Bahraini anti-government protesters calling out "peaceful, peaceful," approach riot police, Jan. 7, 2012. Hasan Jamali/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.Since the beginning of June, the Government of Bahrain has forcibly exiled activist Zainab al-Khawaja; denaturalized the country’s most prominent Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim; dissolved the largest opposition group, Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society; rearrested celebrated human rights defender Nabeel Rajab; brought criminal charges against internationally-renowned interfaith leader Sheikh Maytham al-Salman; and judicially harassed more than 60 Shia religious figures on allegations linked solely to sermons and peaceful demonstrations.
Can you spot the “democratic triumph?”
Khalifa Alfadhel, a law professor at the University of Bahrain and a royally-appointed member of the Bahrain Institute for Political Development (BIPD) run by the Minister of Information Affairs, seems to think it’s obvious. In two similar articles recently submitted to RealClearPolitics and openDemocracy – “Bahrain's Little Known Democratic Move” and “The suspension of Wefaq: a triumph for democracy in Bahrain” – Alfadhel characterizes 2016 as a watershed year for the country, asserting that the government has finally defeated the forces of “neomedievalism” in the name of “pluralism, tolerance and political liberalism” by closing Al-Wefaq and prohibiting religious leaders from political participation. But the problem isn’t simply that Alfadhel’s writing is rife with misinformation; it’s that he presents his unsubstantiated allegations as independent commentary.
Addressing US policymakers in the first article, Alfdahel appeals to a caricature of secularism, Iranophobia, and anti-Islamist anxiety, writing: “Some have characterized Al-Wefaq as an ‘opposition’ party in Bahrain. This is not the whole truth…Al-Wefaq, in fact, is a proxy for Iran in Bahrain. It is a radical Shiite religious organization masquerading as a political party.”
