The Bahraini government deployed Special Forces to block all access to a planned gathering, in an attempt to bar moves to recognize an alternative national day in Bahrain.
The Ministry of Interior advised the organizers that they were forbidden from marking the country’s 38th anniversary of independence from the British in mid August since the government only recognizes December 16th as the official national day.
Organizers of the event and human rights groups condemned the move as a violation of freedom of expression. They said it was another attempt by the government to brand them as disloyal.
“This is the act of a policing and repressive government,” said Dr Abdul Jalil Al-Singace spokesperson for Shia opposition movement HAQ, the movement of Civil Liberties and Democracy in Bahrain. “They use force to silence any form of freedom of expression in areas they cannot control.”
According to the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFAX), a number of well-known public figures in Bahrain as well as opposition leaders had planned to “revive” August 14 as the “true” national day of independence.
That was the date the British pulled out of Bahrain in 1971. The government, however, set December 16, the date the late Amir, Shaikh Isa Bin Salman, was enthroned as the official independence day.
Al-Singace said Bahrain should adopt the tradition of the rest of the world and mark the end of colonial rule as the true date of independence. He accused the government of using a media and educational campaign to enforce the December date.
“Special Forces were deployed to ban the celebration of the true independence day by besieging its proposed venue and preventing anyone from approaching it,” he told The Media Line.
There were no confrontations and a press conference held a day earlier announcing the forced cancellation of the event passed without incident.
“It is a very strange action by the local authorities to deploy force to prevent people from expressing their views of what they consider a national day, and from celebrating in a civilized way,” said Nabeel Rajab, the President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. “The authorities are hysterical in their dealings with any form of freedom of speech, especially when it occurs on public premises.”
IFAX has reported that opposition Bahrain internet sites and blogs are routinely blocked by the government.
“The behavior of the Bahraini authorities affirms the fact that it is far from being democratic or transparent,” Al-Singace said. “They use their loyalist writers and columnists to wage a defamation campaign against the organizers of the celebration and stigmatize them with accusations of not being loyal to Bahrain, and of seeking trouble.”
HAQ believes the repression is aimed at diminishing the history of Bahrain’s struggle against repression and colonization and instead wants Bahrainis to focus on the crowning of its monarchy.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry could not be reached for comment.
Bahrain, the smallest of the Gulf Arab states, has a Shia majority but is ruled by a Sunni minority.