24th/ 25th November 2014

BAHRAIN MEDIA ROUNDUP

Bahrain opposition
group says police
search home of
country's leading
Shiite cleric
Bahrain's leading Shiite
opposition group says
security forces have raided
the home of the country's
most prominent Shiite cleric
in a move that could
exacerbate sectarian
tensions in the island
nation.

Bahrain forces raid

top Shia cleric's
house
Bahraini security forces
raided the house of a
prominent Shia cleric here
Tuesday amid an ongoing
crackdown on dissent, a
media report said.
Regime forces raided the
property of Ayatollah Sheikh
Issa Ahmed Qassem, the
spiritual leader of the

Bahrain's electoral
window-dressing
While the British Foreign
Office, the British
ambassador and a British
MEP have been tweeting
enthusiastically about
Bahrain's latest electoral
window-dressing, the
United States is maintaining
a discreet silence. There

Opposition bloc al-Wefaq

criticized the search of
Sheikh Isa Qassim's house
in the mostly Shiite village
of Diraz as a "provocative
and irrational step."
On its Twitter feed,
Bahrain's interior ministry
said police searched a
house in Diraz after
receiving residents'
permission as part of a
search for a bombing
suspect. It did not mention
the cleric by name.
Read More

opposition Al Wefaq party,

just a few days after people
voted in the first
parliamentary elections
since the 2011 protests,
Press TV reported.
Opposition groups, led by
the Al Wefaq, boycotted the
parliamentary elections
claiming that the Shia
majority in Bahrain was
discriminated by the Sunni
monarchy and that the
parliament was subject to
the king's wishes and lacks
any real power.
Read More
have been no
congratulatory messages
about Bahrain's "democratic
progress" on the US
embassy's website or its
Twitter feed. The
onlyofficial comment on the
elections from the US State
Department, in answer to a
question last week, was:
"Mm-hmm. Ill have to look
into that and get back to
you."
Read More

Bahrain police 'raid

home of top Shia
cleric'
Bahrain's main opposition
group al-Wefaq hassaid
that security forces have
raided the home of the
kingdom's most prominent
Shia cleric.
The house of Sheikh Isa
Qassim, in the mostly Shia
village of Diraz, west of the
capital Manama,was
searched on Tuesday, the
group said.

Bahrain: What now?

In the parliamentary vote
that took place on 22
November, the government
of the Gulf island kingdom
of Bahrain is claiming an
unofficial turnout of nearly
52% while the leading
opposition society, Al Wefaq
is saying not more than
30% came out to vote.
Wefaq and other opposition
parties boycotted the
election leaving the field
open for hundreds of
independent candidates to
run.
The majority Shia
population joined Wefaq's
call and boycotted the

Bahrain's Shiites
boycott elections
Voter turnout was low for
legislative elections in

Al-Wefaqcalledthe search
of the house of Qassim, the
spiritual leader of the Shia
oppositon group,a
"provocative and irrational
step".
On its Twitter feed,
Bahrain's interior ministry
said police searched
ahouse in Diraz after
receiving residents'
permission as part of a
search fora bombing
suspect. It did not mention
the cleric by name.
Read More

election in large numbers

despite veiled warnings in
the local media of
"punishment" for non-voters
that may include being
barred from public sector
jobs, a 'big stick' threat as
the government is the
country's largest employer.
Bahrain has been ruled by
the Sunni Muslim Al Khalifa
family for more than 200
years. An independent
panel of international
human rights experts found
the government, which is
dominated by the al
Khalifas, responsible for
numerous human rights
abuses when it used force
to put down a peaceful prodemocracy protest in 2011.
Read More
Bahrain with the countrys
Shiite population staging a
boycott. Demonstrators
took to the streets in
numerous cities across the
country to show their
frustration.
Read More

recently gerrymandered
electoral districts.

Bahrains Sham
Election Ignores
Calls for Reform
Bahrains national election
planned for this Saturday
portends no change in the
al-Khalifa regimes antiShia stance and is yet
another futile exercise in
sham democracy. The
mainstream al-Wefaq Shia
opposition party has
decided to boycott the
election because of
perceived bias in the

Most observers view the

election as another public
relations ploy by the
minority Sunni regime to
convince the outside world,
especially Western
countries, that all is well in
the tiny kingdom. The
regime is betting, perhaps
correctly, that the West
would not criticize its game
of superficial electoral
politics because of
Bahrains participation in
the US-led anti-ISIS
coalition and Saudi Arabias
influence in the process.

30%" of around 350,000

eligible voters.

Sham Bahraini
Elections
On November 22, sham
parliamentary elections
were held for the first time
since 2011. Majority Shias
boycotted as expected.
Turnout was low.
Main opposition party AlWefaq refused to
participate. Its SecretaryGeneral, Ali Salman, said
"turnout (was) no more than

Two policemen
injured by bomb at
Shi'ite village in
Bahrain
A bomb injured two Bahraini
policemen on Tuesday,
authorities said, amid high
tension after the opposition
boycotted the country's first
elections since unrest
rocked the island kingdom
in 2011.

Earlier on Tuesday, security

forces raided the house of
the country's most
prominent Shi'ite Muslim
cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa
Qassim, in Deraz and
searched it, the main
opposition group al-Wefaq
said on its website
Read More

"The popular will has

triumphed for the sake of
the homeland. What a
failure it is for the
government to beg for a
vote from a people who are
marginalised by them," said
Salman.
Read More

Read More
The Interior Ministry said
the explosion in the small
Shi'ite village of Deraz, west
of the capital Manama, was
a "terror blast", but provided
no further details.

Most participating were

military as well as security
and public sector
personnel.

Bahrain: 6 deputies
elected, return to
polls November 29

country's first parliament

renewal since the 2011
Arab Spring. The remaining
34 seats will be voted on in
a November 29 return to
the voting polls.

Bahrain's first parliamentary

and municipal elections
since a 2011 uprising were
held this past weekend and
resulted in few elected
officials, returning voters to
the ballots for more
elections on November 29.

Shia opposition groups led

by Al Wefaq called for
election boycott. Al Wefaq
secretary Ali Salman said
that proposed change and
dialogue of the government
discussed in previous
months would "ignore the
legitimate demands of the
people".

Only six deputies were

elected to the Bahrain
National Assembly in the

Read More