Al-Wefaq Slams Bahraini Interior Minister Over Sectarian Rhetoric

Bahrain’s opposition Al-Wefaq group accused the country’s interior minister, Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, of adopting an exclusionary “with us or against us” approach aimed at forcing blind loyalty to the ruling regime.

The criticism came in response to remarks by Al Khalifa earlier this week in which he vowed further measures against what he described as Iran-linked proxies in Bahrain, accusing them of attempting to hijack the country’s Shiite community.

The minister also said the US-Israeli war on Iran and the ensuing Iranian strikes on Bahrain and other Gulf states had exposed the difference between loyal citizens and those aligned with the enemy.

According to Al-Wefaq, the interior minister is reiterating Manama’s “explicit declaration of war” against the Shiite community.

“The minister’s speech indicated the regime’s continued frenzy, accusations of treason and recklessness in targeting more citizens as well as religious and political groups in this campaign, following the arrest of senior clerics and prominent religious figures, citizenship revocations, the detention and torture of hundreds, and the use of the judiciary as a tool for issuing harsh rulings,” Al-Wefaq said in a statement on Friday.

“It distorted many realities that have existed on the ground for decades by portraying the arrest of clerics as a liberation of the Shiite community’s will, while at the same time seeking to dictate how citizens think and believe,” the statement adds, arguing that such measures are an attempt to turn citizens into slaves.

“Instead of responding to public demands to spare the country the dangers of wars and crises and to stop using Bahraini territory as a platform for military operations, the authorities are committing grave human rights violations in service of foreign interests and agendas.”

The group further asserted that the minister is trying to link citizens to foreign powers to justify Manama’s alignment with Israel in regional wars.

Al-Wefaq said Manama is exploiting wartime developments to justify serious abuses against the Shiites, warning that the community now faced the danger of “annihilation.”