The Wall is Down

The King delivers. He promised the people of Malkiya that no one was above the law, and if the wall that was built was illegal, it will be removed.

The last section of the illegal wall was destroyed yesterday morning.

This is good news for Bahrain, and this experience should be noted for several reasons:

1. The violator is the King’s direct cousin, and he was forced by the application of the law to remove the wall that he illegally built. This sets a huge precedent in a country where transgressions like these were a norm, rather than an exception.

2. Malkiya can teach the parliamentary blocks how to work together to achieve a tangible result. The Malkiyans created a committee composed of the right mix of people to portray their points of view and stuck by them. The committee was professional and spoke collectively with a clear vision as to what its purpose is. They were intelligent in picking their fights and the people and organisations they interfaced with. They also kept advocating peaceful demonstration and did not hesitate in condemning violent acts.

3. This situation has started the snowball of questions by residents about various walls, compounds, palaces which restrict their rightful access to the sea. There are cases now being investigated in Sanad and Budaiya. I hope that whoever raised these questions will learn how to deal with this situation by the Malkiya committee.

Well done and congratulations to the people of Malkiya and to Al-Wasat Newspaper who was first to bring this situation to the attention of the public.