Bahrain’s King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, said that his country regrets the “alignment of some lawmakers with traitors instead of defending the homeland.”
The statement came at the height of a controversy that followed the revocation of citizenship from 69 Bahraini citizens, whom authorities said had sympathized with hostile Iranian actions, and coincided with a debate within the House of Representatives over a law that would classify nationality matters as “acts of sovereignty,” beyond the jurisdiction of the judiciary. The law was approved by 34 members, with only three opposing it, according to the Bahraini newspaper Al-Ayyam.
The decision presents citizenship revocation as a sovereign and legal measure linked to national security. The Bahraini constitution places the measure within a specific framework, as Article 17 stipulates that citizenship may only be revoked in cases of “high treason and the circumstances defined by law.”
In an interview with Alhurra, a former Bahraini member of parliament, who preferred not to be named, linked the decision to the context of war, considering that the revocation of citizenship now is “fully and completely tied to what is happening in the region” between Iran and the United States, and that it carries a message to Tehran that “Bahraini Shiites are in danger, and you must take this into account.”
By contrast, Bahrain’s Minister of Justice said that the decree is not related to current circumstances but rather comes as part of a legislative track that began in 2024.
King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain (Reuters)
The kingdom has experienced previous waves of citizenship revocation, including stripping it from 31 citizens in 2012, revoking the citizenship of Sheikh Isa Qassim in 2016, and then stripping 115 citizens of their nationality in a mass trial in 2018. In 2019, citizenship was restored to hundreds of people, in a move that at the time appeared to ease the use of this tool. Therefore, what is happening now does not entirely open a new page but rather reopens an old one under more sensitive circumstances.
Human Rights Watch had previously warned that vague language in citizenship laws could open the door to broad political interpretations, while Amnesty International has stated that citizenship revocation in previous cases could lead to statelessness or deportation.
The cost is not measured only legally, but also humanly. When citizenship is revoked, the question is no longer limited to the individual alone, but whether the consequences extend to their family.
These questions find an answer with Yahya Al-Hadid, head of the Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, who is among those whose Bahraini citizenship was revoked in 2015 before later obtaining Australian citizenship.
He told Alhurra that the decision did not stop with him alone but extended even to his children, adding: “My children, Fatima and Ali, no longer hold Bahraini citizenship.” He added that many of those stripped of their citizenship between 2011 and 2018, and in 2020, remain stateless, scattered across Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq, because these countries, according to him, do not grant citizenship to Bahraini opposition members or to those whose citizenship has been revoked.
For human rights advocates, losing citizenship is not like imprisonment or a fine; a conventional punishment has a beginning and an end, whereas citizenship revocation can alter a person’s legal status and family life for many years. Therefore, Baqer Darwish, head of the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights, described citizenship revocation in an interview with Alhurra as “akin to a form of moral execution,” considering that authorities have turned it into “a tool of indirect collective deterrence.”
Here, the debate is not only about the law itself, but about the context in which positions are interpreted. In times of war, a statement may shift from the category of political opinion to that of security alignment, depending on who reads it and the circumstances in which it was made.
This logic gains weight during times of crisis and security threats. Bahraini writer and political analyst Jaafar Salman told Alhurra that “the main criterion used in this matter is which side those stripped of their citizenship stand with,” adding that Bahrain was within the circle of war, and that those who publicly stand with those attacking the country or declare loyalty to them may be seen as undeserving of citizenship.
Salman goes further, linking the decision to the background of some of those whose citizenship was revoked before they obtained it. According to his reading, some of them were “migrants and children of illegal migrants to Bahrain” before they were granted citizenship for humanitarian reasons. From this perspective, the issue does not appear to him as a political punishment, but rather a reassessment of entitlement to citizenship that had previously been granted.
Picture: Smoke rises after a strike targeting the Bapco oil refinery on Sitra Island in Bahrain (March 9, 2026 – Reuters)
Accusations of “Political Naturalization”
The citizenship file in Bahrain is not viewed solely from the angle of revocation; the policies of granting nationality themselves have, for years, been the subject of political and human rights accusations.
“Political naturalization in Bahrain is among the most controversial issues in the domestic scene,” says Jawad Fairooz, a former Bahraini member of parliament whose citizenship was revoked, in an interview with Alhurra. Baqer Darwish considers that this file is inseparable from a “political naturalization project involving tens of thousands” that, according to his description, was carried out “in violation of the law and in secrecy.”
The structure of the citizenship law increases the sensitivity of this debate. The law sets conditions for naturalization, including long-term residence, good conduct, and knowledge of the Arabic language, but it also opens an exceptional avenue for granting citizenship by sovereign order. At the same time, the law allows for revocation of citizenship from naturalized individuals in specific cases, including obtaining it through fraud, based on false statements, or by concealing essential information. Therefore, the disagreement is not about the existence of legal provisions for granting or revoking citizenship, but about the transparency of their implementation, the scope of exceptions, and their objectives.
The official narrative treats this argument as a political accusation and asserts that citizenship is granted or revoked in accordance with the law and the state’s sovereign considerations.
This article is a translation of the original Arabic.
