The Bahraini Government outsource its Suppression to Neighboring Countries
Circulating lists of their Opponents to Harass them and Prevent them from their Freedom of Movement
Sunday 11-7-2009 Bahrain Center for Human – Rights
The Bahraini Government outsource its Suppression to Neighboring Countries
Circulating lists of their Opponents to Harass them and Prevent them from their Freedom of Movement
Sunday 11-7-2009 Bahrain Center for Human – Rights
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights is following up with concern the case of holding the citizen Mohammed Salman, 28 years old, in Dubai Airport by UAE Security authorities when he arrived in Dubai Airport in the morning on 9/7/2009. He was informed, as soon as he arrived, that he was being held for security reasons and that he was prohibited from entering the UAE. He was detained in the Dubai Airport’s security room for several hours without allowing him to get any information regarding the denial of entry or what those security reasons were until he was returned to Bahrain in the evening of the same day.
Mohammed Salman had been detained in what was named the (Hujaira) case December 2009, and he was released in recent months with a group of political activists and human rights defenders . It is believed that holding him is related to the security lists that the National Security Apparatuses is distributing to the Gulf countries and some of the Arabic countries to prohibit the political activists and human rights defenders from entering those countries and to restrict their freedom of movement.
The phenomenon of holding and harassing political activists and human rights defenders on the boarders of neighboring countries in recent months has increased. At the beginning of the current month, Sheikh Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad, who is a well-known activist and the president of Al-Zahraa Society for Orphan Care, was arrested on the Syrian Borders, and then released few days later after the Syrian authorities had made sure of the malicious case against him by the Bahraini authorities. Before him, the human rights activist Abdul-Ghani Khanjjar, who is member of the National Committee of Martyrs and Victims of Torture, was held on 2nd December in Doha Airport for several hours, and then returned to Bahrain after being photographed and fingerprinted, and after being informed that the holding him was based on a list sent by the Bahraini security apparatuses. There are dozens of Bahraini citizens who face the same circumstances at the borders and airports of the neighboring countries, and some of them are elected members in the Bahraini House of Representatives.
It is believed that what the Bahraini authorities are doing aims at undermining the activities of the human rights groups and any of the political activists who do not agree with the authority’s policy.
Based on the above, the BCHR calls for:
1. Putting an end to distributing security lists which aim at harassing the opponent groups and human rights activists;
2. The Bahraini government has to stop involving and implicating the governments of the neighboring countries in legitimate internal disputes;
3. The governments of the Arab Gulf countries should distance themselves from internal disputes between the Bahraini authorities and its citizens related to legitimate human rights and political demands, and not to drift towards the demands of the authority which would lead to having those countries enter disputes they are not a part of.