SMFNews: Rights Groups Condemn Bahrain’s Largest Mass Trial of Shia Clerics
Header photo: Bab al-Bahrain gate in Manama, Bahrain. Photo: Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0), adapted by SMF.
MANAMA, Bahrain — Twenty international and regional human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), have condemned a mass trial of Shia clerics in Bahrain, citing allegations of torture, coerced confessions and serious violations of the right to a fair trial. Middle East Eye described the case as the largest mass trial of Shia clerics in the country’s history.
The case before Bahrain’s High Criminal Court involves 69 defendants: 60 Shia clerics and nine others, including religious reciters known as radoods, according to the groups’ joint statement, published Nov. 6. Of the 56 defendants in custody, 47 are clerics. The other 13 clerics are being tried in absentia.
Verdict postponed to Nov. 22
The court had been expected to deliver its judgment on Sunday, Nov. 8. Instead, it postponed the verdict to Nov. 22, Alhurra reported, citing sources familiar with the case. Families of the defendants and human rights activists were barred from the courtroom during Sunday’s hearing, according to the same report.
The charges
According to the joint statement, the charges include establishing “a terrorist group” to overthrow the “constitutional regime” and promoting a religious-political doctrine “by controlling mosques and local religious gatherings.” The statement says authorities have also accused the detainees, in official Instagram statements, of operating an unlawful organization and financing terrorism, and that one detainee is charged with espionage. Prosecutors also allege foreign links, which the clerics’ relatives and lawyers deny, Reuters reported.
The rights groups say the evidence presented includes religious teaching, books, khums (the religious tax in the Shia faith), charitable funds and foreign religious contacts. Using such material as criminal evidence “risks conflating religious identity, political allegiance and individual criminal responsibility,” the statement says.
Bahraini officials reject the claim that the crackdown targets people for their faith. Lt. Gen. Tariq Al Hassan, head of Bahrain’s Public Security agency, told Reuters that Bahrain does not target its Shia citizens, “most of whom are law-abiding and loyal citizens.”
Allegations of torture and coerced confessions
BIRD says it has obtained firsthand accounts from detainees describing abuse that may amount to torture. According to the joint statement, defendants first held at the Criminal Investigation Directorate reported forced standing, prolonged blindfolding and handcuffing, sleep deprivation, and threats of physical and sexual violence against themselves and their families, as well as threats of citizenship revocation and deportation. Some, the groups say, were held incommunicado at undisclosed locations.
The statement details two cases. Sheikh Mohammed Saeed Al-Taitoon, 62, reported being blindfolded and restrained for a week and forced to stand despite severe urinary bleeding and kidney stones, while being denied necessary surgery. Sayed Moosa Jawad Alwedaie, 57, told investigators he had been threatened with beatings, electric shocks, being stripped naked and the rape of his daughter. Bahrain’s Special Investigation Unit, which falls under the Public Prosecution, dismissed both complaints, according to BIRD.
The groups also say defense lawyers were not allowed to copy the case files and had to rely on handwritten notes, that defendants in custody could take part only by video link, and that identical passages appear in different defendants’ purported confessions. When lawyers asked for recordings of the interrogations, they were told the footage had been deleted after one month.
BIRD’s advocacy director, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, called the trial an “attack on the faith and identity of Bahrain’s Shia community.”
What the rights groups are asking
The 20 organizations are calling on Bahrain to guarantee fair trials with full access to evidence and independent trial monitoring, to make sure no conviction rests on evidence obtained through torture, and to investigate the allegations of torture, enforced disappearance and coerced confessions. They also want those responsible held to account, including security officials and prosecutors.
The statement warns that removing the clerics from their congregations “disrupts religious leadership, teaching and communal worship, and sends an intimidating message to the wider Shia community.”
A wider crackdown
Between May and June, Bahraini authorities arrested more than 50 clerics and religious orators, Reuters reported. Bahrain has also stripped 69 citizens of their citizenship. Critics, including rights groups, told Reuters the arrests and citizenship revocations are a new blow to free speech and religious freedom in a country that crushed pro-democracy protests in 2011.
SMF reported last month on separate arrests of Shia preachers and reciters in Bahrain.
Sources
Joint statement by 20 human rights groups via Human Rights Watch (Nov. 6, 2026); Amnesty International; Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy; Middle East Eye (Nov. 6, 2026); Alhurra (Nov. 8, 2026); Reuters, report by Timour Azhari from Manama (Nov. 6, 2026).
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