democracy when billionaire Bernie Ecclestone is all about money’

FORMULA ONE motorsports chief Bernie Ecclestone has been compared by Sinn Féin Foreign Affairs spokesperson Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD to “the mercenaries who broke the sports boycott of apartheid South Africa to line their pockets with money”.

Mr Ecclestone has insisted the Bahrain Grand Prix has got nothing to do with the human rights crisis in the Middle East kingdom and should go ahead on Sunday.

Deputy Mac Lochlainn told An Phoblacht:

“Bahrain is about the Arab Spring and democracy when Mr Ecclestone is all about money.”

Up to 100,000 people are said to have gathered in Budaiya on Friday for the protest organised by the main Shia opposition group, al-Wefaq. Human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who has been on hunger-strike in prison for more than 70 days in protest at the life sentence he received from a military tribunal in June, stopped drinking water on Thursday and called a lawyer to write his will, according to his daughter, Zainab.

The Irish Member of Parliament told An Phoblacht:

“Like those who went to apartheid South Africa, the billionaire Mr Ecclestone says the brutal suppression of human rights by his hosts, the rulers of Bahrain, has nothing to do with him. All he cares about is his rich man’s sport and making money.

“Bernie Ecclestone and Formula One cannot wash their hands of responsibility as he stands alongside the Bahraini royal family to put the interests of F1 ahead of democracy and justice in Bahrain.”

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Contributions from key figures in the churches, academia and wider civic society as well as senior republican figures

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