by lelibertaire

"I was asleep when I found out,” recalls former Bahraini citizen Taimoor Karimi. “My kids came in and woke me up. All they could say was ‘Dad, we’ve got bad news. You’re on the list.’” His nationality had just been revoked. Karimi is one of 159 people made stateless by the Bahraini government since 2012. On three separate occasions, with no prior warning, the state has published lists of people whose citizenship has been annulled.

The Bahraini government began revoking citizenships shortly after the Arab Spring engulfed large sections of the Middle East, Bahrain included, in 2011. On February 14 of that year both Shiite and Sunni Bahrainis took to the streets to demand the same rights and political freedoms for the majority Shiite population as for their Sunni compatriots. The regime of the ruling Al-Khalifa family, who are Sunnis, sent in troops to put down the movement. But four years later, demonstrators still protest every night on the streets of the country’s Shiite villages.