Two Bahraini footballers have been arrested and more than 200 sportsmen suspended for taking part in anti-government protests that threaten the Gulf kingdom’s ruling family.
The move could leave Bahrain in breach of international rules separating politics and sport. All the men suspended are Shia Muslims. At least 28 people have died and hundreds have been injured in the Sunni regime’s efforts to suppress the pro-democracy movement spearheaded by the country’s Shia majority.
Aala and Mohammed Hubail, stars of the national football team, were arrested during training with their club, al-Ahli, on Tuesday after state television broadcast footage of them attending a pro-democracy rally in Pearl Square in the capital, Manama.
Aala Hubail, 28, was joint top scorer in the 2004 Asian Cup. A paramedic before he turned professional, he worked as a volunteer nurse during the protests.
The programme on Bahrain TV, the mouthpiece of the regime, set out to name and shame sports stars taking part in the Shia-led protests. The channel has been openly partisan, denouncing the protesters as “stray hyenas”.
Advertisement
Since the broadcast, dozens of sportsmen and officials, all of them Shia, have been suspended. They include Jaffar Alkhabaz, a Fifa-certified referee, and Mohammed Sayed Adnan, notorious for missing a penalty in the World Cup play-offs against New Zealand last year. Several leading basketball, volleyball and handball players have also been banned by their clubs from competition.
The Bahrain Football Association met yesterday to discuss the crisis but officials admit that they are in uncharted territory, with the men under investigation by the Government and their clubs. “The suspension falls under misconduct, and the breaching of the rules and regulations of sporting clubs ... not to engage in any political affairs,” the association said in a statement to The Times.
Dragging sport into the kingdom’s sectarian conflict will only deepen the growing divide in Bahraini society. Al-Ahli has successfully straddled the two communities. While most clubs in Bahrain fall loosely along sectarian lines, al-Ahli is owned by a wealthy Sunni merchant family but most of its players and fans are Shia.
The suspensions have also hampered the association’s plan to resume Bahraini Premier League matches in the coming days. The league has been suspended since the protests began in February.
Since the Bahraini military moved in to smash the encampment in Pearl Square last month, the Government has kept up the pressure on Shia communities with frequent raids and arrests. Opposition politicians have been jailed along with doctors, teachers, lawyers and bloggers suspected of sympathising with the protests. Opposition groups claim that more than 300 people are now in custody. More than 100 are missing, with countless accusations of human rights abuses.
Advertisement
A 57-year-old man who was reported missing on Tuesday night was found dead yesterday. Local reports said that his body had been stuffed into a rubbish bin.
The Government has accused Iran and Hezbollah of stoking the protests but has offered little or no evidence of their involvement.
Opposition groups in Bahrain accuse the regime of manufacturing a sectarian crisis to avoid making any concessions to the pro-democracy movement but a stand-off is developing in the Gulf since an Arab taskforce, led by Saudi Arabia, arrived in Bahrain last month to support the crackdown.
Iran and Hezbollah have denounced the deployment of Saudi troops, and there have been rallies in Iraq in support of the Bahraini protesters.
If the arrests and suspensions are deemed to be politically motivated, Bahrain faces possible sanctions from Fifa. Football’s governing body banned Iraq from international competition in 2009 over political interference after the Government in Baghdad disbanded the Iraqi Football Association and raided its headquarters. The ban was rescinded last year.
Advertisement
Fifa declined to comment yesterday on the situation in Bahrain until it has more information.