Manama, Dubai: A Bahrain court banned the Gulf state’s main opposition movement for three months Tuesday, just weeks before a parliamentary election the group had said it would boycott, a court official said.
The Manama administrative court ruled that Al Wefaq, which draws most of its support from the kingdom’s Shiite community, had violated the law on associations.
It gave the group three months to regularise its status.
Al Wefaq said it was seriously concerned by the move, which it described as “irrational and irresponsible.”
Lawyer Abdullah Al Shamlawi said that Tuesday’s verdict means all of Al Wefaq’s activities would be frozen for three months.
Political parties are banned in Bahrain, as in other Gulf Arab countries, and Al Wefaq has the status of an association.
In July, the justice ministry filed suit against Al Wefaq, insisting the bloc must rectify its “illegal status following the annulment of four general assemblies for lack of a quorum and the non-commitment to the public and transparency requirements for holding them.”
The ministry accused Al Wefaq of breaking the law and failing to “amend violations related to its illegal general assemblies and the consequent invalidity of all its decisions.”
The United States had voiced “strong concerns” over the lawsuit, warning of its potential impact on the November 22 polls.
Elections for a new 40-seat lower house of parliament are the first since 2011 protests demanding more representative democracy. Municipal elections will be held simultaneously.
Al Wefaq, which led the protest movement against the government, made slender gains in the last election, in 2010.
But it withdrew its 18 MPs after the government quelled the protests in March 2011.
Al Wefaq was established in 2002 after the announcement of political reforms the previous year. It had no immediate comment on the court’s ruling.