07 Nov 12 | Middle East and North Africa, Opinion
Bahrain is preparing for the first anniversary of the Bahrain Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI) by placing even greater restrictions on free expression.
A Bahraini woman holds up the victory sign at a rally in May | Demotix
As violence escalates in the Gulf kingdom, the country’s government has taken new measures in the name of national security. According to an announcement made last night on the state-run Bahrain TV, the country’s government has decided to strip 31 activists of their citizenship for “being a threat to national security”. The list is mostly made up of political activists, including UK-based Saeed Shehabi and Ali Mushaima, who have been outspoken in criticising the country’s regime, and Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society member Jawad Fairouz, who was a member of parliament before resigning in protest of the country’s brutal response demonstrations that began on 14 February last year.
This is not a new tactic for Bahrain: The country also revoked the citizenship of outspoken activists in the 1980s and 1990s, forcing them into exile. The latest move, however, violates Article 17 of Bahrain’s 2002 constitution:
a. Bahraini nationality shall be determined by law. A person inherently enjoying his Bahraini nationality cannot be stripped of his nationality except in case of treason, and such other cases as prescribed by law.
b. It is prohibited to banish a citizen from Bahrain or prevent him from returning to it.
The decision comes after the tragic death of two migrant workers and the injury of another on 5 November following a bomb blast in Bahrain’s capital, Manama. While none of the 31 activists have been linked to the explosion, Bahrain continues to make efforts to portray the country’s uprising as violent.
Earlier this year, the attention around the hunger strike of imprisoned human rights activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja and a brutal crackdown on protesters squashed Bahrain’s chances of whitewashing its public image with the Formula One race in April. After the BICI report was presented in November 2011, Bahrain’s government was determined to make the uprising history, but its unfulfilled pledges to reform came back to haunt it in the lead up to the race.
As Alkhawaja’s health deteriorated, the international community placed immense pressure on the Bahraini government to release him to Denmark, where he is also a citizen. Denmark granted Alkhawaja asylum in 1991, and the country’s government has been active in lobbying for his release. The activist moved back to Bahrain in 2001, and was jailed for his role in the country’s uprising in 2011. An editorial published in the Gulf Daily News in the race lead-up explored the “problem” of dual-citizens, claiming it was a “get out of jail free card” for criminals.
Bahrain’s failure to follow through on promised BICI-related reforms, as well as a disregard for its own constitution, signals a chilling next stage for the country. The country’s most recent violence is testament to Bahrain’s failure to diffuse unrest with reforms, rather than force.
Sara Yasin is an editorial assistant at Index on Censorship. She tweets at @missyasin
29 Jun 12 | Middle East and North Africa, Opinion
Nabeel Rajab, BCHR - winner of Bindmans Award for Advocacy at the Index Freedom of Expression Awards 2012
OPINION
This week Bahrain continued its game of cat and mouse with human rights defender Nabeel Rajab, releasing him once more on Wednesday after re-arresting him on 6 June. The outspoken activist and president of Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) has been arrested, released, and arrested again — all in the past two months. Although Rajab is now free, he still faces four charges, two of them for posts he made on the social networking site Twitter, and two others related to organising protests. Charges were brought against the activist for allegedly insulting and publicly defaming the Sunni citizens of the village of Muharraq on Twitter, as well as insulting an authority on the popular social networking site. According to his lawyer, Rajab will stand trial on 9 July.
Rajab’s fearlessness in speaking out against the regime’s human rights abuses mean that the Index on Censorship Award winning activist could very well land in prison again. Still, it is promising that Rajab’s release came after the government announced that it would finally begin compensating families of the 35 individuals killed during a brutal crackdown on the country’s anti-government protests that began on 14 February last year. Shortly after the announcement, human rights activist Zainab Alkhawaja was injured after a tear gas canister was allegedly fired directly at her hit her in the thigh. Alkhawaja is the daughter of well-known dissident and founder of BCHR Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who is currently serving a life sentence for participating in anti-government protests last year.
Last November Bahrain released the findings of its much vaunted Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI) but the country’s sluggish progress in implementing the report’s recommendations calls into question the country’s commitment to genuine reform. Whenever Bahraini officials are confronted with evidence of human rights violations they respond with statements about reform and dialogue but little action is taken.
On Thursday, 27 United Nations member states released a joint statement calling on the Human Rights Council to push Bahrain to end human rights violations. Noticeably missing from the list of countries — which included Switzerland, Mexico, Denmark, and Norway — were close allies the United States and the United Kingdom, despite having made statements about helping the country commit to reform. Bahrain responded to the statement by saying that the information in the statement is “inaccurate” and that the countries that signed the statement did not understand the “reality” of the human rights situation in the country.
Sara Yasin is an Editorial Assistant at Index. She tweets from @missyasin
20 Jun 12 | Middle East and North Africa
There are no prisoners of conscience in Bahrain — at least that’s what the government would like you to think.
A year ago today, eight opposition activists were given life sentences for their involvement in the country’s anti-government uprising. When NGOs and foreign governments call for the release of political prisoners, particularly those jailed for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association, the regime responds with “We have!”. The dictatorship continues to falsely claims that these individuals have been jailed for criminal or violent offences rather than acknowledging the truth, they are there for voicing their desire for change.
When voices from the international community call for all prisoners of conscience or all those charged solely for the expression of their views to be freed, it makes little dent in Bahrain’s obduracy.
Take the well-known case of the Bahraini medics. For merely doing their jobs, they were arrested, detained, tortured into making false confessions, subjected to an unfair trial in a military court and sentenced to long prison terms. But because that is not what it said on their charge sheet — which included allegations such as smuggling weapons and occupying the main hospital — the Bahraini government refused to admit that they were convicted for expressing their opinions.
Last week nine of the 20 were declared innocent on appeal, leading to awkward questions about why nine leading medical professionals with impressive careers and reputations would all have confessed to crimes they did not commit.
While various detainees are considered to be “prisoners of conscience” by the international community, the Bahraini government continues to insist on painting them as “traitors” and “terrorists”. Mahdi Abu Deeb, for instance, leader of the Bahrain Teachers Union, called for a strike during the start of the country’s uprising last year to call for reform in Bahrain’s education system, and to protest the brutal crackdown against demonstrators gathered at Manama’s Pearl Roundabout. For this, he was then handed a 10-year sentence for “halting the education process”, “inciting hatred of the political regime”, and “attempting to overthrow the regime by force”.
Similarly, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja is one of the most famous human rights defenders in the region, and now the world. The founder of Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), who peacefully called for change at Pearl Roundabout last year, has been branded a “terrorist” or “traitor” by state-owned media, much like other detainees. Alkhawaja was convicted of violent crimes — after documented torture and an unfair military trial — but the Bahraini government still refuses to class him as a political prisoner.
During the Universal Periodic Review process in Geneva last month, Bahraini Human Rights Minister Salah Bin Ali Mohamed Abdulrahman told the Human Rights Council that his country held no prisoners on political charges. “Any such charges have been withdrawn. The only [remaining] cases are criminal cases,” he said.
Instead of this ping-pong conversation between the regime and human rights organisations of “release prisoners of conscience” — “oh we already have”, it might be better to focus attention on the unfair military trials of last year, where 502 people were convicted of a variety of offences, both peaceful and violent. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has called for these convictions to be overturned. Last December she called on the Bahraini regime to “urgently take confidence-building measures including unconditionally releasing those who were convicted in military tribunals or are still awaiting trial for merely exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly.”
This would mean the immediate release and dropping of charges against Abdulhadi Alkhawja and other prominent dissidents including Mahdi Abu Deeb and his deputy Jalila al Salman, and hundreds of others prosecuted in politically-motivated trials but officially convicted of criminal or violent offences. If the regime has real evidence that any of these people have commited violent crimes then it should retry them in a new, fair process.
Of course, this would not solve the problem of those who are being harassed through the civilian courts. Other prominent human rights defenders Zainab Alkhawaja and Nabeel Rajab, president of the BCHR, have been regularly detained over the last few months because of their success in drawing attention to the regime’s abuses. Rajab is currently being targeted for expressing his views on Twitter, where he has over 150,000 followers, and will be detained at least until 27 June. A new crackdown on those using social media is expected as Bahraini officials warn those promoting “sedition” on social networks.
The Bahraini regime should be denied the wriggle room of insisting it has released all prisoners of conscience when many of them were convicted on trumped-up charges of violence. Demanding the release of all those convicted by the kangaroo military court (on any charge) would be a start.
Brian Dooley is Director of the Human Rights Defenders programme at Human Rights First. He tweets at @dooley_dooley
29 May 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Index on Censorship welcomes yesterday’s release of prominent rights activist and Index 2012 Award winner Nabeel Rajab, and calls for all charges against the activist to be dropped (more…)
