Bahrain: Summons for Interrogation, A Tool to Suppress Freedoms The Bahraini authorities continue to criminalize freedom of opinion and expression and hold accountable those who exercise this right, as if it were a felony or misdemeanor that requires alerting interrogation agencies. Meanwhile, these same authorities still do not see any problem in the practices of the security services, who commit violations, misdemeanors, and sometimes even felonies against peaceful citizens and prisoners of conscience. So, these crimes are tolerated and their perpetrators go unpunished. More than a year has passed since the incident in which police officers and superintendents in Jaw Central Prison severely assaulted the 14 detainees who were isolated from the rest of the prisoners of conscience in the security isolation building. At that time, the prison administration did not provide them with medical treatment for the wounds and scars caused by the assaulters. More than a year has passed since the perpetrators of the attack escaped accountability. In addition, more than a year has passed since human rights activist Mr. Ali Muhanna protested against the assault of his son, prisoner of conscience Hussein Muhanna (one of the 14 detainees), by publishing an audio recording on social media sites stating the details of the attack and the names of the officers and superintendents involved in it. Mr. Ali Muhanna did not receive any response to his protest, at the time, and neither the relevant Public Prosecution Office nor the Criminal Investigation Center took any action to look into the incident. However, on June 10, 2024, the authorities – finally – decided to reconsider this issue, so they chose to summon Mr. Ali Muhanna to the Riffa Police Station, interrogate him, and question him for more than two hours about the audio that he published in January 2023 on social media, instead of holding the perpetrators, whose names are known, accountable. As if committing the crime is not the problem, but rather exposing its perpetrators is the crime that requires being summoned for interrogation and being held accountable! Such behavior by the Bahraini authorities is neither new nor strange to the policy of systematic repression that the authorities have increasingly applied since the February 14, 2011 movement. Interrogation summonses to the police stations often occur because citizens exercised their rights, such as the right to publish, the right to express, the right to peacefully demonstrate and assemble, the right to practice some religious rituals or chant religious slogans, and even the right to express sympathy for Palestine! In October 2021, an unprecedented incident happened to Mr. Ali Muhanna, when he was summoned for interrogation over his “intention” to participate in a peaceful demonstration against normalization with the Zionist entity. The charge of intention was repeated a month later, in November 2021, with citizen Ali Hammam, who was summoned for interrogation on charges of intending to participate in a peaceful march in Duraz. The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights monitored (480) cases of arbitrary summonses from the beginning of 2020 until May 2024. These cases included (55) cases of summoning children, including female child Hoor Yaqoub Al-Ajmi, who was summoned to the Criminal Investigation Center in 2020 over posting a tweet on social media. She was subsequently arbitrarily arrested for 3 days before being released on bail after signing a pledge not to publish similar tweets. There were also (12) cases of arbitrary summonses against women, (15) cases against religious scholars, (18) cases against religious reciters (rawadeed), (12) cases against heads or members of administrations of religious institutions (ma’tams), and (one) case against a citizen with special needs, Hassan Ali Mohsen Badaw. Moreover, some human rights activists were repeatedly summoned for many times, most notably Mr. Ali Muhanna, who was summoned (41) times during the aforementioned period, in addition to each of the following: Hajj Abdul Majeed Abdullah Mohsen (known as Hajj Samoud), was summoned (39) times. Hajj Munir Mushaima (brother of extrajudicial killing victim Sami Mushaima), was summoned (33) times. Hajj Abdulnabi Al-Hawaj was summoned (12) times. Hajj Abdul Hadi Saleh Mushaima (father of extrajudicial killing victim Ali Mushaima), was summoned (10) times. The number of summonses per year are as follows: (92) summonses in 2020 (147) summonses in 2021 (100) summonses in 2022 (122) summonses in 2023 (19) summonses in 2024 (January to May) |