Bahrain detains four people after investigation into ‘illegal organization’ supported by Hezbollah

Supporters of Hezbollah chant slogans during a televised speech by leader Hassan Nasrallah in the southern town of Insar, Lebanon, on March 6, 2016. (AFP)

MANAMA: Bahrain’s chief of terror crime prosecution, Advocate-General Ahmed Al-Hammadi, told the Bahrain News Agency (BNA) that an investigation had been launched into the formation of an illegal organization whose aims included obstructing justice, meddling in state affairs, assaulting personal freedoms and harming national unity.
Al-Hammadi said the organization was in contact with people working for a foreign terrorist organization, and planned to carry out terrorist acts in Bahrain, including targeting police and public servants, organizing illegal demonstrations, sabotaging private property and disseminating fake news likely to undermine national security and public order.
One of those arrested reportedly founded the Manama Human Rights Observatory, which, the BNA reported, uses activities “allegedly related to human rights and to mobilize crowds for illegal rallies ostensibly to make human rights demands, but in reality to use them to carry out riots and acts of vandalism and terrorism against police personnel and vehicles and the Ministry of Interior building in Manama.”
According to the BNA, the investigations also revealed that the founder of the terror organization received support for its activities from the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah through a Bahraini national residing in Lebanon, and that Hezbollah was funding and supporting many alleged human rights organizations in order to concoct false reports on the human rights situation in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with the aim of discrediting those countries, undermining their status in international public opinion, and damaging their national interests through convening international conferences that included members of international human rights organizations.
One female suspect, BNA revealed, “used human rights work as a cover to communicate and cooperate with Al-Karama Foundation, to provide them with information and fake news about the situation in Bahrain to undermine its status abroad.”
Al-Karama’s founder was included in the list of terrorists drafted by the Anti-Terror Quartet (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt). He was also listed by the US Treasury as a terrorist and had his assets and funds frozen in 2013 over his ties to Al-Qaeda. Investigations indicated that he had managed to exploit the foundation to support numerous terror groups under the cover of human rights, BNA reported.
Al-Hammadi said that four suspects had been arrested and the public prosecution questioned two of them in the presence of their lawyers. The suspects were remanded in custody pending further investigations.