Bahrain upholds jail terms for activists
Leading political and human rights activists have had jail sentences confirmed by Bahrain’s highest appeal court in rulings liable to bring more allegations of hypocrisy over the West’s dealings with a favoured Gulf ally.
Bahraini Shiite Muslim women
hold portraits of relatives being held in Bahraini jails in the village of
Sanabis, west of Manama Photo: MOHAMMED
AL-SHAIKH/AFP/Getty
Images
10:44AM GMT 07 Jan 2013
Seven of the 13, accused of plotting against the government after protests at
the start of the Arab Spring in 2011 were crushed by the authorities, received
life sentences.
Among them was Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a British-educated Danish citizen and
co-founder of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights,
whose long hunger strike last year was publicised and narrated on social media
by his daughters Zainab and Maryam.
The others included Hassan Mushaima and Abduljalil al-Singace, leaders of the
Shia-led opposition party al-Haq. Both also have British links - Mr Mushaima was
arrested after returning from London to Bahrain to participate in the protests,
while Mr al-Singace, who is disabled, was initially seized in 2010 after
returning from talking at a seminar in the House of Lords and then rearrested
after the protests were put down.
The Bahraini royal family claims that al-Haq is attempting to enact a plot to
overthrow their regime, with the support of Iran. Bahrain has a Shia Muslim
majority, like Iran, but the royal family itself and a large minority elite is
Sunni.
Human rights groups though claim that the protests which occupied parts of
Bahrain’s capital Manama in February and March 2011 were largely peaceful, and
their leaders arrested for advocating democratic reforms. Bahrain has a
parliament elected by full franchise, unlike neighbours such as the United Arab
Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but its constituencies are drawn to ensure a
Sunni majority, while the power to appoint a government remains in the hands of
the rulers
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