Bahrain’s attorney general says officials have charged nearly 170 anti-regime protesters with terrorism offenses as the ruling Al Khalifah regime presses ahead with its heavy-handed clampdown on political dissidents and pro-democracy activists in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.
Ahmad al-Hamadi said 169 people, 111 of whom are in custody, will be tried for forming “Bahrain’s Hezbollah” – a local offspring of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement, detonating a bomb, training on the use of firearms and explosives in addition to making and using explosives and firearms.
Hamadi added that the Public Prosecution had received a report from the Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID) regarding the formation of the group inside Bahrain.
He further noted that the defendants will be put on trial by the Fourth High Criminal Court on October 3.
Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.
They are demanding that the Al Khalifah regime relinquish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.
Manama has gone to great lengths to clamp down on any sign of dissent. On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to assist Bahrain in its crackdown.
Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested as a result of the Al Khalifah regime’s crackdown.
On March 5, 2017, Bahrain’s parliament approved the trial of civilians at military tribunals in a measure blasted by human rights campaigners as being tantamount to imposition of an undeclared martial law countrywide.
Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah ratified the constitutional amendment on April 3 last year.
