Bahrain court jails eight men for up to 10 years
A court in Bahrain has sentenced at least eight people to prison terms of up to 10 years over their alleged role in plotting "terrorism" acts across the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.
Bahrain’s Public Prosecutor Ahmed al-Hammadi said on Tuesday that the court handed down jail terms ranging from three to ten years for "terrorism," state news agency BNA reported.
The convicts had allegedly been involved in "setting tires on fire, placing an object resembling a bomb in a public place, gathering publicly, rioting and possession of Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs)," the prosecutor claimed.
Also on Monday, the same court sentenced two people to 10 years for "military training and use of weapons and explosives in Iraq." The men were also ordered to be stripped of their citizenship.
This is while the Bahraini judiciary has already cleared a number of security officers involved in the death or injury of demonstrators.
On Sunday, a Bahraini court dismissed charges against a security officer who had opened fire on a protester from close range during a peaceful demonstration earlier this year.
In 2013, Bahraini Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa had come out in support of the brutality of security forces, saying, “No one can apply the law to you. No one can do anything about what I’m saying to you. Whoever applies these laws against you is using them against us. We are one.”
The Bahraini judiciary has come under fire by many human rights groups for handing down long-term sentences to anti-regime protesters and activists in the country.
Amnesty International and other rights groups have repeatedly censured the Bahraini regime over the “rampant” human rights abuses against opposition activists and anti-government protesters.
In its April report, titled “Behind the Rhetoric: Human rights abuses in Bahrain continue unabated,” Amnesty criticized Manama for resorting to torture, arbitrary detentions, and the excessive use of force against peaceful government critics, including some as young as 17.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations on an almost daily basis in the streets of the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom, calling for the Al Khalifa family to relinquish power.
Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in the ongoing heavy-handed crackdown on peaceful rallies.
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