Lebanon to deport Bahraini opposition Al-Wefaq members in unprecedented move · Global Voices
Once an authorized opposition group whose members got elected as lawmakers, Al-Wefaq [is this the name?] Society members are now being punished even outside Bahrain for calling for political reforms and human rights. Image used under CC BY-SA 2.0.
This article was first published by Raseef22 on December 17. 235
A translated and edited version is being republished under an agreement with Global Voices.
Merely a week after Bahraini authorities protested a human rights conference that was organized by the Bahraini opposition Al-Wefaq Society in Beirut, when Lebanese Minister of Interior <PERSON> ordered the deportation of its non-Lebanese members of the society.
According to the interior minister's media office, his request came due to Al-Wefaq's press conference, held on December 11, being an “offense to Lebanon’s relationship with the sister Kingdom of Bahrain, [that] caused harm to the interests of the Lebanese state.” Prime Minister <PERSON> also asked the Office of the Public Prosecution to “immediately investigate” the conference, following Bahraini authorities’ official protest in this regard.
In a statement by the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the country expressed its “deep regret and denunciation that the Lebanese capital, Beirut, hosted a press conference by elements classified as hostile, and supportive as well as sponsors of terrorism, for the purpose of broadcasting and promoting abusive and malicious allegations against the Kingdom of Bahrain.”
Al-Wefaq Islamic National Society is the largest Shiite opposition group in the tiny kingdom, but was dismantled by a court order in 2016, accursed of disrespecting the law and being an “incubator for terrorism, extremism and violence” — allegations that its members denied and international human rights groups saw as intensified crackdown on dissent in the country. Since 2011, Al-Wefaq has played an instrumental role in protests calling for political reform in Bahrain, which prompted a Saudi-led force to intervene to quell the demonstrations.
Unprecedented violations
At the conference, Al-Wefaq organizers spoke, as they regularly do, about human rights violations that opposition members and human rights defenders faced in the kingdom in the preceding two years. Since Bahrain's version of the Arab Spring erupted in February 2011, the society has been holding these press conferences in Beirut.
While the society rejects claims that it seeks to overthrow the ruling regime in Bahrain, it does call for political reform, amending the constitution, increasing parliament's power, and making the people the source of authority instead of the ruling family.
Commenting on this, Al-Wefaq told <PERSON>: “The issue is internally Lebanese.” Raseef22 tried to communicate with a number of its members, even those outside Lebanon, but they refused to make any statement.
Head of the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights, <PERSON>, told <PERSON> that the decision “is a violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” adding that:
The Bahraini authorities continue to create political repression, and exports forms of this repression outside Bahrain's borders, through security hunts, as the authority that cannot tolerate some letters on Twitter wouldn't stand scenes from a press conference addressing its grave violations, even if it was from outside Bahrain.
On December 13, Human Rights Watch issued a statement calling for the release of “everyone imprisoned for exercising their rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly, and expression, including human rights defenders, opposition activists, and journalists.”
The National Commission for Human Rights wrote:
(٢/١) “إن إدراك الحكومة اللبنانية المحتمل لنقل أعضاء الجمعية قسراً إلى مملكة البحرين، أو قبولها الضمني به، إنما يشكل انتهاكاً جسيماً لمبدأ عدم الإعادة القسرية”. 409