The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights (BFHR) organized a virtual seminar entitled “A Human Rights Perspective: Bahrain’s Fourth Report to the Committee Against Torture” on November 13, 2025, in light of the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) session on Bahrain, which will be held in Geneva on November 18, 2025.

Click here to watch the full seminar

The panelists included Ilef KASSAB - MENA Human Rights Adviser at World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), Sayed Yusuf Al-muhafdha - Human Rights Researcher, and Advisor at Salam for Democracy and Human Rights (SalamDHR), Deewanshi Vats - Advocacy and Research Assistant at Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Ghina Rebai - Researcher at the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights (BFHR). The panel was moderated by Tara O'Grady - President of ‘No Peace Without Justice’ (NPWJ).

Kassab: At least two political prisoners died due to medical negligence

In her speech, Ilef Kassab - MENA Human Rights Adviser at World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), said that "The Ombudsman, the Special Investigation Unit, the National Institution for Human Rights, are formally active, yet remain subordinate to either the Ministry of Interior or the Public Prosecution […] We have institutions that absorb criticism but rarely deliver justice."

Kassab added that “Conditions in Jau Prison and Dry Dock include prolonged solitary confinement, denial of medical care, and collective punishments. At least two political prisoners died due to medical negligence, which triggered the ‘Stop the Slow Death Policy’ protests. Even minors detained in connection to demonstrations have reported physical assaults and threats of sexual violence during interrogation.”

Al-muhafdha: Transitional justice and the psychological rehabilitation of torture victims are essential

In his speech, Sayed Yusuf Al-muhafdha - Human Rights Researcher, and Advisor at Salam for Democracy and Human Rights (SalamDHR), stated that “Transitional justice and the psychological rehabilitation of torture victims are essential”, adding that “the current police-state behavior does not reflect compliance with Bahrain’s international obligations, nor does it implement constitutional protections. Instead, it undermines them and deepens mistrust between citizens and the state.”

Al-muhafdha also called for the government of Bahrain to meet its international obligations, and for survivors of torture to document and share what they endured, with human rights organizations, emphasizing that “such documentation may not seem urgent now, but it will be vital in the future.” He also shed the light on the dominance of the security apparatus over official and human rights institutions saying that it “has made it impossible for these bodies to fulfill their national and humanitarian roles.”

In the end of his speech, Al-muhafdha recommended that “the government [of Bahrain] develop a national human rights project that includes transitional justice within the National Human Rights Plan”.

Vats: within Jau Central Prison the situation continues to deteriorate

Deewanshi Vats - Advocacy and Research Assistant at Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), expressed deep concern over the “deteriorating situation that is happening inside Jau Central Prison where recent incidents indicate a serious escalation of torture, abuse, medical neglect, and secterian discrimanation against detainees.” Adding that “the torture in Bahrain is not a remnant of the past, but a practice that persists under conditions of impunity”

Vats also added that “within Jau Central Prison the situation continues to deteriorate, according to BCHR documentaion”.

Vats mentioned cases of violations in Jau Central Prison including the case of PoC Ahmad Khalil who was transfered to solitary confinement for requesting medical treatment, describing the incident as “a clear violation on Bahrain’s prison law, and the Mandela Rules”, and the recent case of PoC Ali Al-Ardi who was physically assualted and sectarianly insulted by prison guards, which led to “sparking peaceful protests inside the prison… to which the authorities retaliated by canceling family visits, restricting meals, an threatning to use force to end the protest.”

Vats concluded that “the [prison] situation is on the verge of breakdown”, and recommended, on behalf of BCHR, that the “Bahraini authorities end the use of solitary confinement and punitive transfers, conduct independent and impartial investigations into the assaults of the prisoners, guarantee unhindered access to medical treatment without reprisal, restore family visits and communications without any restrictions, protect detainees from discrimination, and uphold the freedom of religion and detention facilities.”

Rebai: The consequences of torture have to five executions, and four other fatalities among PoCs

In the last speech, Ghina Rebai - Researcher at the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights (BFHR), stressed upon what she decribed as “the forms of torture that are more prominently occurring currently according to the Bahrain”, starting by the forms of physical torture applied on citizens during the process of “arbitray arraest”. Rebai then focused on torture procedures that are implemented during interrogation phase against PoCs, mentioning that “based on those torture procedures that detainees get forced to confess to false allegations, that lead to their arbitrary judicial conviction, which could be long years in prison or even the death penalty, as happened to three PoCs in 2017 and two in 2019” adding that “today there are 12 PoCs sentenced to death based on ‘torture-confessions’ and they have exhaused all their legal appeals.”

Rebai then addressed “the daily life torture that prisoners endure”, stating that the Bahrain Forum has monitored more than 140 cases of torture in Bairaini prisons that occurred during 2025, shedding the light upon the severe consequences of denying proper medical care as “four PoCs in Bahrain have died due to poor medical treatment, between 2021 and 2024, inspite of their contiuous demands and their families’ demands for proper and more professional medical treatment, which they submitted to the relevant authorities.”

Rebai concluded by recommending: the provision of psychological and medical support for victims of torture alongside financial and moral compensation in accordance with international standards, the accountability of perpetrators of torture “including senior security officials, not only lower-level officers”, the allowance of regular visits by international monitoring mechanisms, such as UN observers, with public reports after each visit, and lifting restrictions on local independent human rights organizations and that “they should be enabled to document freely inside Bahrain, and be protected from harassment”.