Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): More Shiite endowments are being taken over by the government or members of the ruling family without any shame. There is no longer any respect for Shiite properties or endowments.

Last week, residents of Tubli protested against the seizure of a greensward registered as an endowment for the Sheikh Saleh Mosque by an influential man. Sheikh Mohammad Sanqour, the preacher of Bahrain's largest Shiite Friday prayer, spoke about how Shiites are struggling, unable to officially register many endowments because of the authorities' stalling.

What is new now is what has been leaked about the government's seizure of land in the Karzakan area, which it used to lease under official contracts from the Jaffaria Endowments with a specified lease period in contracts and a small amount of rent, which reached up to 2000 dinars annually. 

Hence, instead of documenting unofficially registered endowments, government thefts continue. The Kuwait Health Center, which serves the people of the western region, is built on the land in Karzakan and it is a relatively large land plot, with an area of 4689 square meters. All of it was taken with a signature from the Royal Court, which directly oversees all real estate transactions in Bahrain.

Bahrain Mirror obtained two official documents, showing the ownership of the Endowments Directorate of the land over which the center is built. The documents are a lease agreement between the first party, the lessor, the head of the Jaffaria Endowments Directorate, Sadeq Al-Haj Mohammad Al-Baharna, and the second party, Minister of Health, Jawad Salem Al-Arrayed, and the Ministry of Health's lease agreement from the Endowments Directorate, the northern and southern part of one of the lands of the Karzakan area, to establish a health center in exchange for an annual rent. 

The lease contract between the government and the Endowments Directorate undoubtedly constitutes an official recognition by the authorities that this land belongs to the Jaffaria Waqf. However, it was not taken into account that the tenant becomes the owner of the land by force de facto The authorities recently registered the entire land on which the health center is built under the name of the Ministry of Health, despite the fact that there is no legal document that backs this seizure.

The official attitude of the state regarding this issue clearly varies between endowments affiliated with the Sunni community and those affiliated with the Shiite community. While the Sunni endowments recently announced the registration of 204 endowment properties, the documentation of properties owned by the Shiite Endowments Directorate is refused. All of this clearly reveals the sectarian and discriminatory approach of the royal court and the government.

The reality is indeed as described by Sheikh Mohammad Sanqour, who said "Some endowments are seized without any shame, and our Jaffaria Endowments Directorate is at standstill."

Arabic Version