Sheikh Salman urges Bahrainis to continue struggle until demands met

Rasa - Sheikh Ali Salman, the secretary general of Bahrain's main opposition bloc, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, urged Bahrainis to continue their struggle until al-Khalifa regime meets their just demands.

News ID: 3355

Date: 16 September 2015 - 16:14

RNA - "I had a phone call from the Secretary of the people after the first court session. His voice filled me with hope and steadfastness," Alya' Radi, Salman's wife, said on her Twitter account on Tuesday.

"Sheikh Ali asked me to envoy a message to the loyal people of Bahrain and to each of his supporters, in which I touched the steadfastness and high spirits," she added.

"He asks you to keep going until our just demands that we consider necessary for the modernization of this country and its stability achieved," Radi wrote.

"He assures you that our march is persistent and will not stop under any circumstances until these people get their natural and normal rights."

"He also expressed readiness to sacrifice the rest of his life until democracy achieved in Bahrain, so that this people blessed with freedom, dignity and equality," Radi concluded.

On Tuesday, Bahrain’s appeals court refused bail for opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman pending its review of his conviction for allegedly inciting ‘disobedience and hatred’, while the prosecution demanded his four-year sentence be stiffened.

Sheikh Salman was convicted of those two charges in June, but acquitted of the more unjust one of seeking to topple the monarchy and change the political system in Bahrain.

The court rejected a request for bail by Sheikh Salman’s defense team.

And the prosecution called for annulling his acquittal for plotting to overthrow the regime, demanding a tougher sentence.

The court adjourned the case until October 14.

Leading international human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have considered Sheikh Ali Salman a prisoner of conscience undergoing an unfair trial that is lacking international standards.

"The court’s refusal to consider crucial defense evidence confirms the political nature of Sheikh Ali Salman’s prosecution," HRW’s Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said, adding "The manifest unfairness of the trial means the authorities should release Salman immediately."

Also demonstrations took place in more than 45 areas in Bahrain, on Monday evening, demanding the release of the Secretary General of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society.

Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February 2011, calling for an end to the al-Khalifa dynasty.

Violence against the defenseless people escalated after a Saudi-led conglomerate of police, security and military forces from the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member states - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar - were dispatched to the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom on March 2011, to help Manama crack down on peaceful protestors.

So far, hundreds of protesters have been killed, hundreds have gone missing or been arrested and thousands of others have been injured.

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