Bahrain

The High Criminal Court gave the men jail terms from three years to life in prison, Bahrain’s public prosecutor said Tuesday. He said 69 of the defendants were given life sentences, while 39 others received 10 years in jail each. The citizenship of all but one of them was also revoked. All the defendants were convicted of trumped-up terror-related charges, and…

Ibrahim al-Shaikh, a writer with Akhbar al-Khaleej, was arrested on Monday after he authored an article which said journalists and analysts had been peddling lies about advances by Saudi-led coalition forces in war-torn Yemen, Arabic-language Lua Lua TV reported. The journalist has bee previously known for his support of the bloody campaign and often favorable coverage for parties to the coalition, including…

The new investigative media outlet, Disclose, published a report on Monday, containing a classified note from the French military intelligence service (DRM). Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the popular…

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi on Wednesday condemned Riyadh and Manama for offering “ignoble and passive praise” for the US’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) “a foreign terrorist organization.” “The standpoints that have been declared by these two countries indicate their lack of a proper comprehension… of regional realities,” Qassemi said. He said Saudi Arabia and…

“Hosting and greeting the Zionists at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, which is to be held in Bahrain, is a bold step on a dishonorable path; that of humiliation, capitulation and shamelessness,” Sheikh Qassim said in a statement carried by Arabic-language Lua Lua TV network on Tuesday. Four Israelis are expected to speak at the three-day event due in Manama on April 15-18.…

Amnesty International says the “deeply repressive” Bahraini regime is trying to rehabilitate its image by hosting the Formula One race. “Instead of just ‘sportwashing’ its image and glossing over its dismal human rights record through high-speed sport, the Bahraini government should immediately repeal laws that criminalize freedom of expression and fast-track the release of all prisoners of conscience,” said Amnesty’s…

“Al-Nujaba will remain to be a thorn in the side of the US and its Western-Arab allies,” Rashed al-Rashed said, according to a statement released on Tuesday following the addition of al-Nujaba and its secretary general, Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi, to the SDN terrorists list of the US. “This sanction is a medal of honor and dignity for those who have battled…

Bahrain’s most prominent cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim met with Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, Secretary General of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought in Qom.  

Bahrain’s main opposition group, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, has censured the recent jail terms handed down to scores of people over taking part in a sit-in in 2017. In a statement issued on Wednesday, al-Wefaq accused Manama’s judiciary of convicting “innocent people” after a court handed down prison terms to 167 Bahrainis for holding a sit-in in protest at…