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Bahrain Charges 23 Activists With Terrorism Tied to Anti-Monarchy Group
Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, charged 23 opposition activists with terrorism crimes connected to an international network accused of aiming to subvert the Gulf kingdom’s Sunni Muslim monarchy.
Shiite Muslim activist Ali Abdulemam was among those arrested for “planning and executing a campaign of violence, intimidation and subversion,” the official Bahrain News Agency said yesterday, citing the Interior Ministry. His arrest was “connected solely to evidence of his involvement with senior members of the terrorist network,” the ministry said.
Bahrain has faced riots since authorities began detaining Shiite opposition activists in mid-August. The suspects were described by prosecutors as part of “a sophisticated terrorist network with international support,” the Manama-based news service reported on Sept. 4, without identifying any country.
The island kingdom is a close ally of neighboring Saudi Arabia, 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, and complain of discrimination by Sunni Muslims, who make up 30 percent of Bahrain’s citizens.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies are also ruled by Sunni royal families. Bahrain is headed by Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
Bahraini prosecutors said the alleged terrorist network consisted of academics, taxi drivers, civil servants, dentists and administrators, and received funds from “international organizations and foreign entities.”
October Elections
Bahraini human-rights groups have described the arrests as a crackdown aimed at suppressing dissent to cement control before October parliamentary elections. The number of arrests reached about 230 as of Aug. 31, Mohammad al-Tajer, a lawyer representing arrested Shiite opposition activist Abduljalil al- Singace, said in a telephone interview.
“The Bahrain government is brutally silencing voices of dissent not only by prohibiting peaceful and legitimate activities related to democratic reform, but also by punishing human rights activists for engaging in these activities.” Bahrain Center for Human Rights said in a Sept. 3 statement on its website.
London-based Amnesty International criticized the arrests in an Aug. 18 statement, saying the activists may be “prisoners of conscience.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Glen Carey in Riyadh at gcarey8@bloomberg.net.
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