By THANASSIS CAMBANIS
Published: September 5, 2010
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Bahraini officials announced on Saturday that they were charging 23 people, most of them activists from the Shiite majority, with coordinating a violent campaign to overthrow the minority Sunni government.
By THANASSIS CAMBANIS
Published: September 5, 2010
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Bahraini officials announced on Saturday that they were charging 23 people, most of them activists from the Shiite majority, with coordinating a violent campaign to overthrow the minority Sunni government.
Prosecutors charged Abduljalil al-Singace, Mohamed Habeeb al-Saffaf and Abdulhadi al-Mokhaidar, as well as two Shiite political leaders based in Britain. The other 18 were believed to have been part of a network accused of planning and executing a campaign of violence, intimidation and subversion in the gulf kingdom, which prosecutors have described as a sophisticated terrorist network with international support. Last year, several of the same men were charged with similar offenses but were officially pardoned by the king.
King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa called for stricter regulation of mosques, schools and civil society groups in his Ramadan address on Sunday. He said the people charged under the terrorism statutes had mistakenly taken their previous pardons “as evidence that they were above the law.”
The king said that the accused were “un-Islamic” and that Bahrain would continue its political and economic reform projects “to bridge the gap between the Islamic sects” despite unrest among the Shiite majority.
Shiite leaders said the government had fabricated the accusations in an effort to depress Shiite voter turnout in the Oct. 23 parliamentary elections. Human rights activists in Bahrain allege that state security forces are torturing detainees.
The activists said the government was orchestrating a smear campaign against them, accusing them of working for foreign governments and against Islam.
More than 160 people have been arrested by the minority Sunni government’s security forces since Aug. 13 under terrorism laws, most of them linked to the Shiite majority’s opposition political parties and to human rights groups.