How did Nasser bin Hamad Lure Former MP Khalid Abdulal Back to Bahrain?
2021-07-16 - 10:58 م
Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): In February, former MP Khalid Abdulal returned to Bahrain after apologizing to the King and Interior Ministry. He was promised by the king's son that no one would harm him.
After two weeks only, he was summoned and arrested. We are talking about revenge mentality.
Khalid Abdulal's case represents the doctrine of revenge which opposition activists and politicians in Bahrain suffer from. There is no freedom, no tolerance and no forgiveness. This is the motto that the authorities have been living by since 2011. What Osama Al-Tamimi and his family is suffering from is not something exceptional, it is the approach followed in the country.
Nothing was reported about Khalid Abdulal after his arrest, until his son, who lives in Britain, had to send a letter to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to intervene and force the Bahraini authorities to confirm that his father is still alive, according to activist Mohammad Al-Bouflasa.
In one of his social media posts, political activist Hassan Al-Sitri described how the Manama authorities treated the former MP and how he was blackmailed, and then lured to Bahrain after he had left it and how he was put behind bars.
In 2014, former MP Abdulal made tweets on his official Twitter account indicating that the Interior Ministry has become a place for torture. The ministry filed two cases against him and a court sentenced him to one year in prison for each case.
Abdulal is married to a non-Bahraini Arab woman. The Interior Ministry didn't renew her residence after her husband's criticism of the government's performance.
Not renewing the wife's residence caused a crisis for the family, but after Abdulal was forced to leave Bahrain after being pursued by the Interior Ministry, the ministry renewed the wife's residence so that she would stay in Bahrain, and not leave to her husband, who went to Morocco.
Activist Al-Sitri says: "They destroyed his family, he became an expatriate abroad suffering with his children, even after he publicly apologized to the king and deleted his Twitter account."
Activist Mohammad Al-Bouflasa said since last February Abdulal told him directly that he would return to Bahrain if he is promised safety by the king's son and national security advisor Nasser bin Hamad. However, two weeks after his return, he received a phone call from the Interior Ministry asking him to appear to sign some papers only, but after that Abdulal didn't return home. He was arrested and sent to the Dry Dock Prison.
Mohammad Al-Bouflasa confirms that Abdulal is being harassed in prison and that he is allowed to call his family only once a week.
Abdulal gave a historic testimony on the failure of the parliament, whose term ended in 2014, and deemed this parliament "purely governmental and that Bahrain's history will not be honored to record this performance as part of human development, but will rather record it as part of the failing stage that featured a decline in reform."
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