Bahrain Mirror: Nationalist Democratic Assembly announced on Thursday (March 7, 2019) that the justice ministry prevented it from holding a seminar at the society's headquarters about the March uprising that took place in 1965.

The Nationalist Assembly issued a statement saying, "The Nationalist Assembly received this morning a request from the head of the Office of Political Associations Affairs in the Ministry of Justice and Islamic affairs, asking to stop the seminar entitled: March Uprising in the National Memory, from being held, which the Nationalist Democratic Assembly intended to organize on Monday, March 11, 2019, during which Mr. Ibrahim Kamal Al-Deen was to deliver an address. The Ministry considered that the symposium represented a violation of the law, given that the speaker was a former official in the dissolved Wa'ad society.

The statement added "the order was based on article 1, section 3 of law 25/2018 on the exercise of political rights, which stipulates that (the leaders and members of the dissolved political associations by a final judgment for committing a serious violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the Kingdom or any law of its own). The Nationalist Assembly sees that the Office of Political Associations Affairs basing its order on the article mentioned in the request to stop the seminar is unlawful since the said article clearly stipulates those included in this amendment are prohibited from only running for the House of Representatives, and not deprived of their political rights as citizens in society."

"Thus, the Nationalist Assembly, although not convinced by this amendment, considers that its invitation of Mr. Ibrahim Kamal Al-Deeb, a former leader in Wa'ad society, does not legally or politically contradict this article, and requests the Office of political Associations to abolish this arbitrary interpretation of the said article which has been repeated for the second time in this regard."

The Nationalist Assembly regrets the cancellation of the symposium, wishes in this regard to affirm its sincere calls for the launching and expansion of political and social freedoms in Bahrain, as an urgent need to restore the vitality and recovery of political life and to open dialogue to enter a new national phase responding to the challenges that society currently faces, namely the dire economic conditions.

Arabic Version