King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain pardoned 457 prisoners today to mark the 25th anniversary of the beginning of his administration of the island state, reported AP, quoted by BTA.
The announcement by the state-run Bahrain News Agency marks another mass release of prisoners in the Gulf kingdom, which has repeatedly cracked down on dissent in the years since the 2011 Arab Spring protests, AP notes.
There is currently no list of the names of the prisoners released on the orders of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who ruled Bahrain first as an emir in 1999 before Bahrain became a kingdom in 2002. According to the director of the London-based Bahraini institute for rights and democracy, however, a large number of those released appear to have been political prisoners.
In April, King Hamad pardoned 1,584 prisoners, including more than 650 considered by the institute to be political prisoners.
/LM/
Source: www.bta.bg