{"id":1498,"date":"2017-10-31T12:33:31","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T13:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madaresharghi.com\/bahraini-court-hands-down-jail-terms-to-17-in-mass-trial-2\/"},"modified":"2017-10-31T12:33:31","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T13:33:31","slug":"bahraini-court-hands-down-jail-terms-to-17-in-mass-trial-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/bahraini-court-hands-down-jail-terms-to-17-in-mass-trial-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bahraini court hands down jail terms to 17 in mass trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/madaresharghi..com\">madaresharghi<\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p><h2 class=\"lide\">A Bahraini court handed down heavy jail sentences to more than a dozen people in a mass trial as the regime in Manama continues its crackdown campaign against opposition and political dissent.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<div readability=\"114\">\n<p>\n\tAged between 28 and 59, the convicts were accused of forming the so-called Al-Basta group\u00a0and planning to carry out \u201ca series of bombings\u201d in the country, the Bahraini LuaLua TV reported.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tEight defendants were sentenced to life in prison, and nine given jail terms of between 10 and 15 years, all on charges of having\u00a0\u201clinks\u201d to Iran, plotting\u00a0to overthrow the Bahraini regime and disturbing public order, according to Press TV.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tFourteen of them were also stripped of their nationalities.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAmong those served with life terms, two brothers, Mohammad and Ali Fakhrawi, were accused of being the leaders of the group.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tOther defendants sentenced to life in prison included blogger Ali al-Meraj\u00a0and the son of noted opposition figure, Hussein Abdul Wahab.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tA journalist, Mahmoud al-Jazeeri, was also among those sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Shia cleric, Sheikh Issa al-Qafas, received a 10-year prison term.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tCritics of the Bahraini regime say the defendants in the mass trial,\u00a0all Shia Muslims, were victims of torture and denied the right\u00a0to legal representation during the investigation period.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tManama has faced popular outrage over its discriminatory policies against the country\u2019s Shia majority since 2011, when a popular uprising began there.\u00a0The regime has come down hard on the peaceful protests, in a crackdown campaign which has led to dozens of deaths.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBahrain has on numerous occasions blamed Iran for what it calls inciting anti-regime sentiment on the island.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tTehran has reacted strongly to such accusations, saying Bahraini rulers are playing a \u201cblame game\u201d to justify their brutal clampdown on dissent and urging them to stop muffling the voice of protesters.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIn an exceptionally controversial move in April, Bahrain\u2019s Parliament authorized military courts to try civilians charged with \u201cterrorism\u201d \u2014 a vaguely defined legal term in the kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIn a separate ruling on Monday, the Sixth High Criminal Appeals Court upheld three-year prison sentences issued against five defendants earlier in the year.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe sentences had been issued for charges of \u201cplanting a fake bomb in a private garage in the northern village of Buri on February 15, 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThree of the convicts are relatives of Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, a human rights defender and director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) NGO, who lives in exile in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tLondon-based rights group Amnesty International described the verdict against Alwadaei\u2019s mother-in-law, brother-in-law\u00a0and cousin as \u201ca chilling illustration of the extremes to which the authorities are prepared to go to crush dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIt said the charges were \u201ctrumped-up\u201d and leveled \u201cafter a grossly unfair trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAmnesty also blasted Manama\u2019s ally London for downplaying human rights violations at the hands of the\u00a0Bahraini regime.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cThis sentence should also be a wake-up call for the UK government\u2026it can no longer stay silent over the abuses being committed in the country,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>madaresharghi A Bahraini court handed down heavy jail sentences to more than a dozen people in a mass trial as the regime in Manama continues its crackdown campaign against opposition and political dissent. Aged between 28 and 59, the convicts were accused of forming the so-called Al-Basta group\u00a0and planning to carry out \u201ca series of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[296,118,28,31,159,639,178,56,213,84,95,82,68,22,23,27],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bahraini court hands down jail terms to 17 in mass trial - madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/madaresharghi.ir\/en\/bahraini-court-hands-down-jail-terms-to-17-in-mass-trial-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bahraini court hands down jail terms to 17 in mass trial - madaresharghi | An Analytical Look at Middle Eastern Developments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"madaresharghi A Bahraini court handed down heavy jail sentences to more than a dozen people in a mass trial as the regime in Manama continues its crackdown campaign against opposition and political dissent. 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