Old stuff for archives. Ali Abdulemam
Bahrain Is Still My Country | Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/13/bahrain-is-still-my-country-stateless-ali-abdulemam-human-rights
The 2015 decree includes 50 Shiite and 22 Sunni Bahrainis. The Sunnis are almost exclusively jihadis: Many of them — including radical cleric Turki al-Binali — are fighters with the Islamic State. Other members of the Islamic State whose citizenship was stripped posted pictures of themselves trampling or destroying their passports, promising that they will come back to Bahrain by sword, not passport. Number 35 on the list, Salman al-Ashban, posted a YouTube video in May 2014 showing him ripping up his passport.
On the other hand, among the 50 Shiites stripped of their nationality, you will see human rights defenders, journalists, doctors, professors, and former parliamentarians. Mixing Islamic State jihadis with pro-democracy activists is the Bahraini government’s way of misleading the media about the true targets of its crackdown. The monarchy’s clever answer whenever someone asks about this decree? “Oh, they are terrorists.”
My citizenship was revoked six months after the government amended the nationality law, giving itself the power to strip Bahrainis of their citizenship should they fail in their “duty of loyalty” to the state. Ali Salman, the general secretary of the opposition Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, has also been put on trial for threatening the security of the state, which could lead to his nationality being stripped as well.
