Manama: Intellectual, literary and cultural groups in Bahrain have condemned calls to scrap the events held in the country as part of the Spring of Culture Festival and Manama the Capital of Arab Culture 2012.
In a statement released in Manama, the 15 associations said that they supported the culture ministry as it hosted intellectual, literary and cultural events.
“There is a need to revive the beautiful spirit of culture and literature that has marked Bahrain throughout its history,” they said.
Complaints by the lawmakers about the cultural activities have encouraged some people to stage a rally in front of one of Bahrain’s most prestigious cultural centres in Bahrain, the statement said.
Several MPs have been pushing for the last four weeks for the cancellation of the festivities and events, arguing that Bahrain needed to show sympathy with the pains and sufferings of the people targeted in Syria.
Last week, lawmakers representing Salafi society Al Asala said that they quiz Shaikha Mai Bint Mohammad Al Khalifa, the culture minister, over allegations that a cultural centre in Muharraq, Bahrain’s second largest city, had barred a neighbouring mosque from calling to prayers over loudspeakers.
Social media networks have circulated allegations that the centre had been bothered by the calls to prayers and the lectures over the loudspeakers from the mosque across the narrow alley and had asked, through the interior ministry, to mute them.
However, the centre denied the claims.
“All our events are held after 8 pm when calls to prayers and prayers are finished,” the board of the Shaikh Ebrahim Centre for Culture and Research said. “We have been holding events for the last ten years and there has never been an incident with anyone,” said the centre, a renovated traditional home turned into a magnet for cultural events, set up and managed by Shaikha Mai.
