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Bahrain court overturns acquittal of opposition leaders

 

FILE PHOTO: Sheikh Ali Salman, head of Bahrain's largest Shi'ite opposition group Wefaq, speaks to gathering of tens of thousands in the village of Diraz, West of Manama, Bahrain, July 1, 2011. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed/File Photo

 

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Bahraini court on Sunday ordered life sentences for three senior opposition members, overturning a previous acquittal on charges of spying for Qatar in what an international rights group called a "travesty of justice".

 

A statement from the public prosecutor said the court sentenced Sheikh Ali Salman, secretary-general of the opposition al-Wefaq group, and Sheikh Hassan Sultan and Ali Alaswad, members of the same group, to life in jail for transferring confidential information and receiving financial support from Qatar.

 

Bahrain’s public prosecutor had appealed against a court ruling that acquitted the three senior leaders last June in a rare win for opposition figures who say they have been targeted by prosecutors for their political views.

 

Sultan and Alaswad were tried in absentia. Salman is already serving a four-year prison sentence for inciting hatred and insulting the interior ministry, after he was arrested in 2015.

 

Along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, Bahrain imposed a boycott on Qatar last year, accusing it of supporting terrorism and cosying up to Iran.

 

Qatar denies the charges, saying they are an attempt to undermine its sovereignty.

 

Since the Bahrain authorities crushed street protests in 2011, demonstrators have clashed frequently with security forces, who have been targeted by several bomb attacks. Manama says Qatar supports the unrest, accusations denied by Doha.

 

"This verdict is a travesty of justice that demonstrates the Bahraini authorities’ relentless and unlawful efforts to silence any form of dissent," Amnesty International said in a statement.

 

"Sheikh Ali Salman is a prisoner of conscience who is being held solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression."

 

Wefaq, which has strong links to the country’s Shi’ite Muslim majority, has campaigned for social and political reforms in the country, which is ruled by a Sunni Muslim royal family.

 

Majority-Shi'ite Iran criticised the verdicts, its state news agency IRNA said.

 

"These verdicts leave no doubt for public opinion and the international community that Bahrain is not looking for reform but has decided to intensify the repression," IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying.

 

Bahrain has frequently accused Iran of interference in its internal affairs. Tehran denies the accusation.

 

Alaswad, who has lived in London since 2011, has told Reuters that the public prosecutor used secret witnesses and a video from a Bahraini television channel which experts described as edited and incomplete.

 

(Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi, additional reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Gareth Jones and Adrian Croft)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-11-05

[AhFarangJa]

This is not going to end well. I was in Bahrain in 2011, it was once a peaceful place to visit for the weekend, then the tide changed and we witnessed burning tyre blockades and graffitti, mainly in the Budayah ( excuse spelling ) district. We even had to leave the car at the hotel and use taxis because it was common for a Saudi reg. plate car to be defaced or tyres slashed. The pearl monument roundabout, the centre for the riots has been demolished by the government, and is still blocked off to all traffic.

I think this may just start the ball rolling again.

[rickudon]

The majority of Bahraini's are shia. They are ruthlessly suppressed by the Sunni run state. Sooner or later, it will be a civil war. No doubt Saudis will support the existing government (as they have done already). Will Iran intervene?

 

Possible starting point of the next gulf war.

[shamrock09]

I lived in Bahrain from 1978 to 1985. This was during the time of the downfall of the Shah in Iran and the coming to power of Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran claims Bahrain as a part of its territory. The Shia are the majority and so there were nightly riots in in the Suq which were ruthlessly suppressed. You could see the blood stains the next morning and people regularly disappeared. There was even a supposed attempted coup, which gave the authorities and their British advisors an excuse for further crackdowns. It seems nothing has changed. When I left Bahrain the population was circa 260,000 when I revisited in 2016 it had increased to 1.8 million. This was not due to an explosion in the birth rate but by a deliberate immigration policy that was designed to diminish Shia dominance. What a shame nothing has changed!