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Bahrain Shiite Activist Charged With Seeking to Overthrow Sunni Government
Bahrain’s authorities charged a Shiite Muslim opposition activist with seeking to overthrow the government, his lawyer said.
Abduljalil al-Singace, the head of the human rights section of the opposition Haq movement, potentially faces the death penalty, lawyer Mohammad al-Tajer said by telephone from the capital, Manama. He was arrested on Aug. 13 as he flew back to Bahrain from London.
Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, has faced riots since authorities rounded up scores of Shiite opposition activists in a series of arrests that began in mid-August. The government says the detainees had been planning to carry out acts of terrorism and violence, while Bahraini human rights groups have described the arrests as a crackdown aimed at cementing control before October parliamentary elections.
Al-Singace had been in London to testify about the human rights situation in Bahrain to a meeting at the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the U.K. parliament. The majority Shiites complain of discrimination by Sunni Muslims, who make up 30 percent of Bahrain’s citizens.
The number of arrests has now reached about 230, said al- Tajer. Three other Shiite activists whom he is representing face the same charges as al-Singace, he said.
The island kingdom is a close ally of neighboring Saudi Arabia, which is the world’s largest oil exporter and a regional rival of Shiite-ruled Iran. Many among Bahrain’s poor, mostly Shiite communities retain family and cultural ties to Iran.
Like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni royal family, headed by Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The lower chamber of parliament, which has been elected since 2002, has limited authority and is dominated by Sunnis.
London-based Amnesty International criticized the arrests in an Aug. 18 statement that said the activists may be “prisoners of conscience.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Dubai at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net.
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