Bahrain Mirror-Exclusive: Closing down a cemetery- has anyone actually taken an unprecedented move like this before the Government of Bahrain?! Has any country ever cordoned off a cemetery and sealed it off with yellow tape.

We have become used to the Bahraini regime's blocking of streets, besieging of villages, homes or even hospitals, as was the case of the Al-Salmaniya Medical Complex, yet not closing down a cemetery?? Are they trying to besiege dead people! Has the Bahraini regime come to this!

We will write one day and tell our coming generations that on August 5, 2016, the Bahraini authorities closed the gates of a cemetery in Manama and prevented people from visiting the graves. The reason behind this closure is that the participation of people in the funeral procession of a martyr frightened the regime.

It was not enough for the authorities to prevent mourners from reaching the funeral procession of martyr Al-Hayiki, by holding a checkpoint and denying citizens from outside the village access to the area. It was not enough for them to block all the streets and intensify their security presence in the mourning area. All these measures didn't ease the authorities' fear of the people; the people who break the siege every time. Thus, this time they decided to completely cordon off the cemetery.

What a joke! Let's guess what the authorities' next target is?

They will close down a whole country just like the graveyard...we have said it before: Bahrain is a graveyard for human rights.

The authorities have reiterated that they are proceeding in their security measures; the measures that tore the mask the king put on in 2001. The Bahraini regime removed this mask and revealed its sectarian and authoritarian face, which Bahrainis have never witnessed throughout their history with the invading tribe of Al Khalifa.

We admit that the authorities carried on their security measures; they have silenced every dissident's voice by imprisoning: human rights defenders, politicians, tweeters and activists. They detained thousands of children, men, women and elderly as well as the most internationally renowned human rights activists. They detained all the leaders of opposing political societies, dissolved the largest and main opposition society in the country, Al-Wefaq, and liquidated its funds. They revoked the citizenship of the highest Shiite religious authority in the country, let alone hundreds of Shiite dissidents. The authorities also dissolved the largest religious institution in Bahrain, arrested dozens of Shiites clerics and referred them to trial. And the government continues and will continue to take similar oppressive measures and we are witnesses to that.

The Bahraini regime is currently attempting, through its open-ended strict security moves, to transform all of Bahrain to a cemetery because it fears the "living" people. It wants Bahrain to be a closed and besieged graveyard. Every living citizen who tries to approach it or enter it will be arrested, stripped of his citizenship, deported or exiled. The Bahraini regime wants to rule "dead" people. The Bahraini people; nonetheless, have always been alive and will always refuse the regime's arbitrary and oppressive measures.

Arabic Version