A news report on the attendance of the BFHR at the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva

The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights (BFHR) has followed the Fourth Universal Periodic Review on Bahrain, starting with the preliminary session that took place at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on August 30, 2022. The BFHR participated in that session, represented by its researcher, Ghina Rebai, who gave a speech before the delegations of the countries. In the speech, the BFHR emphasized the right to freedom of assembly and of association, and called on the representatives of foreign countries to urge the Bahraini government to reverse its decision to dissolve opposition political societies and its politically-motivated arbitrary sentences, the most prominent of which is the imprisonment of the Secretary-General of the Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, Sheikh Ali Salman. The BFHR also focused on arbitrary death sentences against political dissidents, mentioning the implementation of five previous death sentences against prisoners of conscience. In its participation, the BFHR presented to state delegations four human rights reports, including the reports issued by the special rapporteurs on the case of Bahraini opposition leader Sheikh Isa Qassim and the case of Sheikh Ali Salman, in addition to a report on the Political Isolation Law.

The BFHR also held side meetings with delegations of some countries, in which they explained the human rights situation in Bahrain, presented the joint recommendations of independent human rights organizations, and urged for the adoption thereof in the Universal Periodic Review.

On November 7, 2022, the BFHR attended the fourth Universal Periodic Review session, in which foreign countries issued their recommendations regarding the various topics of human rights violations in Bahrain. On November 9, 2022, the BFHR received the recommendations in English, and an impressive percentage of them was about the human rights violations resulting from the political crisis. The most prominent of the recommendations were about execution, and others were about the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, religious freedoms, torture, enforced disappearance, etc.