Bahrain Center for Human Rights
15 March 2007
Ref: 07031501
In recent months the Bahraini government has increasingly been exercising its judicial system in order to pressure local activists and journalists into silence. Yesterday (March 14) BCHR vice-president Nabeel Rajab was called before the Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID) for interrogation.
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
15 March 2007
Ref: 07031501
In recent months the Bahraini government has increasingly been exercising its judicial system in order to pressure local activists and journalists into silence. Yesterday (March 14) BCHR vice-president Nabeel Rajab was called before the Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID) for interrogation.
According to Public Prosecution officials, Mr Rajab is under investigation for a case filed against him by Ministry of Health employee Adel Abdulla. Mr Abdulla was named in the leaked “Al Bandergate” report as having received payments from a senior government official to set up internet forums promoting sectarianism.
The BCHR believes that this investigation – and any resulting criminal charges – are the Bahrain government’s latest attempts to silence activists who continue to highlight the Bandargate scandal, into which there has been no official recognition or investigation yet.
The ‘Bandargate scandal’ refers to leaked government documents purportedly showing a network of high-level government officials working to maintain the economic and political oppression and disenfranchisement of Bahrain’s Shia majority. Activities described include vote rigging in national elections. The documents were leaked in a report authored by a British consultant to the government, Dr Salah Al Bandar. (See BCHR reports: “Conspiring Against the Shia“, October 2006 and “A Political Scandal“, September 2006).
“This is another example of the Bahraini government using politically motivated cases to put pressure on activists to stop their work,” BCHR president Abuldhadi Al Khawaja said yesterday.
“The government has persistently failed to address its population’s concerns and questions raised over the shocking Al Bandar report,” he added.
“Instead, it has chosen to threaten and prosecute individuals exercising their right to freedom of speech and asking for governmental accountability and transparency.”
The BCHR calls on the Bahraini government to abandon its persecution of activists seeking transparency and justice by highlighting the Al Bandergate report.
We urge the authorities to investigate those accused of perpetrating the grotesque and damaging activities of the report.
Background notes:
BCHR president, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, and two other activists are currently being prosecuted, facing criminal charges of up to 15 years in prison, after they continued to highlight the Al Bandargate scandal (BCHR Ref: 07022501)
Dr Salah Al Bandar, the whistleblower, was forcibly deported from Bahrain by government authorities after delivering copies of the report to the Press.
Following the revelations of the scandal in October 2006, the Higher Criminal Court (presumably at the behest of the government) issued a ban on all news, information and discussion of the Bandargate case. (BCHR Ref: 06100500)
Since the ban, the Bahrain government has been continuously threatening activists and journalists (BCHR Ref: 06101201), and blocking websites and blogs (BCHR Ref: 06110200, Ref: 06103001, and Ref: 06102600) that have discussed the scandal.
Mr Rajab recently returned from a trips to Washington DC and Geneva where he and other BCHR delegates met with representatives of several international organizations to discuss the Al Bandargate scandal and the general human rights situation in Bahrain.
Some of the groups with whom meetings were held are: the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and several committees of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.