Bahrain’s high court issued the verdicts on Monday after convicting the defendants of allegedly possessing Molotov Cocktails, burning tires and attending illegal gatherings in the Salihiya district of the capital, Manama.

The development comes less than a week after Bahrain’s Justice and Islamic Affairs Ministry filed a lawsuit against the Islamic Scholars Council, which is a Shia body, calling for the dissolution of the group and the confiscation of its assets.

The ministry claimed in the lawsuit that the Islamic Scholars Council has been engaged in political activities that “threatened the security of the Arab kingdom.”

Bahrain’s main opposition bloc, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, has censured the move, saying “the regime has declared war on Shias.”

A number of Bahraini scholars and clerics have also signed a petition to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in protest at the decision.

Bahrainis have been staging demonstrations since mid-February 2011, calling for political reforms and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests.

Scores have been killed, many of them under torture while in custody, and thousands more detained since the popular uprising started in the kingdom.

RA/NJF