HRW says Manama nonetheless committing widespread rights violations because it seeks to ‘show picture of reform and tolerance’.
Bahrain should drop all costs towards three males who've been arrested amid ongoing violations of the “rights to freedom of expression, meeting, and affiliation” within the Gulf nation, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has mentioned.
The attraction on Tuesday by the worldwide rights group comes after three unbiased United Nations specialists expressed concern over the “alleged arbitrary detention and subsequent arrests” of 4 folks – together with three minors – following protests within the city of A’ali in 2021 towards Bahrain’s normalisation of ties with Israel.
HRW mentioned Jalal al-Qassab, Redha Rajab and Mohamed Rajab had been set to go on trial on Tuesday after being charged beneath a regulation that criminalises “expression that ‘ridicules’ any of Bahrain’s ‘recognised spiritual texts'”.
All three defendants are members of the Al-Tajdeed Society, “a bunch that advocates open dialogue and questioning about faith and Islamic jurisprudence”, in keeping with HRW, which accused the federal government of concentrating on the lads for “merely exercising their proper to free expression and perception”.
“Nobody ought to ever be on trial merely for peacefully expressing their very own views about faith,” Niku Jafarnia, Bahrain and Yemen researcher for HRW, mentioned in a press release.
She famous the trial is ready to start shortly earlier than Bahrain hosts the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting, a world organisation of nationwide parliaments “dedicated to selling democracy, equality, human rights, improvement and peace”.
HRW additional charged “the trials are happening towards the backdrop of the Bahraini authorities’s makes an attempt to whitewash its human rights abuses and show a picture of reform and tolerance internationally”.
Bahrain has been accused of widespread crackdowns following pro-democracy protests in 2011.
In 2021, a decade after the protests started, Amnesty Worldwide mentioned the dominion had failed to recognise key suggestions of an unbiased fee established by King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa following the unrest.
HRW mentioned a “variety of activists, bloggers, and human rights defenders proceed to be imprisoned for exercising their proper to freedom of expression” within the wake of the 2011 protests, together with rights advocate Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and tutorial Abduljalil al-Singace.
In December, three UN rapporteurs despatched a letter to Bahrain’s authorities expressing considerations over the arrests of human rights activist Yusuf Ahmed Hasan Kadhem, 17-year-old Ali Mustafa Majid Maki and two unidentified 16-year-olds following their participation within the anti-Israel normalisation protests in October 2021.
The letter, which was made public earlier this month, mentioned the 4 defendants had been charged in absentia to one-year imprisonment in Could 2022. All 4 had been interrogated with out the presence of a lawyer, it added.
It famous that the 2 youthful people had been launched after their households paid a high-quality. Kadhem and Maki stay in detention.
“With out prejudging the accuracy of the above allegations, we want to specific our concern over the alleged arbitrary arrest and conviction [of the defendants] over costs that could be immediately associated to the train of their reliable rights to freedom of expression and peaceable meeting,” the letter mentioned.
“… We want to convey our concern over the alleged infringements of [the defendants’] rights to a good trial and due course of,” the rapporteurs added, looking for clarification from Bahraini authorities.
On February 15, the UN’s Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights mentioned it had obtained a reply from the federal government. That reply had not but been made public.
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