Bahrain activist warns of “rising tensions” over Bandargate scandal
(DPA)
17 October 2006
LONDON – The vice-president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) has warned that “tensions are rising fast” in the Gulf state in the wake of allegations that a secret government grouping has been conspiring to fuel sectarian tensions and rig upcoming elections.
BCHR vice-president Nabeel Rajab also told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone late Monday he feared there “would be not much participation” in elections scheduled for November 23. “People have lost faith in the whole process,” he said.
Bahrain activist warns of “rising tensions” over Bandargate scandal
(DPA)
17 October 2006
LONDON – The vice-president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) has warned that “tensions are rising fast” in the Gulf state in the wake of allegations that a secret government grouping has been conspiring to fuel sectarian tensions and rig upcoming elections.
BCHR vice-president Nabeel Rajab also told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone late Monday he feared there “would be not much participation” in elections scheduled for November 23. “People have lost faith in the whole process,” he said.
He was speaking days after 100 leading political, religious and cultural figures handed a petition to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa expressing “shock” over the allegations made in the report by the London-registered Gulf Centre for Democratic Development (GCDD).
The petition voiced concern over the “dangerous sectarian plan” discriminating against Shiites outlined in the report and also questioned alleged links between senior members of the royal court and the plot’s ringleaders.
Since the report was circulated in early September, the royal court and the government has observed complete silence on the report, which, according to Rabah, offers proof that Bahrain’s Shia community is being deliberately marginalized by the Sunni leadership.
“This is the first time it (suspicion of discrimination against Shias) has been supported by a document. Now we know it’s systematic, that is supported by the political leadership.”
The report, dubbed BandarGate after its co-author Salah Al Bandar – a Briton of Sudanese origin who was deported to Britain after its publication – claimed that the ring was masterminded by a member of the royal family and senior government figure, Sheikh Ahmad bin Atiyat Allah Al Khalifa.
Sheikh Ahmad is Minister of State for the Affairs of Council of Ministers, head of the Central Information Organization and the Civil Services Bureau and was until recently in charge of elections. He is also the brother of the chief director of the royal court.
The 240-page report documents payments of more than 2 million Bahraini dollars (5 million dollars) to government workers, journalists, members of the lower and upper houses of parliament, civil society groups, lawyers, bank officials and a “Jordanian investigation team,” the petition noted.
The report also revealed financing for election campaigns, including funding for the pro-government newspaper Al Watan that has been accused of stoking sectarianism, and the payment of expenses to people for the diffusion of sectarian material.
Some of the civil society organizations named in the report are involved in supervising the upcoming elections slated for November.
The report also alleged a secret plan to manipulate the demographic makeup of the country, through the selective granting of citizenship – ostensibly to create a Shiite-Sunni balance but with the real aim of weaking the Shiite majority, the petition noted.
About 60 per cent of Bahrain’s 725,000 citizens are Shiite Muslims while the country’s leadership is Sunni.
The report said an eight-member intelligence team working between the newspaper and the information ministry as well as a Centre of Public Opinion had been created by the same group to further their objectives.
The petition submitted to the king said the report had caused ”uproar” because five alleged co-conspirators of Sheikh Ahmad it named – all working for the government or at the royal court – are close to fundamentalist Sunni organizations.
Of the five, two work at the CIO, one is vice-president of the committee that supervises elections, and two others work at the royal court, one in information affairs and the other on the Al Watan newspaper project, according to the report.
The petition also expressed “great concern” at the failure of the king and Prime Minister Khalifa Bin Salman Ali Khalifa to order an independent investigation into the affair as soon as it came to light in early September instead of first moving to deport one of its authors.
“We fear that keeping quiet about that case and the people involved in it will destroy what is left of trust between the regime and the citizens and will create hateful sectarian discord,” the signatories said.
Al Bandar, who was later accused of espionage, was arrested and deported to London after he sent copies of the report to the Bahraini government, the US, British, and German embassies and local political societies.
Al Bandar acts as secretary general of the GCDD, which took six months to compile the report.
His wife, GCDD president Layla Rajab, claims she had received numerous threats since the report was published. Local journalists and activists have also reportedly been threatened over their coverage of the affair. Meanwhile, Bahrain’s High Criminal Court has issued a gagging order prohibiting the publication of information related to the scandal pending the outcome of an investigation.
A Western diplomat said the allegations made by the report were serious and that his country was investigating the claims, particularly after the media arm of the alleged grouping was involved in what he described as attempts to incite extremist Sunnis against the US and Britain.
