Bahrain Crackdown: Dozens Rearrested in Diraz Case

By Staff

The Bahraini regime ordered re-arresting some 30 citizens against whom prison sentences were issued by the court of first instance in the case of the Diraz protest. The convicts attended the first appeals session that was held on Monday.

Relatively, eyewitnesses testified that a quarrel took place between the lawyer charged with defending them and Judge Ibrahim al-Zayed, leading to the latter’s resentment. The judge immediately ordered arresting 30 convicts among the attendees and returning them back to prison a year after releasing them on bail by an order of the same court during its first session in January, 2018.

The court delayed the session until April 8 for pleading.

Meanwhile, 171 political indicted members appeared before the court as part of the apparently biggest massive trial in the country’s history. It also accused them all of participating in the popular sit-in that lasted for a year in front of the house of Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim, which started after revoking his citizenship and bringing him to trial on charges related to his religious and political activity.

The Bahraini regime’s authorities had detained some 100 others in the security operation that was launched to break the sit-in in May, 2017 which left 5 martyrs and hundreds injured.

Following a year and two months of trial, the Supreme Court convicted 167 of them on February 27, and the sentences against the protesters varied between 6-months and 10-years imprisonment, while the same court acquitted 4 of them.

Fifty-two 52 political indicted members were sentences to ten years in prison, 101 to one year, 9 to three years and 4 to six months.