The mass sentencing was"the largest single incident" since the government began stripping opponents of their citizenship rights in 2012, a rights group said.
Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, has prosecuted hundreds of protesters in mass trials and banned main opposition groups. Most of the leading opposition figures and rights activists are imprisoned or have fled abroad. The High Criminal Court handed out jail terms, including life in prison to 69 of the defendants, for having tried to build a Bahrain Hezbollah, similar to the Shia militia active in Lebanon. Some members had received military training in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, according to the statement.
The Britain-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy criticised the trial as "deeply unfair" and said Bahrain was using revocations of citizenship as a "tool of oppression."