Ghina Rebai: How do we assess the roundup of a decade of abuse in prisons? Paper presented at the webinar: Bahrain... A Black Decade for Rights Ghina Rebai Researcher at the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights For ten years, since the beginning of the crisis in 2011, the Bahraini authorities have deliberately retaliated against the dissenting citizens through the various forms of violations they committed against them. One of the most prominent aspects of these violations are the ones that occur in prisons against prisoners of conscience, who are subjected to diverse methods of torture and ill-treatment, and many of them are deprived of health care. The journey of torture starts from the first hours of arrest, in the interrogation rooms, in which the interrogator excels in methods of revenge, such as electrocution, sexual harassment, severe beatings, and other ways of what the interrogator desires to invent. Through these practices, fabricated confessions are extracted, and based on them, the detainees are judicially sentenced. For example, we recall the case of the victim of arbitrary execution, Ali Al-Arab. He was subjected to various forms of torture, including his nails being pulled out during the interrogation, before he was forced while blindfolded to sign confessions that he did not read. Then, he was sentenced to death, and the sentence was executed in 2019 on the basis of those fabricated confessions. After the interrogation phase begins another phase of the detainee’s suffering journey inside prisons. He faces prison conditions that are not prepared for the huge numbers of prisoners of conscience, that have always amounted to thousands since 2011. Their total number exceeds 15,000 prisoners of conscience, and they are constantly suffering from overcrowding in cells. Prisons also lack the health standards necessary for any person, and diseases spread there due to the lack of hygiene, high humidity and lack of exposure to sunlight, which have caused skin diseases among a large number of detainees. Meanwhile, the prison administration neglects both prevention and treatment. In addition, detainees are subjected to other types of deprivation of health care, such as suddenly interrupting the detainees’ treatment, not taking into consideration cases of people with severe or chronic diseases, refusing to present detainees to the prison clinic or to specialized doctors, forcing some sick detainees to eat foods inappropriate to their health conditions, and causing physical or psychological diseases to detainees as a result of the torture they are subjected to inside the prison or in the interrogation centers, or due to poor sanitary conditions in the prison, or the deliberate cutoff of water and air conditioning for the detainees. All this has led to the deterioration of the conditions of many of the detainees, to the extent of putting their lives at risk or possibly suffering from permanent disabilities. Last year, i.e. in 2020, taking the necessary preventive measures to prevent the inmates from contracting the new Coronavirus was neglected at the level of prison administrations and prison security personnel. In addition to the denial of health care, prisoners of conscience suffer from repeated methods of ill-treatment that have become customary and part of their daily lives. These include denying prisoners of calls and family visits, denying them of exposure to sunlight, preventing them from purchasing necessary things, isolating them in solitary confinement, and preventing them from practicing religious rites or they would be subject to immediate punishment. In addition, humiliating search campaigns are carried out, in which the detainees’ private and necessary belongings that they bought with their own money are confiscated, with the aim of targeting the detainees' financial status to pressure them and their families, who provide them with money, and other unique violations are also committed. In 2020, the cost of the recharge calling card in Jaw Central Prison increased enormously, as it became more than 16 times of the previous price per month. In addition, the duration of the call was reduced to about a third, and the amount of phone numbers that the detainee can communicate with was also reduced, in light of the Coronavirus pandemic, due to which family visits have been replaced by video calls. This increases the psychological pressure on the detainees and clearly indicates that the prison administration and the responsible government agencies and the ones that supervise them have no intention of undertaking any reforms. On the contrary, these bodies express the authorities' will to take more revenge against prisoners of conscience. Cases of ill-treatment often result in a clash between detainees and the security forces, which leads to detainees being subjected to various types of torture, such as beatings and severe beatings, as well as being sprayed by pepper spray and other forms of revenge. The most prominent form of revenge last year was the case of Sheikh Zuhair Ashour and five other detainees with him, who were isolated from the rest of the detainees, and placed each separately in Building 15 in Jaw Central Prison. They were tortured and deprived of making calls. News from Sheikh Zuhair Ashour was cut off for 5 consecutive months, and there was fear that he was killed in prison. All of this happened because they demanded to perform religious rituals prior to the commemoration of Ashura and they were accused of inciting the rest of the detainees to go on a hunger strike. This was a summary of prison conditions that did not express the extent of the pain and distress suffered by prisoners of conscience in Bahrain. Finally, after a decade has passed, we recall that on this day, 10 years ago, the security forces launched their first treacherous attack on the protesters camped in the Pearl Roundabout in the capital, Manama, and startled them at the first hours of the dawn, killing 4 protesters and wounding many. The security forces caused a lot of panic among the peaceful crowd demanding the most basic rights of citizenship. Thus, the authorities expressed their vengeful view towards people with anti-government opinions. A decade later, the authorities are still repressing dissidents who demand their legitimate rights, that are contrary to the authorities’ desires, and they masterly develop methods of revenge against dissidents. Youssef Rabie: Crushing Political Rights in Bahrain Paper presented at the webinar: Bahrain... A Black Decade for Rights, organized by the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights Prepared by - Youssef Rabie - Former President of the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2021 Political rights are one of the internationally safeguarded rights in documents and treaties as well as constitutionally in the Bahraini Constitution, but the picture is completely different and reversed in Bahrain. There is systematic and continuous crushing of these rights that amounts to "total intentional harm." 1- Forms of Crushing Political Rights First: Criminalizing Opposition Political Action In Bahrain, after 2011, opposition political action has become a crime, and all citizens who work in opposition societies are susceptible to arrest and are victims of security charges that end in harsh sentences. Second: Arbitrary Arrests of Opposition Figures and Leaders One of the mechanisms of crushing the political right in Bahrain is the arbitrary arrests that take place outside the context of international laws or even local laws, in accordance with the guarantees stated in the constitution of Bahrain. I give an example of the majority of opposition leaders, who were subjected to arbitrary arrest and were tried over malicious charges that are basically unrelated to the actions done by those politicians. They exercised their right to freedom of opinion and expression in criticizing the performance of the government and its executive – and in particular – security bodies. Third: "Fabricated" Charges of Political Intrigue It is one of the most dangerous mechanisms of political crushing. Here, we recall the leader of the opposition, Sheikh Ali Salman, Secretary General of Al-Wefaq. Sheikh Ali Salman, who is a "prominent and well-known" political figure, was accused of several charges, the first of which is “insulting a statutory body,” meaning the Ministry of Interior, and he was sentenced to 4 years in prison in 2014. In 2017, Sheikh Salman was charged with colluding with the Qatari government through deliberately taking out parts of a call between the Secretary General of Al-Wefaq and the then Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim. It was basically part of the US-Gulf initiative which took place with the knowledge of the King of Bahrain and the Crown Prince directly. Sheikh Salman was sentenced to life in prison, i.e. 25 years. Of course, this ruling also affected leaders in the opposition, including Mr. Abdul Wahhab Hussein, Mr. Hassan Mushaima, Dr. Abdul Jalil Al-Singace, international human rights defender Abdul-Hadi Al-Khawaja and others, who are now in prison. The ruling also affected parliamentary figures in the opposition society, Al-Wefaq. Fourth: Closing and dissolving opposition political societies and disposing of their property by politically-motivated judicial rulings. Here, we mention the Al-Wefaq Society, the National Democratic Action Society, Wa’ad, and the Islamic Action Society. These societies operate under the official Associations Law, and Al-Wefaq specifically participated in the elections in two rounds, 2006 and 2010. This is part of crushing the narrow space that citizens get in political pluralism, stipulated in the National Action Charter. Fifth: Political Isolation Law It is one of the most dangerous mechanisms of crushing political rights, and it violates all international and constitutional instruments. This law is summarized in denying all members of “dissolved” political societies, and I place dissolved between two quotes This law has also reached prosecution and abuse, under the title of “demonization”. By virtue of this law, these individuals are "evil" and they must be deprived of practicing any activity, not only political, but also participating in public life. They are prohibited from participating in the professional and societal association and boards of directors of sports clubs. "Complete and Legalized Crushing" 2- Is there anything left of political reform? This question was answered by Amnesty International in its latest statement, “Dreams of reform crushed 10 years after uprising” These forms that I have listed in this "black crush" in political rights violate the following documents - The International Bill of Human Rights - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - The report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, known as the Bassiouni report. This report recommended, in Recommendation 26, to carry out a national reconciliation after what had happened at the Pearl Roundabout. - The Constitution of the Kingdom of Bahrain 3- What should be done now by the ruling authorities of Bahrain? Return to the legal and constitutional document, which is the National Action Charter that Bahrainis voted for on February 14, 2001, and which the government celebrated its 20th anniversary. This document says that Bahrain needs a new social contract that is agreed upon, through carrying out a comprehensive national reconciliation, that addresses all these grievances. Citizens in Bahrain, with these illegal and unconstitutional measures and actions, lose their natural right to protected political rights I would like to finally ask, is a country that commits these violations of the political right of its citizens fit to be president of the Human Rights Council, which is the highest international human rights institution, after the state of Fiji surpassed it? |