“The regime in Bahrain is continuing with its disastrous naturalization project despite efforts and attempts to stop it, indifferent to the serious damage this will cause to the citizens and the homeland”, Sheikh Ali Salman, the Secretary-General of Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, stated on his Twitter account.
Salman mentioned that the Bahraini opposition has been working to solve this problem for over 20 years. He said the opposition became knowledgeable of the regime’s project in the early 90s and has worked on collecting information and informing the public on the issue.
“The opposition communicated this issue to international human rights organizations”, Salman said, “But the opposition found it difficult to explain the truth because the issue is unprecedented to most rights organizations, including the United Nations. It was not clear which human rights party we had to file this complaint at because there are no similar violations to this destructive project in other places of the world”.
Salman also mentioned that the opposition made significant efforts to reveal this crime to the world. “The opposition communicated with parties within the regime to stop this harmful program against all Bahrainis, but these communications were useless”, he added.
He pointed out, “the official position toward this issue was unsteady, at some points the Authority denied any existence of the project, and at other times it admitted the damage and promised to stop the project. However, the project continued mainly through unannounced programs that were later revealed in the Bandar-report scandal”, referring to a documents report leaked by a former consultant to the king named Salah Al-Bandar.
Furthermore, he said the opposition communicated with the countries that export their citizens for naturalization in Bahrain but did not reach any results.
In 2009, the Bahraini opposition organized a huge rally with more than 100,000 participants to protest the regime’s mass naturalization of foreigners. This was followed by a public petition that gained more than 100,000 signatures.
Between 2006 and 2010, the opposition worked on this issue within the parliament but the parliament did not have the power to stop it. The opposition took a further step by refusing normalization with the naturalized to demonstrate its refusal. The issue was always present in the opposition’s agenda and talks with the Authority.
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