Human rights centre: Bahrain driving ban for expats discrimination
By DPA
Jul 7, 2007, 13:59 GMT
Manama, Bahrain – The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) on Saturday described a recently enforced driving licenses ban on expatriates holding menial jobs and students as discriminatory.
The BCHR is disappointed and concerned by a newly implemented policy which bans foreign students and expatriates working in ‘menial’ jobs from being eligible for driving licenses, the centre’s vice president Nabeel Rajab said.
Officials from the General Directorate of Traffic (GDT) say the ban is a measure to ease congestion on the roads.
Human rights centre: Bahrain driving ban for expats discrimination
By DPA
Jul 7, 2007, 13:59 GMT
Manama, Bahrain – The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) on Saturday described a recently enforced driving licenses ban on expatriates holding menial jobs and students as discriminatory.
The BCHR is disappointed and concerned by a newly implemented policy which bans foreign students and expatriates working in ‘menial’ jobs from being eligible for driving licenses, the centre’s vice president Nabeel Rajab said.
Officials from the General Directorate of Traffic (GDT) say the ban is a measure to ease congestion on the roads.
The move follows legislation passed in April, when the parliament proposed removing expatriate bachelor labourers from Bahraini communities by housing them in segregated industrial areas.
‘Instead of taking practical measures to ease congestion such as investing in public transport … we are extremely disappointed to see that the government has chosen to target the most vulnerable communities of people in Bahrain,’ Rajab said.
‘Practising and promoting discrimination through legislation and policies should not be the behaviour of a country which sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council, he added.’
Rajab described the measure as the ‘easy way out’ of a problem the government needed to consider seriously as an increasing number of development and construction projects are underway in the country.
‘We have seen time and again that the government takes a free hand in violating the rights of expatriate workers because they are the most vulnerable and least able to defend their rights’ he said.
The BCHR called on the Bahraini government to revoke the policy as well as the law banning expatriate bachelors from residential areas.
Reports of the ban first surfaced on Thursday in the local English Gulf Daily News.
A spokesman for the GDT confirmed the news reports about the ban but described it as a measure which had been enforced for a while.
Cooks, gardeners, housemaids and labourers holding menial jobs did not need drivers licenses, the spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
According to official figures the Gulf island has a population of 708,573 people including 235,108 non-nationals. Its labour force is 352,000 people strong, with around 60 per cent of that force being made-up of foreign workers, mainly from the Indian subcontinent.
© 2007 dpa – Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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