Bahraini Activists:

Execution of Political Prisoners Leads to Armed Struggle, Al-Khalifa Takes Order from Riyadh

RNA - Several Bahraini activists condemned the execution of three political prisoners, and warned that such measures will force dissidents to pick up arms against al-Khalifa regime.

News ID: 426573

Date: 15 January 2017 - 21:47

RNA - "The al-Khalifa regime's execution of three Bahraini political activists this morning will lead to armed struggle against the regime," Ibrahim al-Qarifi told FNA on Sunday.

Also, Ali al-Laban, a dissident Bahraini figure, described execution of the three young Bahraini activists as a sign of the government's state of confusion and its retaliatory and terrorist tendencies, and said, "The al-Khalifa implements orders of Saudi Arabia which is after bloody sectarian seductions in the region."

Meantime, Bahrain's February 14 Revolution Coalition in a statement on Sunday condemned the country's government for execution of the three political prisoners, and called on the Bahraini people to hold protest rallies in the streets and move towards al-Sanabes and adjacent areas to show allegiance to the martyrs' bloods.

Also, Head of Bahrain's Human Rights Association Yousef Rabi'e viewed execution of the political inmates as al-Khalifa's unwise move, and said, "This will further complicate the situation in Bahrain and blocks all political solutions to the problems in the country."

Bahrain executed three anti-regime activists over their alleged role in a 2014 bomb attack, amid widespread public anger against the death verdicts.

The regime in Manama carried out the death verdicts on Sunday in defiance of ongoing protest rallies across the kingdom. The rallies began on Saturday and lasted into Sunday, when the outraged public marched across the capital Manama and the Northeastern villages of Nuwaidrat and al-Dair after the morning prayers.

Since February 14, 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis, calling on the al-Khalifa rulers to relinquish power.

In March that year, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, themselves repressive Arab regimes, were deployed to the country to assist Manama in its crackdown on protests. Hundreds of Bahraini activists have been imprisoned and suppressed.

On June 20, Bahraini authorities stripped Sheikh Qassim of his citizenship, less than a week after suspending the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, the country’s main opposition bloc, and dissolving the Islamic Enlightenment Institution founded by Qassim, and the opposition al-Risala Islamic Association.

Over the past few weeks, demonstrators have held sit-in protests outside Sheikh Qassim’s home to denounce his citizenship removal.

Bahrain has also sentenced Sheikh Ali Salman, another revered opposition cleric, to nine years in prison on charges of seeking regime change and collaborating with foreign powers, which he has denied.

Sheikh Salman was the secretary general of the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, which was Bahrain’s main opposition bloc before being dissolved by the regime.

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