MANAMA, 19 December 2006 — Thousands of Bahrainis marched yesterday from Manama and the surrounding areas to mourn the passing of Shiite scholar and opposition leader, Sheik Abdul Ameer Al-Jamri.
Hundreds joined the long procession as the march passed the main Shiite villages to the hometown and final resting place of Sheikh Al-Jamri, 69, who died earlier in the day from heart and kidney failure.
The marchers carried black flags and pictures of Al-Jamri, a former opposition MP in the dissolved 1975 Parliament and a central figure in the mid-1990s unrest that swept Bahrain.
They also carried symbolic coffins with his turban placed on top and pictures of several Shiites, who the opposition claims were killed by security forces during the unrest.
Hundreds of women also took part in the march with many of them weeping and condoling each other, as news of the Al-Jamri’s death broke.
The main Shiite political groupings, Al-Wefaq Islamic Society, Haq (Right) and the Islamic Enlightenment Society, which he founded, all issued statements mourning the passing of Al-Jamri.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of the great mujahid (Islamic fighter), the national and Islamic symbol, and the leader of the 1990 Dignity intifada,: said a statement from Al-Wefaq, for which he was also a spiritual leader.
MP and Secretary-General of Al Wefaq, Sheikh Ali Salman, was to lead prayers before the body of Al-Jamri was carried to the burial grounds of the northern village of Bani Jamarah.
The Bahraini authorities had relieved Sheikh Al-Jamri from his judicial post in 1988 because of his political activities.
In 1992, he was one of six co-signees of the petition to Sheikh Isa ibn Salman Al Khalifa, which called for reforms.
In 1994, he was a co-signer of a popular petition calling for constitutional reforms, release of political prisoners, and the abolition of the state security act.
The 1994 petition was one of the underlying causes for the political unrest in Bahrain, with the authorities placing him under house arrest for five months in 1995.
He was rearrested in 1996 and three and half years later was sentenced to 10 years in jail. However, King Hamad released him and 299 political prisoners the next day to make way for reforms after his rise to power.
Al-Wefaq, which won 17 seats in last month’s parliamentary elections and became the largest political bloc in Parliament, is currently locked in a dispute with the government. It boycotted Friday’s opening session of the second term of the National Assembly.
Al-Wefaq’s move came in protest over what they said was an attempt to prevent them from holding the parliamentary chairman post and reappointing controversial figures to the new Cabinet and Shoura, the upper house of the assembly.
