On Tuesday, Bahrain’s Interior Ministry issued a decision banning citizens from traveling to Iran and Iraq until further notice, “due to the continued security tensions.”
Every year during the month of Muharram, the first of the Islamic calendar, millions of Shiite Muslims travel to Karbala in Iraq, often transiting through Iran to complete their pilgrimage to the Imam Hussein Shrine.
Geneva-based Bahrain Forum for Human Rights chairperson Baqer Darwish criticized the decision, calling it a “measure that targets Shiite citizens in the practice of their religious beliefs, particularly visits to holy shrines.”
“This step is part of a long pattern of sectarian discrimination,” he added. “After the government, including the Minister of Interior [Lt. Gen. Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa] repeatedly claimed that the authorities do not target Shiites, despite the detention of 41 Shiite clerics, it has now moved to criminalize freedom of movement by preventing visits to Shiite holy shrines.”
Shiite Muslims could potentially visit pilgrimage sites in Syria, which houses the shrines of Hussein’s sister (Zaynab) and daughter (Ruqayya), but most Shiites tend to visit these sites around the birth and death anniversaries of these figures.
When asked if Syria would be an option, a Bahraini Shiite Muslim said it was unlikely since “Iran is the destination during Ashura.”
The Bahraini Shiite political party Al-Wefaq, which was ordered to disband but continues to operate clandestinely, issued a statement calling the decision “suspicious in its timing and circumstances as the religious pilgrimage season is about to begin.”
Al-Wefaq added that the decision is “lacking in legitimacy, given that the region is interconnected.”
For Shiite Muslims, Ashura is a major, solemn observance of mourning marking the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein bin Ali, who was killed at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE.
Arbitrary arrests, disproportionately targeting Bahrain’s Shiite Muslim majority, have ramped up in the wake of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, under the pretext of punishing “treason” and pro-Iranian sentiment.
As of May 31, Bahrain’s Prisoners Affairs Authority has documented 467 arbitrary arrests through “summons, late-night raids, and systematic targeting of participants in religious rituals and mourning ceremonies, as well as the arrest of a number of scholars, preachers, and prominent religious and social figures.”