An update on the situation in Bahrain vis-a-vis Lebanon:
Suspension of commercial flights between Manama and Beirut will remain in place for the foreseeable future:
Bahrain national carrier Gulf Air has extended its suspension of flights to Lebanon until the end of this month. The airline updated its website yesterday to state there would be no flights between Bahrain and Beirut until April 30.
‘The decision has been taken following the ongoing security situation in the country,’ said the airline. Gulf Air flights to and from Beirut had been set to resume tomorrow after initially being cancelled on March 23.
[…]
Bahrain Air announced on Sunday that it had extended the suspension of all flights to Beirut, Najaf, Baghdad, Mashhad until June 20.
And, Bahrain is intimidating Lebanese regardless of the passport they hold:
Arriving at Bahrain’s small, formerly passive, international airport, two undesirable types of travelers are being singled out: those appearing to be journalists and those believed to be of Lebanese origin, irrespective of current nationality.
[…]
Following bellicose statements by Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in support of Bahrain’s majority Shi’ites against Sunni rulers, the overnight intimidation of all manner of Lebanese from wealthy Christians who’ve helped to build Bahrain’s economy from nearly scratch to Lebanese-American and Lebanese-French tourists to anyone who looks remotely Lebanese is a policy of an inherently immature political system suddenly unaware of the entire Persian Gulf region’s dependence on the business acumen of the Lebanese diaspora.
Lebanese who fled their country’s 1975-1990 civil war helped greatly to modernize the Persian Gulf’s then nascent oil and gas boom economies that created an environment where everyone from Britons to Bangladeshis works in the region today.
Now if I were a government that had an inch of respect towards its own people, I would revoke visa privileges to Bahraini passport holders, as a minimum. But I’m not.
Lebanese and Bahraini activists chant slogans during a protest against Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, in front of the Bahraini consulate in Beirut
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