Last Friday, February 14, 2020, marks the ninth anniversary of the start of the protests calling for democracy and human rights in Bahrain in 2011, the center of which was the Pearl Roundabout in the capital of Bahrain, Manama, before the Bahraini authorities suppressed it.
On Friday, February 14, 2020, a number of cities and towns in Bahrain witnessed protests to commemorate this anniversary, and various areas in Bahrain witnessed a proliferation of police forces in an attempt to prevent the emergence of any kind of protests, but the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) was able to monitor many violations that coincided with this anniversary.
A photo of the police presence witnessed in Karrana town on February 14, 2020
BCHR monitored from the 13th to the 15th of February, 26 protest marches in 18 regions, including the capital of Bahrain, Manama, where at least 3 of them were repressed by the police forces using tear gas canisters.
A photo showing the spread of tear gas canisters shot by the police forces in Sitra
A picture of a citizen's car damaged by the tear gas canisters fired by the police forces in Sanabis town
The Center also monitored in the same period 13 cases of detention, including 4 cases of detention of children under the age of 18, amongst them is the 10-year-old child Ameen Redha, who is held in custody by the Public Prosecution for a week on charges of illegal gathering, after his arrest on February 14, 2020 from the Al-Marakh town.
Photo of the 10-year-old Ameen Redha, who was arrested by the police
The Center also monitored the summons of a number of persons and activists to prevent them from participating in the protests, and the father of the victim of extrajudicial killing, Hussein Al-Jaziri, who was killed by the police forces in 2013, was also summoned to prevent an event commemorating the killing of his son, which falls on February 13.
The official authorities in Bahrain work every year to prevent protests on the anniversary of February 14 in an attempt to stop any peaceful movements calling for democracy and human rights. Since 2014, the Bahrain government has banned all forms of peaceful protests and worked to legislate laws criminalizing participation in protests, and even punishing the hundreds of people participating in the peaceful protests taking place in various regions in Bahrain.
Since 2011, Bahrain has been experiencing a stifling political crisis in which the government of Bahrain eliminated all forms of political action by dissolving the two largest political parties, namely Al-Wefaq and Waad, and arrested its leaders. Sheikh Ali Salman, Secretary-General of Al-Wefaq, has been in prison since 2014. That is in addition to thousands of political detainees and prisoners of conscience, among them is the President of BCHR, Nabeel Rajab, who was arrested in 2016 and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment in cases related to freedom of expression.
You can now see our 2019 annual report on the ongoing violations in Bahrain.
On this occasion, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights would like to renew its call to the government of Bahrain to:
- Stop criminalizing participation in protests and punishing activists and participants in peaceful protests;
- End the suppression of political freedoms, especially freedom of expression;
- Release all those detained on the background of their demands for democracy and human rights, and the most prominent of them is the President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and Vice President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Nabeel Rajab.