SHAFAQNA- Iqna: Major opposition and activist figures who were stripped of Bahraini citizenship are not among hundreds of people whose nationality will be restored under an amnesty announced last week.
Bahrain, a close ally of the US in the Persian Gulf region, has been witnessing almost daily protests against the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty since early 2011, with Manama using heavy-handed measures in an attempt to crush the demonstrations.
Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on the peaceful demonstrations.
Since the protests, the regime has prosecuted hundreds of activists in mass trials, banned the main opposition groups and revoked citizenship from around 1,000 nationals.
Bahrain‘s Interior Ministry on Saturday issued a list of 551 people regaining citizenship under a decree issued by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, which the ministry said aimed to give them “an opportunity to review and amend their behavior”.
Those identified were mainly from Shia Muslim families, activists told Reuters. But prominent figures such as Sheikh Isa Qassim, the spiritual leader of the country’s Shia majority, were not on the list.
Qassim’s citizenship was revoked in 2016. Subsequently the government allowed him to travel to Britain for medical care.
Most of the country’s leading opposition figures and rights activists are imprisoned or have fled abroad.
The government did not respond to a Reuters’ request for comment on the list of names.
The Britain-based activist group the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) said Bahrain has stripped at least 990 people of their citizenship since 2012.
“Since amendments to the anti-terror law were passed in 2014, the use of revocation of citizenship has increased dramatically, in many cases targeting journalists, human rights defenders and critics of the government,” BIRD’s director Sayed Ahmed al-Wadaei said on Sunday. A prominent activist, he was stripped of his citizenship in 2015.
Reuters spoke to one person on Saturday’s list who had previously been jailed for membership of a “terrorist group” and possession of weapons, and who for safety reasons asked not to be identified. The person’s family was called on Tuesday and told to collect the person’s passport, which had been confiscated by authorities. The passport had however expired and the individual is awaiting government approval to renew it.
Some of those to whom citizenship was returned remain in jail.
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