Bahrain Center for Human Rights calls on the F1 to put pressure on Bahrain to improve the deteriorating human rights situation.
Today, Sunday evening, March 5, 2023, the F1 World Championship competitions 2023 season will start, and this coincides with grave and continuous human rights violations that have resulted in the suppression of dissenting voices and undermining the peaceful movement to its lowest levels.
The authorities in Bahrain sought to tighten their security grip and eliminate dissent. This unjustified crackdown included widespread violations against human rights defenders, journalists, political activists, Shiite clerics, and peaceful demonstrators.
Sheikh Ali Salman, Secretary-General of Al-Wefaq – the largest political society – was also sentenced to life imprisonment in retaliation for his peaceful activism and views critical of the authority. Bahrain passed strict laws such as Law 58 of 2006 regarding “protecting society from terrorist acts,” the Political Societies Law, and the amendment to the Penal Code, which unleashed the power to target protesters and other critics of the government. This is in addition to many violations, including Deprivation of nationality, unfair trials and executions.
Anyone who follows the human rights issue in Bahrain can easily conclude that the authorities in Bahrain are taking advantage of the F1 event to obscure the deteriorating human rights situation in the country. They anticipate this huge event with a campaign of arrests and tightening the security presence, especially in the villages near the site of this event.
The continuation of these violations to this day requires the F1 administration and the authorities responsible for it to consider the deteriorating human rights situation in Bahrain and urge the authorities to release all prisoners of opinion and conscience, led by opposition figures.
Bahrain Center for Human Rights also calls on the Bahraini government to improve the human rights situation rather than obscure it.