Archive for 'politics'
Al Wefaq faces legal action
Al Wefaq National Islamic Society is to face legal action for tarnishing individuals and families and defaming Bahrain’s political rule.
“Al Wefaq has exceeded the bounds of largely approved consensual national principles,” Justice and Islamic Affairs Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ali bin Abdulla Al Khalifa said yesterday in statement.
Legal charges will be pressed against other associations [...]
Murder suspects’ relatives protest
The streets surrounding the Justice and Islamic Affairs Ministry, in the Diplomatic Area, were barricaded by riot police yesterday as relatives and supporters of the murder suspects protested for four hours against their detention.
Police also blocked the entrance to the courts amid tight security and demanded identification from everyone entering the complex.
Relatives, who were allowed [...]
Societies launch new petition
A national petition against naturalisation was launched by six opposition political societies last night. The petition is the second after another sent by mail last year was rejected by the Royal Court, which ordered the societies to present it through proper parliamentary channels.
However, the societies – Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, Islamic Action Society, National [...]
Global monitors to probe concerns
Global monitors will meet government officials in Bahrain today over human rights issues.
Representatives from the Dublin-based Front Line, who visit countries to analyse the treatment of activists in their native countries, are in Manama to speak with activists and authorities on the situation here.
They are due to meet with officials from the Ministries of Foreign [...]
Ministers summoned over ‘immoral tourism’
Manama Four ministers have been summoned to appear before a parliamentary committee investigating alleged immoral activities in Bahrain’s tourism sector.
The ministers of interior, culture and information, municipality affairs and industry and commerce will on Monday present their views to the five-member committee formed last week by the lower house.
The committee looked into charges of malpractices [...]
Sectarianism ‘threat to Bahrain’s stability’ says report
Sectarianism is one of the leading challenges imperiling social stability and hindering the development of Bahrain, a report by the Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research, one of the country’s leading think tanks, said last week.
The 157-page Bahrain Strategy Report, made public last Thursday, dedicated a 14-page chapter to the issue, documenting a sharp increase in sectarianism over the past few years and warning of its implications.
Full Story«التقرير الاستراتيجي البحريني 2009»: عامل الطائفية في تصاعد
كشف «التقرير الاستراتيجي البحريني 2009» عن تصاعد عامل الطائفية في البحرين في الأعوام الأخيرة، الأمر الذي جعل تفسير الكثير من الأحداث من منظور طائفي، بحسب التقرير.
وأكد التقرير وجود 12 قضية مهمة طُرحت خلال العامين 2008 – 2009، تقدمتها: البيئة، الجامعات الخاصة والتعليم العالي في البحرين، حرية الصحافة، البطالة، وغيرها.
ولفت إلى أن المشهد الداخلي «يتأثر بعاملين [...]
Bahrain strategic report launched
The Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research (BCSR) yesterday launched its second annual publication of the Bahrain Strategy Report.
Present at the ceremony, held at the centre in Awali, was BCSR chairman Mohammed Al Ghatam.
The report covered developments in various fields throughout this year, including environment, higher education, inflation, freedom of the Press, financial crisis and [...]
UAE-Bahraini joint committee meeting concluded
The UAE-Bahrain joint committee’s 6th meeting concluded today as UAE side was led by Foreign Minister H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, while his Bahraini counterpart H.E. Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa led his country’s side.
In the meeting’s concluding speech, Sheikh Abdullah affirmed the two countries’ willingness to step up cooperation [...]
Hotels vice probe ordered by MPs
AN URGENT inquiry into the scale of prostitution in Bahrain was launched by parliament yesterday. MPs said vice was rife in the country’s hotels, furnished apartments and nightspots – with one blaming it for the divorce rate soaring to 40 per cent.
They voted to set up their own inquiry after Culture and Information Minister Shaikha [...]
Baby deaths blamed on bad planning
AN MP yesterday blamed Health Minister Dr Faisal Al Hamer for the growing death rate of premature newborn babies due to bad planning.
Sayed Jameel Khadim said that current specialised ICU facilities at the Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) were below international standards, where there were shortages of beds as well as insufficient numbers of nurses [...]
Reprieve for terror suspects’ families
Courts will no longer be able to seize cash or property from the families of criminals convicted of financing terror or laundering money.
Bahrain’s law previously allowed them to do so, but it was ruled as unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court yesterday.
This also means authorities cannot freeze assets of the families of suspects facing similar charges.
Attorney [...]
GCC Approves Bahraini Candidate as Secretary General
The Gulf Cooperation Council endorsed the appointment of Bahrain’s candidate as secretary general of the six-nation organization.
Mohammed Al Mutawa, cultural affairs adviser to the Bahraini premier, was the Bahraini candidate. The new secretary general will replace Qatar’s Abdul Rahman al-Attiyah in 2011, when Attiyah’s term ends, according to the communiqué released today at the end [...]
GCC to create rapid reaction force; Gulf against military action on Iran
Arab states in the Gulf are opposed to any military action against neighbouring Muslim Iran over its nuclear programme, Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah said Tuesday. “We do not accept any military action against Iran,” Sheikh Mohammad said at the end of a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council. “Any tension in the region [...]
Full StoryBahraini’s prison ordeal ‘inhuman’
A human rights activist has criticised the “inhuman” conditions of a Bahraini being held in a Thai prison for allegedly trafficking women to Bahrain to work as prostitutes.
Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society (BHRWS) secretary-general Faisal Fulad met the suspect, who claims he is innocent, at the prison yesterday.
The man claimed he was being held in [...]
