Manama regime to try 400 peaceful Bahraini protesters
BAHRAIN: Bahrain’s opposition party al-Wefaq says the Manama regime
is to put nearly 400 people on trial over their alleged roles in
peaceful anti-regime protests.
The party said that up to 50 people have already been sentenced, with
penalties ranging from a short prison term to execution, Reuters
reported on Thursday.
A Bahraini government official, who demanded anonymity, rejected the
opposition’s statement saying al-Wefaq’s trial data was exaggerated.
“It’s much less than that,” he said, but did not specify any number.
Thousands of anti-government protesters have been staging
demonstrations in Bahrain since mid-February, demanding various reforms,
an end to ethnic discrimination in offering government jobs and allowing
political representation, and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that
later changed to an outright call for ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa
family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests.
On March 14, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed
troops to the kingdom to help Bahraini forces to suppress the nationwide
protests.
Scores of people have been killed and many more arrested and tortured
in prisons in the Saudi-backed crackdown on protests in Bahrain — a
longtime ally of the US and home to a huge military base of the US
Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission held an emergency meeting at the
UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to discuss the crisis in Bahrain.
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