Bahrain Suspends All Activities by Al-Wafaq Opposition Group

Local Editor

The Bahraini regime has suspended all the activities by the country's largest Shia political group and frozen its assets, Justice Ministry said.

The Bahraini ministry announced in a statement on Tuesday that the kingdom suspended the al-Wefaq opposition group as part of a widening crackdown on activists and dissent five years after the country's Arab Spring protests.

A Justice Ministry statement carried on the state-run Bahrain News Agency said it made the decision to suspend Al-Wefaq to "safeguard the security of the kingdom." Party officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

The move followed the detention of Nabeel Rajab, a prominent activist and the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights on Monday.

Zainab al-Khawaja, another prominent activist, fled for Denmark in recent days over fears of being imprisoned again.

The Al-Wefaq opposition group has been suspended before as Bahrain has been embroiled in turmoil over the protests and lingering unrest that followed in the years since the demonstrations.

Bahrain's 2011 demonstrations saw the island's majority Shiite population and others demand more political freedoms from its Sunni rulers. The protests on the island, home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet, were crushed by the regime with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team