Your Excellency,
IFEX, the global network of 104 organisations working to promote and defend freedom of expression worldwide, writes to you regarding your response to the UNESCO Director-General’s 2016 request to provide information on the status of judicial inquiries into the killing of Ahmed Ismael Hassan Al Samadi that occurred on 31 March 2012.
While we welcome the information that you provided on this case in 2013 and 2015, we encourage you to continue this trend of accountability and submit the relevant updated information to be included in the upcoming 2016 report on The Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity, and to grant permission to make this information publicly available. In addition to having your efforts recognized in the Director-General’s report, this act of transparency and cooperation will be reflected positively in Bahrain’s upcoming Universal Periodic Review taking place in May 2017.
Read the full letter here.