Gulf | Bahrain
Bahrain takes tough measures to tackle growing violence
Bahrain has announced a series of stringent measures in a bid to tackle growing violence that has marred the country for weeks and culminated in the killing of a policeman on Wednesday, a government spokesperson said.
- By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief
- Published: 17:55 April 14, 2008
Manama: Bahrain has announced a series of stringent measures in a bid to tackle growing violence that has marred the country for weeks and culminated in the killing of a policeman on Wednesday, a government spokesperson said.
The decisions include reinforcing the special security forces and urging the parliament to endorse a law banning Molotov cocktails.
The Information Ministry was instructed to monitor websites inciting hatred and fostering divisions and the justice ministry was asked to ensure that mosques and religious community centres are not used to consecrate sectarianism and fuel emotional outbursts.
The policeman, Majeed Asghar Ali Baksh, 24, was killed last week after masked men hurled Molotov cocktails into a police car patrolling Karzakan, a village to the southwest of Manama that was on heightened alert after arsonists set ablaze a farm belonging to Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Atiyatallah Al Khalifa, the former head of the National Security Agency.
The killing sparked a wide outcry in official and political circles, amid claims that it was incited partly by inflammatory internet sites calling for the use of violence against security forces.
“The government has asked the Ministry of Information to apply the rules and take legal measures against internet sites that incite hatred and instigate divisions,'' the government spokesman said following its weekly meeting Sunday evening. His statement was carried by the Bahraini official news agency on Monday.
While some Sunni websites condemned the attack and posted comments by radicals calling for the deportation of “bloody'' Shiites from Bahrain, Shiite sites doubted the police version of the killing, saying that it was a scenario scripted by the authorities to pave the way for an onslaught on the opposition.
“We have seen an extremely ugly sight of Bahrain. We have repeatedly used the claims of the one-family spirit in Bahrain to hide our ills, but now the truth is exposed. We have sites that call for the execution of Shiites or their deportation because they do not belong here.
“And, at the other end, there are sites that condone the killing of the policeman as a religious duty,'' columnist Adel Marzouq on Monday wrote in Al Wasat.
“This is the truly ugly side of Bahrain that we Bahrainis refuse to recognise but that now asserts itself because sensible people are gone and we are left with only those who support sectarianism both in the government and in the opposition.''
Share this article
Popular in News
News Editor's choice
-
Al Qaida returns to Manhattan
Trial in US federal court would be just the theatre Khalid Shaikh Mohammad wants
-
Obama's Tibet test
The US president's snub of the Dalai Lama could embolden China
-
What to expect at the Dubai Airshow
We preview what types of aircraft to expect at the Dubai Airshow
