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Publish date: Sunday 11 November 2018
view count : 44
create date : Sunday, November 11, 2018 | 3:18 PM
publish date : Sunday, November 11, 2018 | 3:18 PM
update date : Sunday, November 11, 2018 | 3:18 PM

Bahrain jails more activists ahead of elections

  • Bahrain jails more activists ahead of elections
Bahrain

Bahrain gave jail terms, ranging from three to 10 years, to six more anti-regime activists a week after sentencing opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman and two of his colleagues to life in prison.

One of the convicts received a 10-year sentence, while two others were sentenced to five years each, and another to a three-year jail term, Bahrain’s Lulu TV reported.

The criminal court which issued the sentences on Saturday convicted them of “receiving financial aid from terrorist groups”. 

Last Sunday, a Bahraini court ordered life sentences for three senior opposition members, including prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Ali Salman after overturning a previous acquittal.

They were charged with spying for Qatar in what Amnesty International called a “travesty of justice”. 

Salman is already serving a four-year prison sentence for inciting hatred and insulting the interior ministry, after he was arrested in 2015.

He was the secretary general of Bahrain's largest opposition party, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society (Waad). Courts in Bahrain, where the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based, dissolved Waad last year, accusing it of helping to foster violence and terrorism.

Bahrain has barred members of dissolved opposition groups from running in parliamentary elections due to be held later this month.

The Al Khalifa regime has maintained a heavy-handed crackdown on protests since the tiny Persian Gulf island was hit by anti-regime protests in 2011. 

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been helping Manama in the crackdown, killing scores of demonstrators and jailing hundreds of others.

They have used numerous tactics, ranging from serious abuse to stripping dissidents of their citizenship, including the country's most prominent Shia cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim.

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