Manama, August 22: Several activists arrested in Bahrain over the past week have admitted to receiving funds to support groups which “incite violence,” a security official said on the state news agency BNA.
The suspects have “admitted to receiving funds and donations from religious scholars and businessmen under various covers, which they allegedly used to help … groups commit heinous acts,” the official said late on Saturday.
“Investigations … proved that the suspects and others inside and outside (Bahrain) are leading sabotage groups and providing them with financial support to carry out acts of violence and terror throughout the kingdom,” he charged.
Bahrain’s National Security Agency said last week that four Shiite men suspected of forming “an organised network aiming to shake the security and stability of the country” had been arrested.
Abduljalil al-Singace, a leader of the opposition association Haq, was arrested on August 14. Three others — Sheikh Mohammed al-Moqdad, Sheikh Saeed al-Nuri and Abdulghani Ali Issa Khanjar — were rounded up the next day.
Moqdad and Singace had been released from prison in April 2009 in a royal pardon for 178 detainees accused of security charges.
On Wednesday, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch condemned the arrests and said four others were also detained last week, naming them as Jaffar al-Hessabi, Mirza al-Mahroos, Abdulhadi al-Mukhuder and Mohammed Saeed.
Saeed is a board member of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, they said.
Haq, or the Movement of Liberties and Democracy, is a splinter group of the main Shiite formation, the Islamic National Accord Association. It boycotted elections in 2006, while INAA netted 17 out of 40 parliament seats.
Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni dynasty but has a Shiite majority population.
The archipelago state was plagued in the 1990s by a wave of Shiite-led unrest which has abated since the authorities launched steps to convert the Gulf emirate into a constitutional monarchy.
—Agencies