Human rights groups criticize Bahraini cleric’s sentence

Human rights groups have strongly condemned Bahrain’s ruling Aal-e Khalifah regime for upholding a nine-year prison sentence against distinguished religious scholar and opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman.

“Today’s shocking verdict is another example of Bahrain’s flagrant disregard for the right to freedom of expression. Sheikh Ali Salman is a prisoner of conscience,” Deputy Director of Campaigns at Amnesty International's Beirut regional office Samah Hadid said on Monday.

Hadid said the prominent cleric has been put behind bars for seeking to achieve reforms and to hold those responsible for human rights violations to account.

“Instead of punishing him for peaceful criticism, the Bahraini authorities must order his immediate and unconditional release,” the Amnesty official said, stressing, “The international community can no longer turn a blind eye to the Bahraini authorities’ relentless persecution of government critics and human rights activists with the sole purpose of crushing any form of peaceful dissent or opposition to the government.”

The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy also sharply criticized the verdict against the secretary general of Bahrain’s dissolved main opposition bloc, al-Wefaq National Islamic Society.

Sheikh Salman was initially sentenced to four years in prison. Bahrain’s Supreme Court of Appeal increased his jail term to nine years on May 30.

SS