DUBAI: Bahrain freed opposition leader Ali Salman yesterday, a day after his arrest, although it slapped a travel ban on the head of the Shia Al Wefaq bloc, the prosecution said.
Salman, head of the opposition Al Wefaq bloc, had been questioned over accusations of “incitement to religious hatred and spreading false news likely to harm national security,” attorney general Abdul Rahman Al Said was quoted as saying by the official BNA news agency.
The prosecution had ordered the release of the Al Wefaq secretary general but “forbade him from any travel for the purposes of the investigation,” he added.
During his detention, Salman had been asked about the content of a speech he gave on Friday.
The attorney general said Salman was suspected of “inciting hatred against a religious community” in the Sunni-ruled country during the address.
He was also alleged to have “accused institutions of the state of engaging in illegal practices”.
The speech was followed by “disturbances, acts of violence and aggression against the security forces that caused injuries in their ranks,” the chief prosecutor added.
Six opposition groups including Al Wefaq have issued a statement denouncing Salman’s detention as an “attack on freedom of expression in Bahrain”.
Al Wefaq, the most important opposition grouping in Shia-majority Bahrain, wants a constitutional monarchy in the Gulf nation ruled by the Al Khalifa dynasty. It repeatedly says it rejects violence, but the authorities in turn blame its supporters for the trouble that has shaken the country.
A month-long protest that erupted on February 14, 2011, was dispersed in a mid-March deadly crackdown helped by security forces from neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
At least 89 people have been killed in Bahrain since the Arab Spring-inspired protests erupted, according to the International Federation for Human Rights.
Saudi police warn against New Year celebrations
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s religious police have warned against celebrating the New Year’s Eve in the ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom, the local Okaz daily said yesterday.
The Commission of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, known unofficially as Mutawaa, based its warning on a religious edict from the top committee of Saudi clerics banning such celebrations, the newspaper said.
Saudi Arabia follows the Muslim lunar calendar, unlike all other Gulf states that use the Gregorian calendar.
Members of the commission enforce the kingdom’s rule of strict segregation between sexes, and have traditionally forced women to cover from head to toe when in public.
They also go around shops to make sure they are shuttered during prayer times.
The religious police have been accused of abusing their powers.
AFP
