01 Aug 16 | Bahrain, Middle East and North Africa, mobile, News and features
Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab (Photo: The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy)
Nabeel Rajab, the Bahraini human rights activist and Index on Censorship award winner, was due to stand trial on 2 August – now postponed until 5 September – over comments he made on Twitter criticising government institutions. In Bahrain, such comments can land you in jail, as Rajab has seen before, having spent two years behind bars for tweets made in 2012.
Index looks at how Rajab has been treated by the Bahraini authorities over the years.
1994-1996
Rajab became involved in the uprisings in Bahrain of the 1990s to demand democratic reforms within the country.
2000
Rajab co-founded the Bahrain Human Rights Society to strengthen calls for democratic reforms.
2002
Rajab worked with Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and others to found the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, an NGO to promote human rights in Bahrain.
2005
Rajab suffered a spinal injury, fractured arm, broken finger and head injury after being attacked by Bahraini’s Special Security Force Command while attending a peaceful rally by the Committee for the Unemployed to protest against the government’s management of unemployment levels.
2010
During a government crackdown on dissent in the summer of 2010, Rajab’s photograph was published a number of times in the pro-government publication Al-Watan, accusing him of supporting terrorists and publishing false information. Other publications followed suit.
On 8 September, a warrant for his arrest was issued and he was subject to a travel ban. Just over a week later, these were dropped.
2011
During the 2011 Arab Spring, Bahrain’s monarchy faced serious threats. As a result, even peaceful demonstrators were met with brutal government repression, leaving over 30 dead. Rajab had been a leading voice during the Bahraini uprising, and many associated with him faced a backlash. Even members of CNN’s news team were arrested by the government’s security forces as they visited his house in April. “Twenty men in black ski masks are reported to have surrounded the news team and confiscated their recording equipment,” Index reported at the time.
In June, Rajab was summoned to a military court just hours before Bahrain was due to lift its emergency law, which saw the arrival of Saudi troops in Bahrain to help crush the peaceful protests. Rajab then went missing for several of days.
2012
On 6 January 2012, Rajab was hospitalised being beaten by security forces after leading a protest in Manama and briefly detained. On 12 February he was briefly detained after he tried to march to the location of the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, where government forces cracked down on protesters during the 2011 uprising.
Nabeel Rajab, BCHR – winner of Bindmans Award for Advocacy at the Index Freedom of Expression Awards 2012
In March, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights won Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Award for advocacy, which recognises campaigners who fight repression.
In April, Bahrain hosted the annual Formula One Grand Prix. Following the negative media coverage around the event, Bahraini authorities stepped up their suppression of the country’s protest movement. During this time, Rajab was arrested and released several times.
On 5 May, Rajab was arrested at Bahrain International Airport on his arrival from Lebanon the day before the scheduled court hearing relating to a protest he had attended in March. The following day, he was charged with “insulting a statutory body of Twitter”. He was released on 28 May but re-arrested on 7 June, and in July was sentenced to three months in prison for allegedly defamatory tweets.
On 16 August he was sentenced to three years in prison for charges related to “illegal gathering”. Between 2012 and 2014, Rajab spent two years behind bars.
2014
In October 2014, a court ruled that Rajab would face criminal charges stemming from a single tweet in which both the ministry of interior and the ministry of defence allege that he “denigrated government institutions”. Rajab faced up to six years in prison.
He was due to stand trial on 19 October. It was adjourned until 29 November and he was denied bail. In November it was adjourned again until 20 January 2015 and Rajab was freed without bail.
2015
When Rajab finally stood trial on 20 January, he was sentenced to six months in prison, which was suspended pending a fine. He was granted bail while he appealed the verdict. It wasn’t long before he was summoned by police again, and fresh fears emerged of his arrest. On 26 February, he wrote an email to supporters which read: “Just to inform you that I was summoned today morning to attend the police station at the same time – and I came to know that the new charge against me will incitement of hatred against the regime.” In early April he was arrested, again for comments made online.
While his appeal date was set for 15 March, it was repeatedly postponed.
On 14 July, the Bahraini king pardoned Rajab three months into a six-month sentence for the tweet. According to Bahrain’s official news agency, this was over fears for his health.
2016
Back in January, Rajab was given an arbitrary travel ban. Index, along with other NGOs, called for this ban to be lifted so that he could travel abroad with his family to secure medical assistance for his wife, Sumaya Rajab.
On 13 June, he was taken from his home early in the morning and his electronic devices were seized. The next day, he was charged with “spreading false news” and has been in detention since, awaiting trial. After 15 days in solitary confinement, Rajab was hospitalised in late June.
On 7 July, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning recent human rights abuses in Bahrain and called for an end to the ongoing repression against the country’s human rights defenders, political opposition and civil society.
A few days later, a coalition of international NGOs, including Index on Censorship, condemned Bahrain’s treatment of Rajab.
His trial was due to take place on 2 August but has been postponed until 5 September. A tweet by Index, which Rajab shared, is to be used as evidence against him. It reads:
13 Jun 16 | About Index, Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
Index on Censorship condemns the arrest on Monday 13 June of human rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain. According to reports Rajab was charged on Tuesday 14 June with “publishing and broadcasting false news that undermines the prestige of the state” and detained for seven days.
Rajab, a former Freedom of Expression Award winner and a judge on this year’s awards, is one of the Gulf region’s most well-known human rights activists. Since the Bahraini uprising of 2011, he has been arrested on numerous occasions: he spent two years in jail between 2012 and 2014, and was arrested just months after his 2014 release for tweets in which he called Bahraini institutions “ideological incubators” for ISIS.
Rajab, president of the award-winning Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), and a member of the advisory committee of the Human Rights Watch Middle East division, spent three months in jail for the tweets. He was rearrested on Monday, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. The reasons for the arrest were unclear.
“The harassment of Nabeel Rajab must stop. We call on the international community – and especially Bahrain’s close ally, the United Kingdom – to condemn this ongoing attempt to silence one of the region’s most highly respected human rights campaigners,” said Index chief executive Jodie Ginsberg.
Bahraini authorities have repeatedly targeted Rajab as well as other human rights campaigners and political activists. Last week, Zainab Al-Khawaja was forced into exile in Denmark. Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, her father, is serving a life sentence for his calls for democracy in Bahraini society. Her sister, Maryam Al-Khawaja, has also been harassed by the authorities and has been exiled to Denmark.
Related: Bahrain continues to use arbitrary detention as a weapon to silence critics
03 Jun 16 | Bahrain, Middle East and North Africa, mobile, News and features
Bahraini authorities this week released opposition activist Zainab Al-Khawaja, who had been imprisoned with her infant son since March. She had been convicted of insulting the Bahraini king after she ripped up a picture of him.
Al-Khawaja may now be out of prison — though she could be re-arrested at any time — but her father, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, is one of over 3,500 prisoners of conscience who remain in Bahrain’s jails. According to research by World Prison Brief, Bahrain has the highest number of prisoners per capita in the Middle East, with 301 people in jail per 100,000 people of its 1.3 million population (followed by Israel at 256).
Arbitrary detention is the imprisonment of a person without proper evidence that they committed a crime or a case in which there has been no proper due process. Last year, the Liberties and Human Rights Department (LHRD) of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society recorded a total of 1,765 arrests by security services for reasons related to the opposition political movement, including the arrests of 120 children and five women.
The total number of arbitrary arrests last year was up on 2014 (1,765) but down on 2013 (2,192), 2012 (2,221) and 2011 (2,929).
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a UN body consisting of five experts, has repeatedly concluded that Bahrain has violated several international standards of a fair trial. In September of last year, the group found the detention of the secretary general of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, Sheikh Ali Al-Salman — this month sentenced to nine years imprisonment — to be arbitrary and “falls under category II and III of the Working Group’s categories of arbitrary detention”.
The five categories of arbitrary deprivation of liberty, according to the UN group are: when it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty (I); when the deprivation of liberty results from the exercise of the rights or freedoms (II); when the total or partial non-observance of the international norms (III); when asylum seekers, immigrants or refugees are subjected to prolonged administrative custody without the possibility of administrative or judicial review or remedy (VI); and when the deprivation of liberty constitutes a violation of international laws for reasons of discrimination (V).
In 2013, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found the imprisonment of Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2016 judge Nabeel Rajab (since pardoned) to be arbitrary, and, along with Index, called for his release.
Last year’s arbitrary arrests of prisoners of conscience in Bahrain included Mohammed Mahdi Alekri, a member of Al-Wefaq’s advisory board who was arrested on 4 January 2015 by security forces during a demonstration against the arrest of Al-Salman.
Also among those arrested was Sayed Sa’eed Isa, a member of The Martyrs Associate and father to Sayed Hashim Saeed, the 15-year-old boy killed during the security crackdown on demonstrations in Sitra late 2011.
The Bahraini authorities have continued to use arbitrary detention to silence political opponents and opposition supporters.
19 Jan 16 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns, Statements
NGOs from the around the world call for the immediate release of prisoner of conscience Dr. Abduljalil al-Singace on his 300th day of hunger strike. Dr. al-Singace began his hunger strike in March 2015 as a response to police subjecting inmates at the Central Jau Prison to collective punishment, humiliation and torture.
Since 21 March 2015, Dr. al-Singace has foregone food and subsisted on water and IV fluid injections for sustenance. Days later, Jau prison authorities transferred him to the Qalaa hospital, where he is still being kept in a form of solitary confinement.
Dr. al-Singace’s family, who visited him on 7 January, state that the prison administration is controlling his treatment at Qalaa hospital, and has for five months continuously, denied his need for a physical checkup by his hematologist at Salmaniya Medical Complex.
According to Dr. al-Singace’s family, he is not allowed to walk outside. He remains isolated in the Qalaa hospital, and is provided only irregular contact with his family. He is frequently denied basic hygienic items including soap, and is not allowed to interact with other patients in the hospital.
Dr. al-Singace is a member of the Bahrain 13, a group of thirteen peaceful political activists and human rights defenders, including Ebrahim Sharif and Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, sentenced to prison terms for their peaceful role in Bahrain’s Arab Spring protests in 2011.
Dr. al-Singace was first arrested in August 2010 at Bahrain airport. He had just returned from a conference at the British House of Lords regarding human rights in Bahrain. Security forces detained Dr. al-Singace for six months, during which he was tortured, and released him in February 2011 during the height of protests. However, Dr. al-Singace was rearrested on 17 March 2011, after his participation in peaceful pro-democracy protests. In detention, officers blindfolded, handcuffed, and beat Dr. al-Singace in the head with their fists and batons. Officers threatened him and his family with reprisals.
On 22 June 2011, a military court sentenced Dr. al-Singace to life for attempted overthrow of the regime. Since then, he has been imprisoned in the Central Jau Prison, and has only recently received treatment for a nose injury sustained during torture. He has been denied treatment for a similar ear injury also sustained during torture since his incarceration.
In 2015, Dr. al-Singace was awarded the Liu Xiaobo Courage to Write Award by the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, and was named one of Index on Censorship’s 100 “free expression heroes” in 2016. He has long campaigned for an end to torture and political reform, writing on these and other subjects on his blog, Al-Faseela, which remains banned by Bahraini Internet Service Providers. Bahrain has become a dangerous place for those who speak out, with peaceful dissidents at risk of arbitrary arrests, systematic torture and unfair trial.
We, the undersigned NGOs, call on the government of Bahrain to immediately secure the release of Dr. al-Singace and all prisoners of conscience, and to provide all appropriate and necessary medical treatment for Dr. al-Singace.
Signatories:
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
ARTICLE 19
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Croatian PEN
Danish PEN
English PEN
European Center for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Ghanaian PEN
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Icelandic PEN
Index on Censorship
Italian PEN
Norwegian PEN
PEN America
PEN Bangladesh
PEN Bolivia
PEN Canada
PEN Català
PEN Center Argentina
PEN Center USA
PEN Centre of German Speaking Writers Abroad
PEN Eritrea in Exile
PEN Flander
PEN Germany
PEN International
PEN Netherlands
PEN New Zealand
PEN Québéc
PEN Romania
PEN South Africa
PEN Suisse Romand
Peruvian PEN
Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF)
San Miguel PEN
Scholars at Risk
Scottish PEN
Serbian PEN
Trieste PEN
Wales PEN Cymru
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Zambian PEN
