Bahrain has launched a crackdown on Shi'ite Muslim clerics whom authorities accuse of fostering allegiance to Tehran, in a sign of how the Iran war has destabilised Gulf states allied with the United States that did not support the war but have borne the brunt of Iran's attacks, Reuters reported from Manama on Friday, November 6.

Source: Reuters

Bahraini officials have framed the move in existential terms, saying Iran seeks to undermine and ultimately topple the leadership of the only Gulf country ruled by a Sunni Muslim family but populated mostly by Shi'ites. "We are confronting an ideology that demands obedience to Iran's leadership above Bahrain's sovereign authority," Lt. Gen. Tariq Al Hassan, head of Bahrain's Public Security agency, told Reuters in an interview. Iran's UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters said.

More than 50 clerics arrested; verdict due November 8

Between May and June, authorities arrested more than 50 clerics and religious orators, accusing them of trying to run a terrorist group that sought to incite rebellion and overthrow the country's ruling order with help from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Reuters reported. Bahrain's public prosecution said the clerics aimed to do this by promoting followers' subordination to Iran's supreme leader. The clerics' relatives and lawyers say the authorities are trying to criminalise belief, and deny the charges that they sought to overthrow the state or acted on behalf of Iran.

A verdict is expected in the case on November 8, and the kingdom is bracing for potential protests, Reuters said. The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy and the Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain say the mass trial involves 69 defendants, including dozens of clerics, and followed a widespread arrest campaign that began on May 9, 2026.

Rights groups allege torture and coerced confessions

On Friday, 20 rights groups including Human Rights Watch and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy released a statement raising allegations of torture, coerced confessions and other due-process violations in the case, Reuters reported. "This mass prosecution raises serious concerns about religious persecution targeting the religious life and leadership of Bahrain's Shia community," the statement said. Critics say the arrests and the stripping of citizenship from 69 citizens of Iranian heritage are a new blow to free speech and religious freedom in a country that crushed the 2011 Arab Spring pro-democracy protests.

Bahrain denies targeting Shi'ite citizens, "most of whom are law-abiding and loyal citizens," Al Hassan said. Around a dozen people have been sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison for allegedly expressing support for the attacks on Bahrain, according to Reuters.

Why the attacks alarmed Manama

When the US and Israel launched the Iran war on February 28, Tehran responded by raining drones and missiles on neighbouring Gulf states, including Bahrain. For Bahraini authorities, the strikes were worryingly accurate, hitting a hotel shortly after US military personnel arrived there after fleeing their base — home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet — Western diplomats and Gulf officials told Reuters. Officials were further alarmed by social media posts from some Bahrainis praising attacks seen as targeting US interests. "Unfortunately, the war exposed the extent to which some individuals had been hijacked and indoctrinated by Iran-linked ideology," Al Hassan said. "We determined at that point that this issue had to be addressed at its roots."

A detente reversed

The crackdown has reversed a trend of internal and regional detente: the government freed hundreds of prisoners held for political activity through royal pardons in 2024, rights groups said, and the same year Bahrain and Iran began talks to restore diplomatic relations severed since 2016. Bahrain, the smallest Gulf nation, lies just across the water from Iran and has long been anxious about Iranian influence; since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, its Gulf neighbours have seen Bahrain as the frontline against Iranian expansion, Reuters reported.