Alwaght-A Bahraini regime court has handed down prison sentences to five pro-democracy activists amid an ongoing brutal crackdown on opposition and pro-democracy activists in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.
On Thursday, Bahrain's Supreme Criminal Court sentenced the defendants to five years in jail each after finding them guilty of “deliberately setting fire to a vehicle and endangering the lives and property of ordinary people for a terrorist purpose” on Sitra Island, located five kilometers south of the capital Manama, on May 25.
Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.
They are demanding that the Al Khalifah regime relinquish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.
Since 2011, when protests against the government erupted as part of the Islamic Awakening movement that swept the region, tensions have simmered - and occasionally boiled over – between the Shiite-majority populace and the repressive Al Khalifa monarchy.
The 2011 demonstrations were put down with the help of Saudi Arabia, but other protests have erupted since.
Authorities have jailed dozens of high-profile activists, disbanded both religious and secular opposition groups, and stripped hundreds of people of their citizenship.
The tiny Persian Gulf kingdom is an ally of the US and Britain with the two Western powers having military bases in the country.
