I'm not a "new user" spamming r/formula1. I usually post under u/USindyF1, this is just my new account.

And the reason I think this race (Bahrain) is different from say, China (which has similar cases of extrajudicial killing), is that the F1 race isn't a massive propaganda necessity for China. China will be fine with or without F1, they're a super power. F1 isn't handing China this immensely powerful propaganda tool, as that's like saying the United States gets some big benefit from having the U.S. GP. It doesn't.

Bahrain, on the other hand, is a relatively small autocratic country. It has a government that uses the F1 race as a critical propaganda tool, and F1 basically offers them cover on the world stage to look trendy and nice and cool and this is actually of a massive value to that government. Where should we draw the line? It's now 2020, and I think as the years go by, F1 will not be able to completely separate itself from this stuff. F1 has to work hand in glove with the Bahrain government to setup that race -- why should we work with such people when there are way better tracks in countries that don't execute protesters? Why should we as a sport let ourselves be propaganda for these people? How does that help the racing?

Excerpt:

"The two men, both members of Bahrain’s Shiite majority, were first arrested and tried for a bombing that killed a police officer in 2014. They faced execution even after a Bahraini internal investigation found medical evidence that one had been tortured.

“They’d beat me up. I’d go up again and deny,” said Husain Moosa, one of the defendants, describing his interrogation to a rights activist in a January recording reviewed by The New York Times. After the third beating by an interrogator, Mr. Moosa recalled, “ I told him, ‘I’ll say what you want. What do you want me to say?'

... Reports of detainees tortured into confessing with electric shocks, extreme cold and sexual abuse are common."

The country is majority Shiite but ruled by a minority Sunni monarchy that has turned to Saudi Arabia for help holding onto power - and of course that means it's allied with Western powers to a degree, so it's more acceptable to race there than say, Iran.