(AFP) – 18 Aug 2010
WASHINGTON — Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called on Bahrain either to release or formally charge eight activists, including clerics, the groups said the Gulf kingdom has arrested.
“The Bahraini authorities must make it clear why these eight men have been arrested, and either release them or charge them with recognizable criminal offences,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme, said in a Wednesday statement.
(AFP) – 18 Aug 2010
WASHINGTON — Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called on Bahrain either to release or formally charge eight activists, including clerics, the groups said the Gulf kingdom has arrested.
“The Bahraini authorities must make it clear why these eight men have been arrested, and either release them or charge them with recognizable criminal offences,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme, said in a Wednesday statement.
“It is unacceptable for them to be held merely because of their human rights activism, non-violent political activities or criticism of the government,” Sahraoui said.
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, asked in another statement: “If the government of Bahrain can show these activists are engaged in criminal behavior, why is it resorting to vague and anonymous allegations?”
Bahrain’s National Security Agency said on Sunday that four men suspected of forming “an organised network aiming to shake the security and stability of the country” had been arrested.
Bahraini security said that on Saturday it had arrested Abduljalil al-Singace, a leading figure in the mainly-Shiite opposition association Haq. Both Amnesty and HRW said he was nabbed on Friday.
The other three — Sheikh Mohammed al-Moqdad, Sheikh Saeed al-Nuri and Abdulghani Ali Issa Khanjar — were arrested on Sunday, a Bahraini security official said.
Moqdad and Singace were released from prison in April 2009 in a royal pardon for 178 detainees accused of security charges.
“Both Singace and Khanjar had attended a conference at the House of Lords in London on August 5, during which they criticised Bahrain’s human rights practices,” HRW said.
Amnesty and HRW said that four others were arrested this week. It named them as Jaffar al-Hessabi, Mirza al-Mahroos, Abdulhadi al-Mukhuder and Mohammed Saeed.
Saeed is a board member of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, the groups said. The four were arrested on Monday and Tuesday, they added.
“A country that respects human rights, as Bahrain claims to do, does not arrest people just because they harshly criticise the government,” said Stork, of HRW.
“It is unacceptable for (the men) to be held merely because of their human rights activism, non-violent political activities or criticism of the government,” said Amnesty’s Sahraoui.
Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni dynasty but has a Shiite majority population.
Haq, or the Movement of Liberties and Democracy, is a splinter group of the main Shiite formation, the Islamic National Accord Association. It insisted on boycotting elections in 2006 while INAA scooped 17 out of 40 parliament seats.
Bahrain was plagued in the 1990s by a wave of Shiite-led unrest that has abated since the authorities launched steps to convert the Gulf emirate into a constitutional monarchy.
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