Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): On January 19, 2010, during a joint press conference that included the Services Committee of the House of Representatives, the Commission of Inquiry into Land Reclamation and the Bahrain Fishermen's Association, late Waheed Al-Dosari described the land reclamation operations as a "criminal act". 

The man lost his life due to a criminal act of different sort, when he suffered severe trauma in prison after he was arrested and falsely accused of spying for Qatar, contacting a Qatari minister and receiving funds from him to finance his 2018 election campaign.

Al-Dosari left and the criminal acts were left unchanged for the greedy who rule the country. In the name of development, the authorities again decide to take a larger tour, snatching more spaces, even environmental reserves that are supposed to be nurtured, not destroyed.

The sea thieves have chosen a new victim of their endless greed. They decided to destroy Fasht Al-Azem, Fasht Al-Jarem and Suhaila Island, ravaging the rest of Bahrain's environmental life and fish wealth. All of this, of course, is in order to amplify the wealth of the king and his sons.

Under the so-called economic recovery plan, the greedy decided to kill the sea, burying more than 300,000 square meters, without considering the environment, and taking into account the country's fisheries. 

Finance Minister Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa reiterated the lies of his predecessors, claiming that they had taken into account, when planning for the five new cities, the criteria for the preservation of the environment and marine life.

Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa said the same to defend the king's real estate projects in 2006, but these projects led to a decline in annual production from 14 tons to only 8 tons, after the reclamation operations eradicated nearly 80 to 85% of marine life, and caused the extinction of 350 species of fish and marine life there.

At best, annual production would be reduced to about 4 tons, if the new cities were completed, as Fasht Al-Jarem and Fasht Al-Azem alone provide more than 3 tons per year.

Environmental studies presented to the public at the time falsely stated that marine life would not be affected, and those studies were prepared by private companies that invested in those reclaimed areas. Today, this falsification is carried out by the Supreme Council of the Environment, headed by one of the king's sons.

The faces of those who try to mislead people differ, while the party benefiting from these revenues resulting from this criminal act remains one, the ruling family. The king, his sons, wife and uncle owned these projects at the beginning of the millennium, but today they became less in number after the death of the king's uncle.

Billions of dollars will enter the treasury of the king and his relatives, while citizens will be deprived of the country's reasources and seas, and unfortunately this is done under the pretext of caring for the citizen's interests and "creating jobs, considering it's the ultimate goal of the development plan," as the Minister of Finance claimed.

We ask his highness, the minister, to tell us what jobs the Durrat Al-Bahrain project has created for Bahrainis (directly or indirectly) and how many Bahrainis work there today or even since the start of the maritime reclamation operations.

Nothing. It is now just private property owned by the ruling family and the wealthy who are allowed to own there, or the regime loyalists who were given villas there, such as journalist Sawsan Al-Shaer.

These projects are made at the expense of Bahrainis, but their revenues only go to the ruling family because they have declared, with the power of oppression, that Bahrain is their personal property. The Supreme Council of Environment is theirs, the House of Representatives is theirs, the judiciary is in their name, the private sector and even the public one is also theirs.

Arabic Version