Bahrain asks court to disband Shiite groups

photo: AP / Hasan Jamali

Bahrain asks court to disband Shiite groups:

DUBAI (AFP) - Bahrain has filed lawsuits to disband two Shiite opposition groups including the powerful Al Wefaq party, state media said Thursday, a month after Sunni rulers crushed Shiite-led protests.

"Bahrain's ministry of justice and Islamic affairs has filed a lawsuit to dissolve the Islamic Action Association and Al Wefaq [the Islamic National Accord Association]," state news agency BNA reported.

The decision comes "due to the breaches of the kingdom's laws and constitution committed by both associations and for their activities that have negatively affected the civil peace and national unity," said the statement.

Both Shiite groups had also "incited disrespect for constitutional institutions", it added.

"The participation of political associations should remain within the national duty of focusing on and supporting efforts to strengthen national unity and protect the security, stability and sovereignty of the kingdom," said the ministry.

"This action deals with the two societies as legal entities. It is not against any individual and does not affect any MP’s right to sit in parliament," a government statement later quoted Justice Minister Sheikh Khaled Ben Ali Al Khalifa as saying.

"Neither would a court decision to uphold the case prevent any members of these societies forming a new society under the proviso that the laws governing political societies are followed," he said.

Khalil Al Marzouk, one of 18 Al Wefaq MPs who submitted their resignations to protest violence against demonstrators, said the government move would stifle political life in Bahrain and hamper the reform process.

"We think that this measure will restrain what remains of political action in Bahrain, and will not search reform process," Marzouk told AFP by telephone.

"Since its inception, Al Wefaq always acted within the constitutional and legal framework, and worked on reform from within the system," he said.

"Bahrain needs a political solution, and the pillar of this solution is Al Wefaq, with its popular weight. If it is dissolved, how would this solution be possible, unless the authorities have taken a decision and do not want a political solution," Marzouk added.

An opposition movement that erupted February 14 calling for democratic reforms in Bahrain was curbed in a bloody government crackdown on demonstrators mid-March.

Saudi-led forces entered Bahrain last month, sparking a war of words between various Arab Gulf states and Iran, and freeing up Bahraini security forces to crush the protests.

Al Wefaq was the main opposition group in parliament, controlling almost half of the 40 seats before its MPs resigned.

The group has called for political reforms and for transforming Bahrain to a constitutional monarchy.

But its leaders, have never publicly called for the departure of the pro-Western Al Khalifa dynasty, which has ruled Shiite-majority Bahrain since 1783, as radical Shiite groups and protesters have done.

The Islamic Action Association (IAA) has also joined the protests in which Bahraini authorities said that 24 people were killed in the only Shiite-majority Arab Gulf state.

Although the protest movement on the streets was eradicated, the crackdown on dissent has continued.

The IAA is an offshoot of the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, accused of having been involved in a 1981 coup attempt.

The Jordan Times
Friday, April 15, 2011