Weekly Report (Friday – November 14, 2025): The Tyrant Hamad… Bar­ing His Fangs A Security Campaign to Mask Fragility and Failure

Weekly Report (Friday – November 14, 2025): The Tyrant Hamad… Bar­ing His Fangs

A Security Campaign to Mask Fragility and Failure

Activists and local human rights organizations documented a surge in the security campaign launched by the mercenary forces in Bahrain, targeting several participants in the large funeral procession of the martyr Abdullah Hassan Yousif in his hometown Shahrkan on November 4, 2025, which witnessed chants condemning the tyrant Hamad.

Sources indicated that Hamad himself was behind the escalation in security measures due to his anger over the mourners’ chants, which held him directly responsible for the martyr’s assassination. He perceived the chants as an indication of the failure of all his projects aimed at whitewashing his image and suppressing the opposition popular movement, especially after repeatedly appearing at events proudly displaying a sense of “success” in subduing the February 14 Revolution community. However, observers noted that the escalation would take a more strategic turn, framing the arrest of opposition leader Ibrahim Sharif as part of a “mixing of cards,” particularly since the regime is preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections in November 2026 and plans to organize visits by Hamad to influential figures residing in areas associated with the February 14 Revolution, aiming to project control over the popular reality.

Activists clarified that the pattern of arrests has taken a security-oriented approach, issuing summonses to targeted individuals, and in cases of non-compliance, mercenary forces raid their homes. This is intended to conceal the retaliatory nature of the actions against mourners and their chants. Meanwhile, Hamad’s advisors feared a potential backlash, with the arrests possibly reflecting negatively on the regime and causing street unrest—a scenario the Safriya Palace strategists aim to avoid. This comes at a time when the regime is preparing a broad campaign to promote its programs on alternative penalties and “open prisons,” as demonstrated by Interior Minister Rashed Al-Khalifa during the GCC Interior Ministers’ meeting in Kuwait, and during the visit of his Omani counterpart to Manama.

All of this falls within the regime’s efforts to position itself regionally and exploit its so-called diplomatic openness, which continues to face multiple obstacles, particularly from the Iranian side, in addition to ongoing popular unrest due to the prisoners’ issue, religious targeting, and poor living conditions.