News / Persian Gulf

Bahrain court sentences 4 dissidents to 7 years in prison

Thursday, 16 November 2017 5:58 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 16 November 2017 7:15 PM ]

This file picture shows the entrance to the building of Bahrain’s Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs in the capital Manama.

A court in Bahrain has upheld seven-year jail sentences handed down to four citizens as the Manama regime relentlessly continues with its crackdown on human rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.

On Thursday, Bahrain's Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the sentences against the defendants on charges of forming “unlawful” gatherings of more than five people, setting tires alight along streets and hurling petrol bombs at armored police vehicles in the village of Buri, located about 13 kilometers southwest of the capital, Manama-based Arabic-language al-Watan daily newspaper reported.

The report came as a Bahrain court had earlier sentenced the convicts along with three others to prison terms ranging from three to seven years over their alleged involvement in acts of violence.

Six of them were given seven-year jail sentences, while the seventh was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay 500 dinars ($1,323) for the damage caused to public and private properties.

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 dynasty 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 monarch King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah ratified the constitutional amendment on April 3.

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