Bahrain Not Seeking to Dissolve Main Shiite Opposition Group, Says FM

Bahrain does not seek to dissolve the main Shiite opposition group Al-Wefaq, and wants it as a "partner for the future," Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said in Dubai on Monday.

Last week, Bahrain's state news agency said the kingdom, ruled by a Sunni dynasty that has crushed Shiite-led protests, had filed suit to disband two Shiite opposition groups, including Al-Wefaq.

"We're not there to dissolve Al-Wefaq (the Islamic National Accord Association). Wefaq committed some violations; there is a court case. But there is no witch hunt."

"We're not dissolving Al-Wefaq; we're not asking for it to be dissolved," said Sheikh Khaled.

"Wefaq will stay. We want to see Wefaq as a partner for the future."

On Thursday, BNA news agency said the ministry of justice and Islamic affairs has filed a lawsuit to dissolve the Islamic Action Association and Al-Wefaq.

It said the decision was "due to the breaches of the kingdom's laws and constitution committed by both associations and for their activities that have negatively affected the civil peace and national unity."

Later on Thursday, Justice Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ali al-Khalifa said: "This action deals with the two societies as legal entities. It is not against any individual and does not affect any MP’s right to sit in Parliament."

"Neither would a court decision to uphold the case prevent any members of these societies forming a new society under the proviso that the laws governing political societies are followed," he said in a government statement.

An opposition movement that erupted February 14 calling for democratic reforms in Bahrain was curbed in a bloody government crackdown on demonstrators mid-March.

Al-Wefaq was the main opposition group in parliament, controlling almost half of the 40 seats before its MPs resigned.

It has called for political reforms and for transforming Bahrain to a constitutional monarchy.

But its leaders have never publicly called for the departure of the pro-Western Al-Khalifa dynasty, which has ruled Shiite-majority Bahrain since 1783, as radical Shiite groups and protesters have done.

The Islamic Action Association, an offshoot of the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain accused of having been involved in a 1981 coup attempt, had also joined the protests.

Bahraini authorities said that 24 people were killed in the only Shiite-majority Gulf Arab state.

Although the protest movement on the streets was eradicated, the crackdown on dissent has continued.

Rights group Amnesty International has said more than 400 activists, almost all Shiites, have now been detained, including prominent human rights worker Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja and his two sons-in-law arrested on Saturday.

Meanwhile, four detainees have died in prison, drawing international condemnation from the European Union, the United States and the New York-based Human Rights Watch.