Bahrain - passport as a weapon
69 Bahrainis had their citizenship revoked because their government decided they were traitors. The youngest is a few months old. Their sin? They glorified and sympathized with Iran's enemy actions.
What sounds horryfing is in fact - at least in some of the cases - sharing footage online of Iranian drones and missiles, and the damage they caused. Is that really a glorification of enemy aggression?
Stick, and the carrot?
The government of Bahrain has been using the kingdom's passport as a stick for years now. Plenty of opposition leaders and activists, usually Shi'a, have become stateless for making the state uncomfortable. The list includes Ali Salman, Issa Qassim, Syed Ahmed Alwadaei and Ali Mushaima.
At the same time, at least since the 2011 protests, the Sunni royal family has been importing fellow Sunni Muslims from other countries, including Pakistan and Jordan, to beef up their security forces, which they have later sent on the demonstrators. To entice the new arrivals, they were given Bahraini citizenship - with all the perks that entails, such as low-interest mortgage and welfare benefits. It's a way for the regime to change the demographic make-up of the country.
The official census, done once a decade, doesn't dwell too much on the religious identity, and divides people into muslims and others. Yet, it was widely believed the Shi'a make up about 60-70% of the citizen population, the rest being Sunnis. Current estimates put the number at 55-60%. Conflicts between both groups are a whole other story, since Bahrain isn't a case of religious tensions, but of government's policy of divide and conquer.
A fifth column
The revolution from 15 yers ago didn't have an overarching religious motivation to it. The main slogans were democratization of the state and the stopping of Shi'a discrimination. Among the more popular slogans was "Sunni, Shi'a - one Bahrain.' Both Shi'a and Sunni spoke during the demonstrations. One group did not like it: the Al-Khalifa royal family - and some of its members in particular were opposed. While the faction represented by the current prime minister Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the king's son, was open to talks with the opposition, the hardliners frisking under the banner of the fomer premier Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa (the king's uncle) were vehemently opposed.
So, a plan was hatched to divide society along sectarian lines. Counterdemonstrations were quickly organised, and government-owned media began their propaganda offernsive, wherein the establishment questioned the loyalty of the opposition to their homeland, and suggesting more or less openly that they act in favour and on the payroll of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In other words: the cardinal sin.
Human rights? Where?
The Shi'a have had a limited access to the job market, especially in the public sector. They are also underrepresented in the parliament, the government and other public institutions. Political prisoners have been tortured. In March 2026, a 32-year-old man died as a result of torture he experienced in police custody. Between 35 and 120 people died during 2011 Arab Spring alone. Freedom of the press and gatherings is non-existing, and critical press have been forced to close.
Iran is a theocracy, and the only place in the world where the Shi'a majority is in power. At the same time, it has a long imperial history, which did leave a mark on Bahrain. The Persians made the archipelago their colony and ruled until the 17th century, when they were driven out by the Portugese. Persia was a place of education. Local vocabularies and place names have referenced either Persia or Bahrain. The kingdom still holds a Persian minority, locally called Ajami. The 69 stateless persons all belonged to it, and were Shi'a as well.
The kingdom has a long-standing habit of accusing Iran of meddling in its domestic affars. More hotheaded members of the Iranian establishment have in fact called for its annexation. Dozens of people faced charges of trying to overthrow the regime with love from Tehran, which was accused of supplying weapons and Bahraini police uniforms. The government has raised similar accusations a number of times on other occasions when times were tense, also in the Arab Spring. In May this year, it arrested 41 people for supposedly belonging to a group linked to the IRGC.
Al'a al-Shehabi, a researcher, activist, and co-author of the book Bahrain's Uprising: Resistence and Repression in the Gulf, told the New York Times the hate speech has got so bad that Sunnis with Shi'a names turned to publicly reaffirming their sect and loyalty to the royal families in the region.
The government of Bahrain has indeed radicalised. In 2024, kind Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa issued a decree which recognised citizenship as a prerogative of the sovereign. In a stroke of a pen, he made sure there's no judicial oversight over the key aspect of life. This has left no avenue to appeal a decision to revoke somoeone's citizenship. 3 Bahraini MPs lost their MP status for critizing the move and voting against it in parliament.
The sovereign took that so personally that in a meeting with UAE leaders, he accused the parliamentarians of treason and siding with traitors. Going a step further, he said if they don't apologise, they may end up in the same way as the other "traitors" - without a passport and deported. The decree was accepted 33:3 anyway.