Article: Bahrain gives exile a passport to purgatory

Bahraini passport No 721185 doesn't do Abdullah Ali Rashid al- Birali much good. He can't go home on it - unless he wishes to be deported. When he flew to the Bahraini capital of Manama they confiscated his current passport, detained him for a week and then deported him with a new passport, No 721185, issued for the specific purpose of throwing him out of his own country.

The men who detained him were Pakistanis working for the Bahraini security services which are run by a former British colonial policeman, Ian Henderson. A Bahraini was thus prevented from entering Bahrain and deported from Bahrain by foreigners. Kafka has nothing on this.

Nor is Mr Birali's fate uncommon. Around 100 ...

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