in the Detention Centers of the National Security and in a Blatant Cover-up from the Public Prosecution.
• The Number of Detainees in the Protest Demands Exceed 200 Detainee, the Majority are Human Rights Activists and Defenders.
• It has become Vital for the Ruling Institutes to Embark on Radical Solutions to the Human Rights Issues rather than Resorting to Security Solutions.
31 August 2010
The growth of violations and deterioration of the security state in Bahrain is still ongoing. Further information was received about the mental and physical torture of detainees in the security campaign and especially the political, human rights activists and religious figures. This is a time where the country seems like a military barrack, and where the citizens are living in an unannounced state of emergency. An extensive and intensified media campaign is being organized, where the acts of the detainees and participants are being condemned and in preparation for further arrests. With this, the defendants, lawyers and those in solidarity with them are forbidden from freedom of expression, which comes with the ban on publication ordered by the public prosecution.
The BCHR received confirmed information that Sheikh Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad, Sheikh Saeed Al-Nori and Mr. Abdul-Ghani Khanjjar are facing brutal physical and mental torture.
in the Detention Centers of the National Security and in a Blatant Cover-up from the Public Prosecution.
• The Number of Detainees in the Protest Demands Exceed 200 Detainee, the Majority are Human Rights Activists and Defenders.
• It has become Vital for the Ruling Institutes to Embark on Radical Solutions to the Human Rights Issues rather than Resorting to Security Solutions.
31 August 2010
The growth of violations and deterioration of the security state in Bahrain is still ongoing. Further information was received about the mental and physical torture of detainees in the security campaign and especially the political, human rights activists and religious figures. This is a time where the country seems like a military barrack, and where the citizens are living in an unannounced state of emergency. An extensive and intensified media campaign is being organized, where the acts of the detainees and participants are being condemned and in preparation for further arrests. With this, the defendants, lawyers and those in solidarity with them are forbidden from freedom of expression, which comes with the ban on publication ordered by the public prosecution.
The BCHR received confirmed information that Sheikh Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad, Sheikh Saeed Al-Nori and Mr. Abdul-Ghani Khanjjar are facing brutal physical and mental torture. They were handcuffed and blindfolded the entire time in solitary cells and they were not allowed food or drink for long hours. Sheikh Al-Muqdad was hung from his hands, and the swollen marks were visible on his body, as well as some scattered marks from punches and scratches all over his stomach, back and legs from the beatings. Sheikh Al-Muqdad complained from hearing loss in his right ear due to beating his ears. The torture marks were also clear on the legs of Sheikh Saeed Al-Nori who was tied from his legs in the Falaqa way (tying, securing the feet in stocks, locking the legs into an elevated position, or hanging upside-down) and the continuous beating on them, until they swelled and he was unable to walk. Doctors were brought in for Abdul-Ghani Khanjjar as a result of high blood pressure and the deterioration of his health condition in a manner that could have led to his death, due to forcing him to stand while continuously beating him for two consecutive days and depriving him of sleep for five days by using noise and making him listen to the screams of other detainees while being tortured.
None of the detainees so far were allowed to be alone with their lawyers, and even in the interrogation sessions at the Public Prosecution, the lawyers were asked to sit quietly behind the defendants so that there wouldn’t be any type of eye-contact exchanged between the defendant and lawyers. All detainees are still handcuffed and blindfolded in solitary cells and are isolated from the outside world, which gives space for further torture. Through the mental state in which the detainees appeared in, the BCHR does not exclude that the detainees, including the leaderships and figures, have been subjected to harassments and perhaps even sexual assaults. Although the BCHR had monitored numerous cases of torture against the activists of the public protests and civil committees over the last years, and despite the severity of violations during the nineties, it may be the first time that the BCHR registers cases of torture against political, human rights and religious figures and leaderships in this manner. Article (5) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The Public Prosecution ordered the detention of every defendant who has been brought in for interrogation for a period of two months pending investigation, besides the 15 days the already spent, which means keeping them in the custody of the NSA to face the same torture and violations for the next two months.
The country is living an unannounced state of emergency, and some areas have become similar to a military barrack. All the Shiite villages are surrounded with Special Forces made up of foreigners, and the ones entering and leaving some of these villages are being searched. The arrests and kidnappings having continued without cease. The numbers of detainees and persons wanted due to the protest demands, and whose cases have been documented by the BCHR has exceeded two hundred persons so far, and perhaps there are more detainees whose cases have not been detected yet because of the consecutive events and the expanding area of violations.
Ads of Hatred and Incitement and Condemnation by the Ruling Regime
Besides this security campaign against the opposition activists, human rights defenders and some religious figures, the Authority’s bodies are launching a fabricated and organized public, political and media campaign in order to smear the reputation of the detainees and make a prior conviction against them in the society, and to form a public opinion against them and to pressurizes all the forces of society to take the same official stance of these arrests. The government radio and television of Bahrain, and newspapers closely allied with the Authority and some journalists who have been brought and granted a Bahraini citizenship have taken part in this campaign. Large ads (5 x 5m) are spread all over the streets of Bahrain which incites condemning the defendants or anyone who participates in protest acts. While the ads are signed by names of Bahraini families or recently naturalized families, the similarity of all those ads in design and content indicates that whoever made these ads is one single party. This media campaign started after the results of an opinion poll[1] the radio, television and the British Broadcasting Cooperation had run on its electronic website and which resulted in the support of 72% of the participants in the poll to the releases of the human rights organizations in Bahrain .
Ads of Hatred and Incitement put by the Authority with the Aim of Mobilization and Prior Conviction against the Defendants and Connecting them to the Security Confrontations
In parallel to this, the Minister of Justice – member of the ruling family – is holding continuous meetings with the political, religious and social figures, as well as the heads of the political societies and others in order to push them to release public reports and positions of support to the security procedures carried out by the Authority, and especially in relation to the detainees.
In contradiction to the moral and ethical commitment indicated by Article (11) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states, “Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.” Television of Bahrain and all the newspapers closely allied with the Authority published photos[2] of some of the defendants accused of participating in the protest acts before bringing them to the Public Prosecution or the issuance of any judicial sentence against them. Noteworthy, this approach contradicts the principle that the “defendant is innocent until proven guilty.”
The BCHR president, Nabeel Rajab, commented on the increasing frequency and area of violations by saying, “It has become necessary for the ruling regime to review its policy that is causing these crises, instead of resorting to security solutions that have proven to only complicate the crisis further and contribute in increasing the frequency of the human rights violations,” he added, “the current crisis and continuous protests are a result of the Authority’s policy and its tenacity in restricting liberties and corruption human rights and persistence in the policies of sectarian discrimination against the Shiite citizens. These have increased since the country’s King took power, this includes the policy of political naturalization that targets demographic change and continuous arrests, systematic torture in the Bahraini prisons, the negligence of the Authority to most of the outstanding issues and marginalizing the legislative and monitoring role of the Parliament, implanting disappointment among people from this incompetent regime and which citizens have built many of their hopes on in solving most of the issues that are causing tension and divergence between the people and ruling regime”. Rajab ended his comment by saying: “Just as violence and security confrontations failed in solving political conflicts in the past, resorting to security confrontations once again is doomed to failure, and the Authority will find itself once again before a truth it has to face and solve; which is those issues that have become yet more complicated than the past.”
Based on the above, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights calls upon all the concerned institutes, including the local and international associations and organizations to seek the Bahraini Authorities and demand the following:
1. To immediately stop the systematic torture by the National Security Apparatus and to dissolve this Apparatus and bring the ones responsible for it to a public trial, and to redress the victims from its violations.
2. To allow the detainees to contact and meet their families, and to allow the organized and private meetings with their lawyers because it is their fundamental rights and it will limit the torture from continuing.
3. To release all the detainees and especially the human rights activists and defenders because they have been arrested for reasons related to them practicing their fundamental rights in expression, organizing, and peaceful assembling, and which is guaranteed to them by international laws.
4. To immediately stop implementing the Anti-Terrorist Law that allows arbitrary arrest and unjust trials, and which has been openly condemned by the UN and the international organizations.
5. To put an end to the media campaign that incited hatred and which pushes the country towards sectarian clashes.
6. To stop publishing the photos of the defendants in the Bahraini newspapers as they are innocent until proven guilty.
7. To start working on a serious and sincere political reform to solve the human rights issues related to the civil and political rights or the economic, social and cultural rights.
—
[1]BBC Poll Results[2]www.alayam.com