Published: 29 September 2006
POLITICAL and community leaders will announce today what action they are seeking over the Bandargate report, following a mass meeting last night.
Independent activists, political society members, MPs and municipal councillors called at the meeting for the resignation of a senior government official accused of financing the alleged secret organisation which the report claims has been at work.
Investigation
Some also urged a “rejection” of elections results if the official, who is directly involved in organising elections, is not removed.
Government officials implicated in the report should be detached from their involvement in the upcoming elections pending an investigation into the accusations against them, individuals urged.
Published: 29 September 2006
POLITICAL and community leaders will announce today what action they are seeking over the Bandargate report, following a mass meeting last night.
Independent activists, political society members, MPs and municipal councillors called at the meeting for the resignation of a senior government official accused of financing the alleged secret organisation which the report claims has been at work.
Investigation
Some also urged a “rejection” of elections results if the official, who is directly involved in organising elections, is not removed.
Government officials implicated in the report should be detached from their involvement in the upcoming elections pending an investigation into the accusations against them, individuals urged.
Others urged against rejecting the outcome of elections, saying the decision could not be made before the elections had taken place.
Around 80 people took part in the gathering at the “Wa’ed” National Democratic Action Society (NDAS) premises in Um Al Hassam, which was called to discuss possible action by civil societies over the report.
A concrete and long range response was urged, with calls for a law to criminalise sectarian discrimination.
Participants also called for national unity.
“Because the report focuses on sectarian division, we should not have a sectarian reaction, we should have a reaction from people no matter which sect or political leaning,” Al Menbar Democratic society member Jalil Al Noaimi said.
Among recommendations from the gathering were calls for legal proceedings against individuals, a body to monitor elections based on activities detailed in the report, a removal of officials named from their positions and a freeze on “GONGOS” (government organised non-governmental organisations).
“I request societies to take the initiative to form a committee for investigation to work alongside a government investigative committee – if one is formed – to make sure the executive branch of the government is fair,” journalist Abbas Busafwan urged.
Opposition societies were also criticised for failing to take a decisive response to the findings of the report.
“The opposition did not deal with report as the scandal which it is for any democratic state,” said Al Wefaq National Islamic Society member Jalal Fairouz.
Several participants called for a wider investigation and called on the opposition to approach individuals named as being at the head of the alleged organisation directly.
The senior government official named in the report as heading the “secret organisation” may simply be a figurehead, said some.
“Each time something happens we have a petition, a rally and a seminar – we need to go beyond that,” said now dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) president Abdulhadi Al Khawaja.
“We need to address whoever is at the head of this and tell them we know they are behind this and it is wrong, and we do not accept it, otherwise we go through the same process again and again and nothing changes.”
