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about taking further steps to ease the current civil strife. One of the steps proposed

was to announce the hiring of a Judicial Adviser acting as Chief of Justice. The

second was to appoint a British officer to oversee the Police Force instead of

Belgrave. Third was to increase the police budget. 194 That date coincided with

spread of pamphlets that announced the formation of a Sunni-Shi’ite front. The

front that named itself as the ‘People of Bahrain’ had also forwarded its set of

demands to the Ruler, the Political Agency, and to the Residency. The demands

consisted of seven points as follows: the election of an ‘Advisory Council’ with

identical Sunni-Shi’ite representation; the formation of a committee specialising in

drafting ‘a code of laws’ for Bahrain; the appointment of judges holding degrees in

law; the formation of elected councils representing the municipalities, health, and

education; the reform of the Police Force in addition to placing responsibility of any

misconduct by the police on its superviser; the compensation of victims of various

disturbances since the sectarian riots of 1953; and the punishment of the policemen

responsible for firing on demonstrators on 1 July. 195 The identities of those involved

in the pamphlet and who or what they actually represented was unknown. There

was no mention of any demand that affected the position of Belgrave. But the first

five demands listed all affected the Adviser’s status in a direct and indirect way and

if they were accepted they would nullify his position in controlling a number of the

Administration’s departments.

194 TNA, FO 371/109813, Wall to FO, 4 July 1954.
195 TNA, FO 1016/333, ‘The Demands submitted by the People of Bahrain to His Highness the Ruler
with the Request that he may Order their being put to Reality’, 3 July 1954; and TNA, FO
371/109813, Burrows to FO, 4 July 1954.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 64