On 28 January the Bahrain highest Court confirmed the life sentence for three opposition leaders. They were firstly sentenced in November on charges of spying for Qatar. Sheikh Ali Salman, Sheikh Hassan Sultan, Ali Alaswad are three leaders of the opposition Shia party Al-Wefaq that stated that the Court of Cassation decision was a political sentence. Also The London-based human rights group Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) denounced what happened.