Several UN independent experts have called on Bahrain to provide detailed information on accusations by the government against Shiite opposition leader Ali Salman, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) said Wednesday.
Ali Salman is a Secretary-General of the Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, Bahrain’s main opposition political party. In late December, Salman was arrested in Bahrain's capital Manama on charges of inciting to overthrow the regime, Sheikh Salman was arrested in December 2014, two days after he was re-elected as the head of al-Wefaq.
The UN experts suspect those charges emerged due to “the Government’s dissatisfaction with opinions that Sheikh Salman expressed in public speeches and televised interviews, in which he called for the establishment of a democratic regime and for Government accountability.”
The experts said that in the event the charges against Salman are politically motivated his arrest would be a "breach of his fundamental human rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of religion or belief.”
“We have asked the Government of Bahrain to clarify the situation and to provide more information on these allegations,” the experts were quoted as saying in a statement published on the UNHCHR website.
After Salman's arrest, Shiite opposition supporters organized rallies to demand his release. Bahrain's police have arrested at least 150 peaceful protesters, according to the UNHCHR data.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of protesters have held numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling on the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.
In March 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were called in to help Manama quash the anti-regime protests.
Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
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