Gulf Daily News – 18 March 2005
A shadow report will also be submitted by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and the National Committee for Martyrs and Torture Victims.
By ROBERT SMITH
MANAMA
A UN committee will sit in May to discuss whether Bahrain is meeting its obligations under an international torture treaty. The 34th session of the UN Committee Against Torture will take place from May 2 to 21 in Geneva and consider reports from Albania, Bahrain, Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Togo and Uganda.
Bahrain is obliged to submit a report, having acceded to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in March 1998.
Gulf Daily News – 18 March 2005
A shadow report will also be submitted by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and the National Committee for Martyrs and Torture Victims.
By ROBERT SMITH
MANAMA
A UN committee will sit in May to discuss whether Bahrain is meeting its obligations under an international torture treaty. The 34th session of the UN Committee Against Torture will take place from May 2 to 21 in Geneva and consider reports from Albania, Bahrain, Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Togo and Uganda.
Bahrain is obliged to submit a report, having acceded to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in March 1998.
A shadow report will also be submitted to the UN by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) and the National Committee for Martyrs and Torture Victims.
The BCHR has been dissolved in Bahrain, but is continuing to function on the international level having been licensed in Scandinavia.
The UN committee will examine both reports before issuing observations, findings and recommendations to the government.
Bahrain submitted its official report last May, while the unofficial shadow report is due to be forwarded to the committee in the coming days.“We are working on the last stages of our shadow report,” said Nabeel Rajab, who was BCHR president when it was dissolved last September.
“It will be submitted in a few days and has been compiled with the help of two international organisations.”
When Bahrain acceded to the Convention in 1998 it did not accept paragraph one of Article 30.
The rejection prevents the International Court of Justice from considering torture disputes that can’t be settled through negotiation or arbitration.
However, the shadow report criticises Bahrain for failing to implement other articles of the convention that it did agree to.
This includes Article 14, which guarantees that a victim of torture “obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation, including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible”.
It also states that compensation should be paid to relatives of someone who died through torture.
However, a Royal decree issued in Bahrain in 2002 grants immunity to police officers accused of abuses before February 2001.
A Bahrain delegation led by Labour Minister Dr Majeed Al Alawi travelled to the UN, in Geneva, last week to discuss a similar report on the country’s efforts to tackle racism.
UN experts also received a shadow report from human rights activists and are due to announce their recommendations later this week