Bahrain Forum for Human Rights: dropping nationality of 31 Bahraini forms a violation of the Constitution and international law
Calling on the international community to take strict punitive measures against the Bahraini authoritiesBahrain Forum for Human Rights: dropping nationality of 31 Bahraini forms a violation of the Constitution and international lawBahrain Forum for Human Rights consider that the withdrawal of nationalityof 31 Bahraini citizen by Bahraini authorities in pretext of damaging the state security is a violation of National Constitution texts and Bahraini laws, especially the Citizenship law issued in 1963, as it forms a violation of the materials of international law that based on the protection of basic and authentic rights of citizens, particularly the right to citizenship.The forum called on the international community and the United Nations and international human rights organizations to take strict punitive measures against the Bahraini authorities explicitly violate international contracts related to nationality rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and covenants that Bahrain has committed to it before international bodies.Bahrain Forum for Human Rights assure that those who have been stripped of their nationalities are representing an important category that has its religious, political, cultural and economical clout in Bahraini society ,where two religious figures have been targeted: Ayatollah Sheikh Hussein Najati, and Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammed Sanad, as well as two Bahraini clerics, and two former MPs, and thirteen of the political figures who demanded political change and democracy, in addition to other activists in different domains such as traders and attorneys.The Forum pointed out that this decision is an explicit violation of law of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Article 15, which states that persons shall not be deprived arbitrary of their nationalities, in addition to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states in article number 16 on the recognition of legal personality of citizens.The Forum added that the state is not entitled to drop the nationality without a court order of constitutional reference, pointing out that dropping nationality of number of citizens by Bahraini Ministry of Interior is a violation of the Nationality Law presented in the decision of the Interior ministry, in its Article number 10 which require an order from the governorin order to drop nationality, as the decision has no justifications or controls because it did not prove damage of those citizens to national security, in addition that some of those targeted have nothing to do with politics.
The forum concluded his statement by saying that the decision represents a threat to the social structure and cultural components of the Bahraini society, especially by targeting specific elements of community which hits the equality of people before law, pointing out that the decision of dropping nationality has a bad future effects on young children whose fathers’ nationalities was dropped; where they will lose their citizenship because of this decision.
