Bahrain announces elections to replace 18 Shia MPs

BEIRUT // The Bahraini government announced yesterday that parliamentary elections will be held in September to replace members who resigned in protest in February after the start of a crackdown on pro-reform demonstrations.

Sheikh Khaled bin Ali al Khalifa, Bahrain's justice minister, announced that a by-election would be held on September 24, according to the state-run Bahrain News Agency, with a second round scheduled for October 1.

Eighteen MPs from Al Wefaq, the main Shia opposition group, resigned after the government's violent response to demonstrations that began in mid-February, inspired by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

Since then, more than 30 people have been killed, mostly protesters but also policemen, and hundreds more arrested as the government moved to quell protests. It declared a state of emergency in mid-March which is due to end, it announced this week, on June 1.

Hundreds of detainees, including lawyers, human-rights activists and journalists, remain in jail, according to opposition activists. At least four men have died in mysterious circumstances while in detention. Bahraini authorities have cited health reasons for each of the deaths, but opposition activists believe they died from beatings or torture.

Members of the foreign media, including The National, have not been granted access to the country, so they cannot verify these reports. On Tuesday, Frederik Richter, a Reuters correspondent who had been based in Manama since 2008, was reportedly ordered to leave Bahrain.

On Sunday, Bahrain's military prosecutor accused 21 political activists of trying to topple the ruling Al Khalifa family, claiming they did so with the help of what was described by the Bahrain News Agency as a "terrorist organisation abroad working for a foreign country". The defendants, including Ibrahim Sharif, the Sunni head of the liberal Waad party, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Although the state news agency did not elaborate on the alleged terrorist links, Bahrain has previously accused the Lebanese Shiite movement, Hizbollah, with directly supporting anti-government protests

In a separate statement issued yesterday by Bahrain's state news agency, Sheikh Khalifa bin Ahmed al Khalifa, the commander in chief of the Bahrain Defence Forces, also alleged that protesters at Pearl Roundabout, which became the focal point for demonstrations before it was razed by the government, were given "pills which affected their minds and made them do unusual things".

Last week, 24 doctors and 23 nurses were charged by the military prosecutor with offenses including assault, refusal to provide medical care to people in need, and inciting the "forceful overthrow" of the government.

The government has claimed that a group of medical staff seized control of Salmaniya Medical Complex, Bahrain's main hospital, in February. The government alleged that some of the doctors inflicted wounds on patients or made existing injuries worse, leading to the deaths of two patients.

After security forces seized control of Salmaniya in March, medical staff told The National that they had been doing their jobs, trying to keep the hospital functioning under difficult circumstances, while caring for the many who had been wounded in clashes and any other patients admitted.

Yesterday, dozens of Lebanese doctors and nurses, some dressed in white coats and carrying Bahraini flags, staged a small rally in central Beirut, in solidarity with their colleagues in Bahrain.

Around 100 medical professionals and students descended on a park outside UN House calling for end to what they described as the Bahraini government's systematic targeting of doctors, nurses and paramedics.

d Dr Ghassan Jaafar, the president of the Doctors Association in Lebanon., said: "We organised this for the sake of the Bahraini people and to support the Bahraini doctors and nurses. We demand for the Bahraini government to release the detainees, and especially the medical personnel."

zconstantine@thenational.ae

With additional reporting by the Associated Press