12 April 2016
HM Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa
King of Bahrain
Riffa Palace
Manama, Bahrain
Dear King Hamad,
We, the undersigned Bahraini and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), would like to unequivocally condemn your government’s arrest of human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja along with her infant son. The implementation of Ms. Al-Khawaja’s prison sentence for merely exercising her right to free expression and assembly amounts to arbitrary detention is wholly unacceptable. While Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa indicated an intention to release her, she has not yet been freed from prison and we are concerned that these arbitrary charges remain against her. We therefore call on the Government of Bahrain to secure her immediate and unconditional release.
On 14 March 2016, security forces raided the home of Ms. Al-Khawaja’s parents-in-law looking for her. When they did not find her there, they went to her apartment and arrested Ms. Al-Khawaja along with her 15-month-old son, Abdulhadi. After they temporarily detained her and her son at the Al-Hoora police station, the authorities informed Ms. Al-Khawaja that she would be taken for a medical examination at the Ministry of Interior before being transferred to the Isa Town Detention Center to serve out her prison term. From the time of her arrest at 3:45 pm until her midnight arrival at the detention facility, security services denied Ms. Al-Khawaja any food for her son, despite repeated requests. Isa Town Detention Center has recently suffered an outbreak of Hepatitis C which puts both mother and son at risk. The demeaning and dangerous conditions of the detention center where Ms. Al-Khawja and her infant son are kept indicate a gender specific attempt to destabilize and hinder her peaceful human rights advocacy.
Bahraini courts sentenced Ms. Al-Khawaja to a total of three years and one month in prison, as well as a BHD 3,000 fine, on several charges related to her peaceful dissent and free expression. In December 2014, a court sentenced Ms. Al-Khawaja to three years and three months in prison on charges related to allegedly insulting a police officer during a peaceful protest and insulting the king by tearing up a photograph. In October 2015, Bahrain’s appeals court confirmed her conviction for insulting the king but reduced her sentence to one year in prison. Additionally, on 2 February 2016, the appeals court upheld a 9-month prison sentence against Ms. Al-Khawaja after she tried to visit her father, human rights defender Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, in Jau Prison when he was on a hunger strike in August 2014.
The international community has repeatedly expressed grave concern over your government’s decision to prosecute Ms. Al-Khawaja for exercising her right to free expression and assembly. In 2014, the UN Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of opinion and expression, human rights defenders, and freedom of peaceful assembly and of association urged your government to drop all charges against Ms. Al-Khawaja, warning that her detention could be considered arbitrary. A year later, these same Special Procedures issued a joint communication to your government stating that Ms. Al-Khawaja’s sentencing appears to “indicate a prima facie violation of the rights to freedom of opinion and expression and to freedom of association, as set forth in articles 19 and 22 of the ICCPR [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights].” The United States Government has previously expressed concern over the fairness of Ms. Al-Khawaja’s trial, and – most recently – the Government of Denmark has raised Ms. Al-Khawaja’s case at the 31st session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, insisting that she and her son be released. Furthermore, Ms. Al-Khawaja’s arrest comes during a session of the UN Committee on the Status of Women, where your government is taking part in discussions on how to protect women rights globally, while targeting women human rights defenders locally.
On 7 April 2016, the Foreign Minister, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, stated that the authorities intend to release Ms. Al-Khawaja on humanitarian grounds. Sheikh Khaled provided no timeline for her release and her family has received no further guarantee that the government will release Ms. Al-Khawaja from prison. However, the foreign minister did indicate that the government will not drop any of the charges against Ms. Al-Khawaja, leaving her vulnerable to her re-arrest at any time.
We would like to join this growing chorus of international voices in calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Zainab Al-Khawaja and her infant son. The broad criminalization of peaceful dissent and free expression in Bahrain, as well as the government’s continued harassment and detention of human rights defenders, contravenes your obligations under international law, and is wholly unacceptable.
Sincerely,
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Arab Center for the Promotion of Human Rights (ACPHR)
Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
Cartoonists Rights Network International
CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
European-Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights (EBOHR)
European Center for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
Freedom Forum
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Human Rights Network for Journalists – Uganda
Human Rights Sentinel
Index on Censorship
Institute for the Studies on the Free Flow of Information (ISAI)
Institute of the Press and Freedom of Expression (IPLEX)
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Asia Pacific
Justice Human Rights Organization (JHRO)
Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture
Lawyers Rights Watch Canada (LRWC)
Maharat Foundation-Lebanon
MARCH
National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ)
Nazra for Feminist Studies (Egypt)
Observatorio Latinoamericano para la Libertad de Expresión (OLA)
Pacific Islands News Association
Pakistan Press Foundation (PFF)
PEN America
PEN Canada
Saudi Organization for Rights and Freedoms
Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
Social Media Exchange (SMEX)
Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
A Bahraini court sentenced Ibrahim Sharif, former secretary-general of the secular, left-wing National Democratic Action Society, on 24 February to a year in prison over a speech made in 2015 calling for change in the kingdom.
Sharif was convicted on a charge of inciting hatred while acquitted on charges of promoting the toppling of Bahrain’s government.
Sharif’s lawyer, Sami Syadi, said he plans to appeal the ruling, and that he believed the time his client had already served would count toward his sentence.
Sharif was first sentenced to five years in prison in 2011. While in prison, he was tortured, held in solitary confinement for 56 days, and wasn’t allowed to contact his family or lawyer. He served four years and three months before being released on a royal pardon on 19 June 2015.
A month after his release, he made a speech in July during the annual commemoration of the killing of 16-year-old Hussam alHaddad by security forces in 2012. In it, he criticised the government for using violence to put down demonstrators, who were engaged in peaceful protests.
“In our case, there is no going back to building a wall of fear,” he said. “The government is only strong when we are cowards and is weak when we are courageous.”
He was subsequently re-arrested for the speech and spent seven months in custody before yesterday’s sentence.
Speaking to Index on Censorship before the ruling, his wife Farida Ghulam said: “Unfortunately, based on the last seven months of trials, it seems that the government is unwilling to entertain the basic right of freedom of speech and that Ebrahim may be sentenced again”
Index on Censorship calls for the immediate release of Ibrahim Sharif. His wife has previously written about the family’s ordeal in Index on Censorship, here and here.
Index on Censorship is saddened to hear of the death of Eric Avebury, a staunch defender of human rights. Lord Avebury continued to campaign despite declining health and we will, in particular, remember his defence of our friends and colleagues in Bahrain being persecuted for expressing themselves freely.
In October 2014, Lord Avebury spoke at Index on Censorship on the need for “genuine reform” in Bahrain, including the allowance of freedom of expression, “which is totally banned” in the country.
His Majesty Sheikh Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa,
King of Bahrain
Fax: +973 176 64 587
CC: His Excellency Lieutenant General Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa
Minister of Interior
Email: [email protected]
His Excellency Sheikh Khaled Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Fax: 00973 17 21 05 75; [email protected]
And Permanent Mission of Bahrain to the United Nations in Geneva
Fax: + 41 22 758 96 50; Email: [email protected]
21 January 2016
Your Majesty,
We, the undersigned NGOs, call on the Bahraini authorities to lift the arbitrary travel ban on human rights defender Nabeel Rajab in order that he be able to travel abroad with his family for the purpose of securing medical assistance for his wife, Sumaya Rajab.
Nabeel Rajab is President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights and on the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Division.
A public prosecutor imposed the travel ban on Nabeel Rajab without any judicial determination on July 13 2015, the day that Your Majesty pardoned him and ordered his release following his conviction for “publicly insulting official institutions” by criticizing the government on social media. The travel ban is related to two other speech-related charges that led to his arrest on April 2 2015, charges which prosecutors have not dropped.
The first outstanding charge is for allegedly “insulting a statutory body”, under article 216 of Bahrain’s Penal Code, based on his social media comments about the alleged torture of detainees in Jaw Prison in March 2015. The second accuses him of “disseminating false rumours in times of war,” under article 133 of the Penal Code, based on social media posts criticizing Saudi Arabia-led coalition air strikes in Yemen. Violations of articles 133 and 216 carry maximum sentences of 10 and three years in prison, respectively. Neither of the alleged acts upon which these charges are based were in any way recognisable criminal offences under international human rights law, and both involved the peaceful exercise of internationally protected rights to freedom of expression and to promote and protect human rights.
In November 2015, Sumaya Rajab was diagnosed with medical conditions requiring urgent and highly specialized treatment according to the medical expert team monitoring her condition. She was told that this treatment is not available in Bahrain.
In December 2015, Nabeel Rajab’s lawyers submitted their fourth appeal against the travel ban – they have submitted two requests to the attorney general, one request to the investigating prosecutor and one request to the Public Prosecution Office – requesting that it be lifted so he could accompany his wife. The Bahraini authorities have not responded to these appeals and the travel ban remains in place.
In November 2015, 81 Members of the European Parliament called on Your Majesty to lift Nabeel Rajab’s travel ban. The European Parliament passed a resolution in July 2015, shortly prior to Nabeel Rajab’s pardon, calling for his immediate and unconditional release alongside other prisoners of conscience. The same month, 44 members of the UK Parliament called on the government of Bahrain to drop Nabeel Rajab’s current charges and to release all political prisoners and those imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression. After his release, three UN human rights experts – Michael Forst, David Kaye, and Maina Kiai – called for Nabeel Rajab’s charges to be dropped. This followed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, call for the release of all those detained in relation to their peaceful activities in Bahrain in June.
We, the undersigned, therefore call on the Bahraini authorities to:
Drop all pending free speech-related charges against Nabeel Rajab;
Lift the travel ban immediately and unconditionally, thus allowing Nabeel and Sumaya Rajab to travel; and
Guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in Bahrain are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals, and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.
Signatories:
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Amnesty International
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
CIVICUS
English PEN
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Freedom House
Front Line Defenders
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Media Support (IMS)
International Service For Human Rights (ISHR)
Lawyer’s Rights Watch Canada (LWRC)
Maharat Foundation
No Peace Without Justice
PEN International
Physicians for Human Rights
Rafto Foundation for Human Rights
Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
SENTINEL Human Rights Defenders
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Index on Censorship is saddened to hear of the death of Eric Avebury, a staunch defender of human rights. Lord Avebury continued to campaign despite declining health and we will, in particular, remember