The humanrights situation in Bahrain continued to deteriorate in February 2018. 1105serious human rights violations were observed between the 1^st and 28^thof February 2018, including arbitrary arrests, house raids, unfair trials, crackdownon peaceful protests, restrictions on freedom of movement, prohibition ofFriday prayers, media materials that incite hate speech, enforceddisappearance, torture, ill-treatment, injuries, destruction or confiscation ofproperty and violation of freedom of religion and belief.

While thenumber of violations in February exceeded that of the previous month by 110violations, the total violations were distributed as follows: 83 cases ofarbitrary arrests; 31 cases of forced disappearances; 97 citizens receivedarbitrary sentences, including 10 death sentences that are between the stagesof appeal and cassation; 16 cases of torture and ill-treatment; 374 media materialsthat incite hate speech; 76 unlawful raids on houses and residential facilities;51 crackdowns on peaceful gatherings; 290 persons who were arrested or accused werereferred to court because of trials against freedom of expression and peacefulassembly; violation of freedom of movement by the continuation of the siege onDuraz area for 617 days and the imposition of house arrest on the highestreligious authority for the Shiite Muslims in Bahrain, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim,for 280 days without a judicial order or administrative decision; violation offreedom of religion and belief by prohibiting the Friday prayer in Duraz 4times in February bringing the number of prohibitions to 85 times since 2016;16 injuries due to the suppression of peaceful gatherings; 7 cases of unlawful confiscationof property; and 4 cases of destruction of property.

In February,Bahrain witnessed 513 protests, while since the beginning of the year thenumber of protests has reached 860 even though there has been a complete ban onpeaceful assembly for 1246 days. The number of arbitrary arrests since thebeginning of the year has reached 204. Since 2012, the nationalities of 580citizens have been revoked for political reasons. Moreover, since the beginningof the year, there have been 214 illegal raids on homes and residential facilities.The total number of human rights violations that occurred in January andFebruary are 2100.