Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): In the largest citizenship revocation sentence which can be issued by any regime in the world, not to mention the size of Bahrain's population, the high criminal court revoked today (April 16, 2019) the citizenships of 138 Bahrainis and sentenced 139 others to prison terms ranging between 3 years and life in prison over a case known as "Hezbollah".

The paradox is that judge Bader Abulatif [Al] Abdullah who stripped 138 Bahrainis of their citizenships at once is of Afghani origin. His family was granted the citizenship which indigenous Bahrainis are being deprived of. The judge is from the third generation of the Afghani Abdullah family which resided in Farij Al-Owaida and then in Riffa, before it added [Al] to its family name as many non-Arab origin families do.

Judge [Al] Abdullah also fined the defendants 100,000 BD, sentenced 69 defendants to life in jail, 39 to 10 years in prison, 23 others to 7 years, another to 5 years, 6 to 3 years and acquitted 30 defendants, after spending 3 full years in jail.

There are 109 imprisoned defendants and 60 at large, among those tried today.

Today's verdict is deemed the harshest. The list of 138 citizens stripped of their nationalities today is added to a long list of those whose citizenships have been revoked since 2011 to date. 985 Bahrainis have been so far stripped of their citizenships over politically-motivated cases. 

Arabic Version