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Apartheid against Shia Muslims in Bahrain

SHAFAQNA- Bahrain has long discriminated against its majority Shia population in a manner that affects nearly every facet of public life ranging across religious, social, political, and cultural rights.

The Shia community makes up approximately 70 percent of Bahrain’s native population. Shia towns outside of Manama, are Abu Saiba, Al-Dair, Al-Markh, Buri, Duraz, Karbabad, Ma’ameer, Malkiya, Saar, Shakhura, and Sitra.

The monarchy’s leadership has had difficulty connecting with Bahrain’s Shia-majority population. For example, Bahrain systematically discriminates against its majority Shia population. This discrimination resounds in nearly every facet of public life ranging across religious, social, political, and cultural rights, Adhrb reported.

However, Shia are kept separate from the political structure, and often forced to live in small villages, are routinely targeted by security forces for arbitrary detention and torture, are fired for expressing their political views, are arbitrarily rendered stateless by Bahraini courts, and have seen their places of worship destroyed.

Bahrain government has historically and is still carrying out a systematic policy of discrimination against the Shia of Bahrain. It presents itself in two volumes; this first volume focuses on state violence against Shia actors, the disclusion of Shia from the political process, and government discriminatory acts against the Shia religious establishment itself.

Where the Shia considered a race instead of a religious sect, their situation would almost exactly fit the definition of apartheid promulgated by the 1976 convention on the subject; “Shia apartheid” is closer to the truth than the Bahraini government would want to admit.

ADHRB, BCHR, and BIRD have consistently documented discrimination against the Shia majority in Bahrain. Both volumes of the report Apart in their Own Land: Government Discrimination Against Shia in Bahrain carefully describe the violation of Shia rights at all levels, showing that the government has worked to alienate the Bahraini Shia community since the nation’s independence in 1971 and especially following the pro-democracy protest movement of February 2011.

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