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Human Rights Commentary on the Latest Violations – The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights - Summonses, arrests and interrogations for the purpose of political intimidation and criminalization of religious speech - The prison crisis is back in the spotlight Human Rights Commentary on the Latest Violations – The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights (BFHR) The security authorities have returned to the policy of summoning and interrogating for the purpose of political intimidation, targeting societal and religious figures that they had previously targeted, including activists, religious scholars and citizens. Between July 5 and 30, more than 20 religious figures and preachers were targeted, including two senior religious scholars, Sheikh Mahmoud Al-A’ali and Sheikh Ali Al-Sadadi, in addition to more than 20 activists. They were targeted by arbitrarily summoning them, preventing them from giving religious speeches or preventing them from traveling. Some of the summonses resulted in arbitrary arrests. The total number of arbitrary arrests that have been monitored in July so far is 39 cases, including 7 children. The rapid events at the Jaw Central Prison, which began last April, such as the continuous restrictions on prisoners of conscience – which reached the point of cutting off water and electricity by the prison administration despite the extreme high temperatures and reducing the quantities of meals for prisoners – led to the aggravation and deterioration of the health conditions of some detainees, specifically those suffering from shortness of breath and asthma. In addition, some detainees are suffering from serious skin diseases and being deprived of medical treatment. Therefore, the BFHR stresses that the prison administration and the Ministry of Interior are responsible for the deliberate deterioration of the general health situation in the prison environment. The BFHR also emphasizes the legitimacy of the demands raised by detainees in more than 10 collective protests since April and the necessity of responding to them by the relevant official authorities. Some of those demands are the following: - Releasing the sick prisoners of conscience immediately and unconditionally and compensating them, as well as the opposition leaders and all prisoners of conscience. - Returning detainees who were isolated in the security isolation building to the buildings in which they were previously detained. - Ending the policy of isolating detainees in the security isolation building, after their return from a medical examination or a court hearing. In solidarity with political detainees and their legitimate demands, 25 peaceful popular demonstrations and 8 protests took place in different areas in Bahrain from the beginning until the 28th of July, affirming the demands of political detainees and demanding their release. The BFHR demands that those concerned in the prison administration be held accountable for the physical and psychological damages suffered by detainees as a result of depriving them of water, electricity, and adequate meals. The BFHR points out that the policy of impunity has become so rooted that the invention of methods of torture, ill-treatment, and revenge are the recipe for eliminating protests in prisons. This portends more sudden cruelty in dealing with detainees, which may lead to undesirable consequences inside prisons on a humanitarian level – especially since the perpetrators in the security system are awaiting rewards for these grave violations. The absence of comprehensive political and human rights reform will keep the doors of crises, in their various forms, open to more extended violations. |
