MUHARRAQ, Bahrain, 12 October 2006 — A newly established opposition group, the National Adlah (Justice) Movement (NAM), has warned Bahraini authorities that it would not remain silent if the government continued to target Islamists who the government accuses of having links to jihadists.
Lawyer Abdullah Hashim, a NAM executive committee board member, said Tuesday night that the detentions and accusations brought against the Islamists in several cases in the past few years were not warranted.
Hashim, who said he expected the arrests to continue, accused the government of giving in to US pressure to carry out these arrests ahead of US congressional elections in November.
Hashim, who spoke at a ceremony to honor eight Bahrainis recently released after being detained for planning to travel to Afghanistan, said people detained and later freed in these campaigns continued to suffer financially and emotionally along with their families because they no longer could secure jobs and remained the subject of close surveillance.
“There was never a case of actually planning to carry out any kind of attacks the authorities could prove,” said Hashim, who successfully defended many of the accused in Bahraini courts. “Rather, because of the fear they had of this group of people, they were arrested based on the fact that they gathered or expressed views and ideas.”
Hashim added that NAM decided not to field any candidates in the upcoming elections because it wanted to finish registering first and because it wanted to prove that it was not established for election purposes.
Mohedin Khan, who was arrested in 2004 along with five others on suspicion of having links to Al-Qaeda and planning to carry out attacks against Western interests in Bahrain before being cleared, read NAM’s statement that vowed continued support for those wrongfully targeted by anti-terrorism campaigns.
The arrests are “a clear violation of the law and the constitution and represent a danger to the internal peace and harmony of the country,” said Khan, a NAM member.
The eight people honored Tuesday night were arrested in September before being released as part of a pardon, which included others accused of rioting and illegal gathering. The ceremony was attended by Bahrainis arrested earlier on similar charges as well as recently freed Guantanamo detainees.
NAM was founded in March as the first Sunni opposition group in Bahrain, which is about 60 percent Shiite.
The group openly opposes US policies in the region and its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also rejects British and Iranian influence in Bahrain’s internal affairs.
Political groups representing Shiites, pan-Arab supporters and nationalists among others had come to light after Bahrain’s king, Sheikh Hamad, introduced sweeping political, economical, and social reforms that revoked state security acts and reintroduced parliamentary life after his rise to power in March 1999.
