Bahrain top court rejects release of opposition chief

Dubai — Bahrain’s top court rejected Monday a request to release Shiite opposition chief cleric Ali Salman, who is serving a nine-year jail term on charges of inciting hatred and forceful regime change.

The head of the Al Wefaq group had been sentenced in July 2015 to four years in jail after being convicted of inciting hatred in kingdom.

 But the appeals court in May more than doubled his jail term to nine years after reversing an earlier acquittal on charges of calling for regime change by force. 

The court of cassation set October 17 as a new date to examine Salman’s sentence.

 His arrest in December 2014 sparked protests in Shiite-majority Bahrain.

 Salman’s jail sentence is part of a crackdown on the Gulf nation’s largest opposition group, which has been dissolved by a court order over accusations of “harbouring terrorism”.

Al Wefaq had the largest parliamentary bloc before its MPs walked out in February 2011 in protest to a Arab Spring-inspired protests.

 Hundreds of Shiites have been arrested and put on trial. Authorities have also stripped at least 261 people of their citizenship since 2012, according to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, including the country’s Shiite spiritual leader Sheikh Isa Qassem.