Bahrain announces elections to replace 18 Shia MPs
\nZoi Constantine
\nLast Updated: May 12, 2011<\/p>\n
Lebanese doctors, supporters of Hezbollah, carry placards, one reading in Arabic ‘Why keeping silence about arrests of doctors in Bahrain’ and wave Lebanese and Bahrain flags during a demonstration in solidarity with the doctors and nurses arrested in Bahrain in Beirut yesterday. Lebanese doctors, supporters of Hezbollah, carry placards, one reading in Arabic ‘Why keeping silence about arrests of doctors in Bahrain’ and wave Lebanese and Bahrain flags during a demonstration in solidarity with the doctors and nurses arrested in Bahrain in Beirut yesterday. <\/p>\n
BEIRUT: The Bahraini government announced yesterday that parliamentary elections will be held in September to replace members who resigned in protest in February after the start of a crackdown on pro-reform demonstrations. Sheikh Khaled bin Ali al Khalifa, Bahrain’s justice minister, announced that a by-election would be held on September 24, according to the state-run Bahrain News Agency, with a second round scheduled for October 1. Eighteen MPs from Al Wefaq, the main Shia opposition group, resigned after the government’s violent response to demonstrations that began in mid-February, inspired by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.<\/p>\n
Since then, more than 30 people have been killed, mostly protesters but also policemen, and hundreds more arrested as the government moved to quell protests. It declared a state of emergency in mid-March which is due to end, it announced this week, on June 1. …more<\/a><\/p>\n