Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian divide widens after Bahrain unrest
Sectarian tension between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims has reached new heights in Bahrain after pro-democracy protests that the Sunni minority government crushed with martial law and foreign military forces. Inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Sunni and Shi’ite Bahrainis took to the streets in early February to demand political reforms in a country where the ruling Al Khalifa family appoints cabinet ministers and an upper house of parliament, neutering the powers of the elected assembly.
An idealistic movement began with slogans such as “No Sunni, No Shi’ite — Just Bahraini”, but now sectarian fear and anger are uppermost on this small island state where Saudi Arabia and Iran are playing out a proxy contest for regional supremacy. Sunnis and Shi’ites talk of friends lost and of a rift that once seemed manageable. Sunnis feel threatened, Shi’ites abused.
Fatima, a Shi’ite accountancy graduate, recalled past tensions when Shi’ites clashed with police and faced trials in the 1990s, but said the government response was harsher this time because the protest movement was so large and unexpected. “It hurts me. I have very close Sunni friends. People inter-married and had close personal relations,” she said. “Even if the government took a step back now, the Sunnis have been convinced that we are criminals.”
Shi’ites have long complained of discrimination in Bahrain, saying the government distributes jobs and housing on a pro-Sunni sectarian basis, to the extent of giving nationality to Sunnis from other countries to offset Shi’ite numbers. There are few Shi’ites in the army and their number in the state bureaucracy has steadily dwindled since independence from Britain in 1971, Shi’ites say. The government denies this.
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Protests in Bahrain’s Shi’ite neighbourhoods fall on deaf ears
In a poor district of Bahrain’s capital, a few hundred people marched through cramped, crumbling alleyways banging pans and screaming, “Down with the regime.” A mile (1.5 km) away, in the city centre, with its gleaming malls and office blocks, no one heard them.
A week after the tiny Gulf island kingdom repealed martial law, and despite the lingering presence of a few checkpoints, much of Manama seems almost back to normal. “Everything is quiet, there’s nothing wrong. I haven’t heard about any problems,” a man who gave his name as Khalifa said as he walked to a Starbucks coffee shop.
Not so in the Shi’ite neighbourhoods where protests first erupted in February, inspired by upheaval elsewhere in the Arab world that toppled longtime rulers in Egypt and Tunisia. “They’re saying that security has returned. Look at this, there is no security,” a protester said, ducking into a neighbour’s home as a sound grenade fired by police shrieked past.
Shi’ite residents say that if this is the new normal, tense days lie ahead. “I think we’ll remain in this unstable situation until there is some kind of political solution. It’s not going back to normal,” well-known activist Nabeel Rajab said.
Shi’ites say they endured reign of terror under martial law in Sunni-ruled Bahrain
Bahraini Shi’ites say they have endured a reign of terror during 11 weeks of martial law imposed to break up a pro-democracy movement that for the first time threatened the control of a Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab dynasty. Martial law was lifted on Wednesday. The authorities hope this will show investors and tourists that the island state is back to normal.
Shi’ite dissidents fear repression will go on. Thousands have been detained or dismissed from jobs in a crackdown that has targeted those who took part in six weeks of protests centered on the capital’s Pearl Roundabout. Dozens of Shi’ite places of worship have been pulled down or vandalized.
Twenty-one people, seven of whom are abroad, are on military trial for trying to overthrow the government. They include figures from Shi’ite opposition parties who had advocated making Bahrain a republic, as well as the Sunni leader of secular group Waad and independent Shi’ite rights activists. Four people have died in custody and two Shi’ites have been sentenced to death for the killing of a policeman.
The crackdown has for now stifled an unprecedented pro-democracy movement inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia that toppled long-time U.S. allies. The government says the protests were manipulated by Shi’ite power Iran.
An island state where the Sunni Al-Khalifa family rules over a majority Shi’ite population, Bahrain has seen such strife before. But doctors, teachers and journalists who have been released, as well as the families of some of the 21 men on trial, say the repression was far worse this time. They recounted beatings with plastic hosepipes, electric shocks, threats of rape and other humiliations such as being urinated on or verbal insults against their Shi’ite faith.
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Did Bahrain’s Shi’ite opposition squander its democracy chance?
As martial law comes to an end in the Gulf Arab state of Bahrain this week, opposition activists are wondering whether they threw away what might have been the first real chance for democracy in the Gulf Arab region.
Shortly after young Bahrainis, inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, converged on a roundabout in early February, the government offered dialogue with opposition parties on political reforms. But the talks failed to get off the ground. After weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions during which sectarian tension worsened between the Shi’ite majority and Sunnis who saw the ruling Al-Khalifa family as protection, Saudi troops poured in on March 15, martial law was declared the next day and the roundabout encampment was broken up on March 16.
Critics say the leading opposition party Wefaq, headed by Sheikh Ali Salman, failed to show leadership during the unrest, allowing hardliners within the ruling family and among the Shi’ite opposition to steer events. “What a massively missed opportunity. Wefaq should have had the conviction to stand ahead of the others and sit at the table. I’m sure they rue it,” one Western diplomat said. When talks eventually resume, he said, “the ceiling will be lower” and reforms could have been set back by a decade.
On Tuesday King Hamad called for reform talks “without preconditions” from July 1. But the parameters were vague, and with opposition leaders in jail, protesters off the streets and Wefaq attacked daily in state media, the government will have the upper hand to steer them away from parliamentary reforms.
Munira Fakhro of secular opposition group Waad says Wefaq was paralysed by fear of losing the street — Shi’ite protesters radicalised by the deaths of their comrades when security forces made a botched attempt to clear the roundabout on Feb. 17.
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Bahrain Sunni says majority Shi’ite opposition must change leaders
Bahrain’s opposition must change its leadership for the divided Gulf Arab state to move on with political reconciliation after crushing a pro-democracy movement led by majority Shi’ites, a Sunni cleric said on Saturday. Sheikh Abdullatif Al-Mahmoud said the democracy movement, which began in February when protesters inspired by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt occupied a roundabout in Manama, had been hijacked by Shi’ite opposition leaders with a sectarian agenda who were in contact with Iran’s clerical leadership.
Mahmoud led a team of Sunni negotiators coordinating with Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa in talks with the opposition days before Saudi troops entered Bahrain to help the government break up the protest movement and arrest its leaders in mid-March. He said Shi’ite leaders, headed by Sheikh Ali Salman, leader of the largest opposition group Wefaq, had overplayed their hand by trying to marginalise the royal family in the talks on political reform and accused them of taking orders from Iran — a familiar Sunni charge against group.
“We consider there to be three forces: the system (royal family), the Sunnis and the Shi’ites, and political and constitutional reform needs the consent of all of them,” he said in an interview. “The problem is that the political Shi’ite movement has not conducted a reappraisal up to now. We don’t want to reject Shi’ites or their political groups,” he said. “What is needed is that they reform themselves then present themselves again to society. In my view they will change their political leaderships, especially Wefaq.”
Twenty-one opposition leaders — seven of whom are abroad — are on trial in military court on charges of seeking to overthrow the government. Salman is not one of them, as the authorities have left senior Shi’ite clerics alone. Sunni political groups are demanding the men be sentenced to death and the government refrain from issuing amnesties. The leaders on trial are not all Shi’ite. They include Ibrahim Sharif, a Sunni who heads the secular Waad group.
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Bahrain Shi’ite leader backs the royal family, rejects alleged Iran links
The leader of Bahrain’s main Shi’ite opposition party said on Sunday his goal was to help bring political reform, rejecting accusations of taking orders from Iran or seeking to install Shi’ite religious rule. Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the opposition group Wefaq, said his party supported the Al Khalifa family as rulers and wanted to help the government with constitutional reforms.
“We said we want a constitutional monarchy, not a republic. We are for a gradual move to a democratic system, so we are not against the ruling family,” Salman told Reuters in an interview. “We have national demands that have nothing to do with Iran. We are proud of being a sensible, mature and progressive political movement that doesn’t need to take instructions from Iran or any other country.”
Bahrain brought in Saudi and United Arab Emirates forces in March to help break up a democracy movement inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. At least 29 people were killed in the unrest, all but six of them Shi’ites. Since then, dozens of Shi’ite places of worship have been demolished, four people have died in custody and two Bahraini journalists working for foreign media were beaten last week.
Twenty-one opposition figures — seven of whom are abroad — are now on military trial on charges of seeking to overthrow the system and rights activists say they were tortured. Many belong to Shi’ite groups that called for replacing the monarchy with a republic but Salman said Wefaq was not one of them and no Wefaq figures were on trial.
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Syria’s Assad retrenches into power base of his Alawite Shi’ite sect
President Bashar al-Assad is increasingly relying on his Alawite power base to crush pro-democracy protests that have posed the boldest challenge to the Assad family’s 41 years of rule over Syria. Assad, an Alawite, sent army and secret police units dominated by officers from the same minority sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, into mainly Sunni urban centers to crush demonstrations calling for his removal for the last six weeks.
Their use of tanks to shell the city of Deraa last week, storming of mosques and attacks on unarmed civilians — as reported by residents and activists — have raised the stakes. Reports say that Sunni conscripts, Syria’s majority sect, refused to fire at their co-religionists.
The 45-year-old president, who has kept the Soviet-era political system he inherited from his father intact, has hinted repeatedly that the protesters were serving a foreign conspiracy to spread sectarian strife. Security forces have shot dead at least 560 civilians in attacks on protesters, human rights groups say. Hundreds more are missing, many feared killed, and thousands have been arrested, adding to thousands of political prisoners. But Assad may have struck a chord among members of the Alawite sect, who rose to prominence in the army under French rule, when the colonial administration used “divide and rule” tactics to control Syria.
Alawite officers expanded in numbers and gained control over the armed forces a few years after the Baath Party took power in 1963, especially key air squadrons, missile and armored brigades and intelligence. “The army is mostly Sunni in terms of numbers, but an Alawite captain has more say than a Sunni general,” said a former member of the army’s personnel division.
Alawites received preferential treatment in government and security jobs, although many Alawite villages remained poor and prominent Alawite figures led part of the secular opposition against Assad family rule.
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Syria lifts niqab ban, shuts casino, in nod to protesting Sunnis
Syria has lifted a ban on teachers wearing the full face veil and ordered the closure of a casino, moves aimed at placating conservative Muslims in the tightly-controlled country that has seen weeks of unrest. Last month pro-democracy protests erupted in the majority Sunni Muslim city of Deraa and later spread to other cities, including the religiously-mixed port city of Latakia, posing the greatest challenge to Assad’s 11-year rule.
Thousands of people protested in the Damascus suburb of Douma on Friday, dissatisfied by gestures President Bashar al-Assad has made towards reform.
Wednesday’s decisions are aimed at assuaging religious conservatives in the majority Sunni Muslim country, where the ruling hierarchy is of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam. Caretaker Education Minister Ali Saad said the ministry had decided to allow teachers wearing the niqab to return to work, according to state news agency SANA. Assad had imposed the ban on the niqab last year.
Syria’s at-Tishreen newspaper also reported the closure of the country’s only casino because “those who attended the casino were engaging in unlawful acts”.
Read the full story by Yara Bayoumy here.
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Egypt’s al-Azhar shuns Western action in Libya
Egypt’s highest Islamic authority, al-Azhar, has condemned Western military “aggression” in Libya but said it supported what it called the legitimate demands of the Libyan people’s revolution.
Azhar, one of the oldest seats of Sunni Islamic learning, warned the United States and Britain against “dividing Libya and destroying its natural and human wealth, as happened in Iraq,” the state Al Ahram newspaper said on Wednesday .
But the Cairo-based body also condemned Arab governments who oppressed citizens for decades. It said their leaders should not stay in office if that would lead to more bloodshed.
“They should leave their posts. That is the least they can do to repond to their people, who have endured them and been patient for so long,” the paper quoted a statement as saying.
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Saudi Shi’ite protests simmer as Bahrain conflict rages
Hundreds of young Shi’ite men marched down a commercial street in the Saudi city of Qatif, near the heart of the kingdom’s oil industry, pounding their fists in anger over their country’s military intervention in Bahrain. “With our blood and soul we sacrifice for you, Bahrain,” they chanted as they walked, according to videos of a recent protest posted on the internet. Some wore scarves to conceal their faces. Others waved Bahraini flags.
“People are boiling,” one Shi’ite activist in Qatif told Reuters by phone, asking not to be named for fear of arrest. “People are talking about strikes, demonstration and prayer to help the Bahrainis.”
The protests were in response to Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter and most powerful Gulf Arab state, sending troops to Bahrain last week to help quell weeks of protests by majority Shi’ites in the Sunni-led monarchy. Bahrain’s opposition called it a declaration of war.
Riyadh, facing Shi’ite protests of its own, fears a sustained revolt in neighboring Bahrain could embolden its own Shi’ite minority, which has long grumbled about sectarian discrimination, charges Riyadh denies. The military intervention, however, appears to have only deepened Shi’ite resentment in the kingdom, where between 10 and 15 percent of the 18 million Saudi nationals are Shi’ites.
Read the full story by Cynthia Johnston here.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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The government controlled media has been working hard to fragment Bahraini society on a sectarian basis and to view opposition group as having a sectarian agenda.
The major liberal political society WAAD has had its headquarters ransacked/set on fire several times, and leading members have had their houses attacked by Molotov bombs. The liberal party leader Ebrahim Sharif, who is a Sunni and a major opposition personality has been one of the first people to be locked up since the government crack-down in March. Reports show that he is facing extreme torture in prison. Another Sunni opposition personality is Mohammed AlBuflasa who remains locked-up in jail and reportedly on hunger strike.
This is the game the Al-Khanifa will to play – they will fragment Bahraini society because they understand that unity is a major threat to their position as monarchs. They will corner the shia opposition al-Wefaq party to enter negotiations on their terms and conditions. Personalities that have power to unify the country such as Sharif and AlBuflasa will be locked up till negotiations end, and anyone who dares to call for unity will be crushed.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/06/22 54188/bahrain-media-charge-that-us-backs .html#ixzz1Onj4qkWG