Christopher Davidson - After the Sheikhs - The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies

Unsurprisingly, Shia-led protests, most of which have focused on their socio-economic discrimination or the jailing of their leaders, continued to gather pace following these revelations and the issue of sectarian manipulation is now very much at the core of the bloody revolution underway in Bahrain. However, even prior to 2011 these protests were being met with extreme force. In March 2009, for example, following the arrest of twenty-three Shia leaders, crowds had gathered to demand their release and carried placards with the slogans ‘We are against sectarian discrimination’ and ‘No, no to oppressing freedoms’. The Bahraini police — mostly made up of Sunni Bahraini nationals or Sunni expatriates from Jordan, Pakistan, and elsewhere — shot teargas canisters into crowds and for several days fought pitched battles in several Shia villages. Interviewed by the New York Times , Shia protestors complained that they were all but banned from holding military and security positions, and that ‘…there are no jobs because of naturalisation of foreigners, because of the political prisoners, because of the abuse of the rights of the citizen’. [602] 141. New York Times 27 March 2009.

In August 2010, shortly before parliamentary elections were due to be staged, four more Shia activists were arrested including the spokesperson for a Shia political group called the Haq Movement for Liberty and Democracy, [603] 142. Abduljalil Al-Singace. the head of a Shia human rights group committed to helping those who have been tortured, [604] 143. Abdulghani Al-Kanjar. and others belonging to a group that had — according to the government — been ‘created to undermine the security and stability of the country’. [605] 144. Referring to Muhammed Al-Muqdad and Said Al-Nouri. Commenting on the arrests, the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights claimed ‘I don’t think anyone in Bahrain believes those stories’ and predicted they would further inflame sectarian tensions in the country. [606] 145. The National , 17 August 2010. By the end of the month it was thought that nearly 160 activists had been detained — initially high profile Shia political and human rights leaders, but later including ‘many young men not known as activists’. The official view was again one of denial, with spokespersons claiming that the detainees were ‘suspected of security and terrorism violations, and were not being held for expressing dissident political views’ and that ‘…the only thing the government did wrong was that it went too easy at first’. The government also stated that it would ‘…no longer tolerate unrest among the Shia’ and that those convicted of ‘…compromising national security or slandering the nation can be deprived of health care and other state services’. [607] 146. New York Times , 26 August 2010.

Writing for The Economist in October 2010, one week before the elections, one analyst tried to sum up the mood in Bahrain following these harsh government counter measures. In the short term, it was argued, the measures might work, as ‘Opposition and human-rights people could be frightened into acquiescence’. However, it was pointed out that due to the ‘…government’s mishandling of events in the past few weeks [it] has stirred a well of resentment that may, in the longer term, spell danger for the Sunni ascendancy — and even for the ruling house’. Significantly, the article also claimed that the government was ‘blatantly harassing the opposition parties, particularly the main Shia-dominated one’ and that its leaders were being ‘…assailed in the pro-government press with accusations of encouraging terrorism and being in the pocket of “outside powers”, meaning in essence Iran’. [608] 147. The Economist , 14 October 2010. Indeed, when a British member of the House of Lords [609] 148. Lord Eric Avebury. met with Bahraini Shia leaders in London, and when the British ambassador to Bahrain met Shia leaders in Manama, the Bahraini state-backed newspapers were full of allegations of British- or Iranian-engineered plots to overthrow the ruling family. A petition was even signed by prominent Bahraini Sunnis demanding the expulsion of the British ambassador on these grounds.

The Shia of Saudi Arabia have for many years also complained bitterly of discrimination. Unlike their Bahraini counterparts, they form only a minority of Saudi nationals, albeit now a substantial minority of between 5 and 15 per cent, with most dwelling in the Eastern Province, close to Bahrain, and home to several of the kingdom’s key oil fields. Over the years, most of their complaints have been over the province’s relative underdevelopment compared to the rest of Saudi Arabia and the institutional discrimination they have faced, especially over public sector employment opportunities. There have been fewer protests than in Bahrain, nonetheless riots broke out in 1979—which were brutally suppressed — and in 2009 there were reports of attacks by Saudi security forces on Shia pilgrims. [610] 149. See Nolan, May 2011. The 1979 riots were in Qatif and Al-Hasa. On occasion there has also been organised opposition, with 450 Shia activists signing a petition in 2003 entitled ‘Partners in One Nation’ which demanded the equal treatment of Shia under Saudi Arabia’s laws. [611] 150. See Nolan, May 2011.

As with Bahrain, Shia protests were taking place in Saudi Arabia immediately prior to 2011. In December 2010 for example, violent clashes erupted in the holy city Medina during the Ashoura commemorations — a key religious day for Shia. It transpired that hundreds of Sunni hard-liners had attacked Shia worshippers, reportedly using poles and stones. Although security forces were eventually deployed, there was apparently a delay of more than two hours before the attackers were dispersed. Moreover, while several state-backed newspapers reported the attacks, they eschewed mention of the sectarian element, with one [612] 151. Al-Riyadh . even blaming ‘young zealots wearing black clothes’—in a reference to Shia worshippers — for inciting the violence. [613] 152. Associated Press , 18 December 2010.

The situation in Kuwait has generally been better, as although the Shia community is estimated to be a fairly substantial 15 per cent of the national population, it is much more closely integrated into the emirate’s business elite. Nevertheless, there have been a growing number of incidents which indicate rising sectarian tension, especially with regard to allegations of strengthening links between Kuwait’s Shia and Bahrain’s Shia, and between Kuwait’s Shia and Iran. In late 2010 for example, the state-backed Al-Qabas newspaper reported that there were Shia cells throughout the Gulf monarchies, including Kuwait, which were ready to strike in the event of any attack on Iran. Meanwhile two Kuwaiti Shia activists were stripped of their citizenship on the grounds that they were ‘trying to stir up conflict amongst Muslims’. Most dramatically, four Kuwaiti Shia were also arrested at about the same time and charged, along with three Iranian expatriates, with spying for Iran in Kuwait and leaking confidential military information, a charge which the Iranian government has vehemently denied. [614] 153. Al-Jazeera English , 22 September 2010. In early 2011, soon after the beginning of the Bahraini revolution the tension in Kuwait escalated further, with other state-backed newspapers publishing anti-Shia articles. Many described the Bahraini revolution through a sectarian lens, promoting evidence of connections to Iran, while Al-Watan newspaper carried an article specifically on one of the denaturalised Shia activists. [615] 154. Jadaliyya , 26 March 2011. Although nothing compared to Bahrain’s Al-Bandar scandal, the Kuwaiti government has also recently been criticised for compiling demographic statistics based on sect. In June 2011 a report began circulating widely on the internet which claimed that the government was trying to determine the exact number — rumoured to be 15.7 per cent — of the Kuwaiti Shia national population. This prompted a strong response from the Kuwaiti Ministry for the Interior which stated that ‘There is no truth whatsoever in the allegations that the interior ministry has prepared statistics about the number of Kuwaiti nationals based on their Sunni or Shiite sects’ and that ‘…the interior ministry does not have the prerogatives to issue such statistics’. [616] 155. Gulf News , 5 July 2011.