Bahrain court jails 17 for trying to kill policemen

DUBAI (Reuters) — A Bahrain court sentenced 17 people to 15 years in prison on Sunday after convicting them of trying to kill four policemen with a homemade bomb during political unrest last year.

The attackers planted the bomb in a roadblock formed of tires, palm tree trunks and garbage bins, and detonated it when a police patrol approached, state news agency BNA quoted prosecutor Mamdouh Al-Maawda as saying.

The four policemen were seriously hurt and burned during the attack in April 2012, BNA reported.

The tiny island kingdom has been plagued by sometimes violent street protests since pro-democracy protests led by its Shiite Muslim majority erupted in early 2011.

Also on Sunday, a group of people attacked a diesel tanker with Molotov cocktails, BNA quoted police as saying. Civil defense personnel extinguished the flames before they reached the diesel cargo.

(Source / 17.03.2013)

Bahrain says arrests eight on ‘terror-related’ charges

DUBAI (Reuters) — Bahrain has arrested eight nationals in a militant cell with links to Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, the interior minister of the US-allied Gulf Arab state said in remarks published on Sunday.

The official Bahrain News Agency reported the minister, Shaikh Rashed bin Abdullah al Khalifa, as saying the eight had received training in weapons and explosives and also obtained funding from outside Bahrain.

News of the arrests came after two people were killed on Thursday on the second anniversary of an uprising to demand democratic reforms and the unrest, the most violent in recent months, continued into Saturday. The government has accused opposition groups of being linked to Shiite power Iran.

“Recent media reports have revealed the discovery of a Bahraini terrorist cell with links to Iran, Iraq and Lebanon,” the agency quoted Sheikh Rashed as saying in a statement.

“The Ministry of Interior confirms these reports and also confirms the arrest of eight Bahrainis on terror-related charges.”

He did not elaborate on the media reports, adding further details would be released upon completion of investigations.

The minister made no direct link between the arrests and political unrest. But in another part of the statement he criticized an escalation in street violence in the past week which he said had seen the use of a widening array of weapons by anti-government protesters including live ammunition.

The violence has clouded the atmosphere around talks begun on Feb. 10 between the mostly Shiite Muslim opposition and the Sunni Muslim-dominated government to find a way out of the impasse over Shiite demands for more democracy.

The kingdom, base for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been in political turmoil since the protests erupted in 2011, led by majority Shiites demanding an end to the monarchy’s political domination and full powers for parliament.

Thirty-five people died during the unrest and two months of martial law that followed, the government said, although the opposition puts that number at more than 80.

(Source / 17.02.2013)

Two Years of Deaths and Detentions

 

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights publishes a second anniversary report: “Two Years of Deaths and Detentions: Documenting Human Rights Abuses During the Pro-Democracy Movement in Bahrain (February 2013)”

An Opening Letter From Maryam Al-Khawaja:

In the two years that the pro-democracy movement has been ongoing, eighty-seven people have died as a direct result of the excessive use of force applied by the King’s brutal security forces, including thirteen children under the age of eighteen. As this report details the deaths and detentions that dominate the government’s appalling repression of democracy, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights asks how long will the West continue to support these atrocities?

The first months of the government’s crackdown were some of the most violent of all the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East region. Police officers killed peaceful protesters without the fear of consequences. In secretive, military trials, pro-democracy activists and human rights defenders were sentenced to lengthy prison terms, including up to life in prison, or even death. The retrials in civilian court do not follow due process, and merely represent the government’s wish to present a softer image of itself to the world. The situation on the ground has not improved.

Masked men in civilian clothing regularly kick down the doors to civilian homes in the middle of the night, firing tear gas inside and harassing anyone they suspect of participating in the pro-democracy movement. People are kidnapped by security officers during such raids as well as from public places, often reappearing only after several days and with grotesque signs of torture marking their body.

My father recently began another hunger strike, along with other members of the “Bahraini 13,” to protest the unjust conditions he and his fellow prisoners are being subjected to. Hunger strikes are becoming increasingly common in Bahrain as a desperate cry for help from prisoners who have no other options. Political detainees are routinely beaten, verbally abused, held in solitary confinement or with inmates who do not share a common language. The mistreatment is compounded by the cramped and unsanitary conditions in which the prisoners are held.

This report aims to document the way in which King Hamid bin Al-Khalifa’s government has attempted to muzzle the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain with a crackdown that has left a trail of deaths and unjust detentions over the last two years. These pages document the way in which an excessive use of force has led to eighty-seven deaths at the hands of the authorities, and how the death toll continues to rise. The prisons in Bahrain are filled with political prisoners, and prisoners of conscience, and the systematic abuses they receive.

But even in the face of such brutal repression from the government, there is still reason to hope. I recently traveled to Bahrain for the first time in more than a year and a half, and was deeply moved by the peaceful resilience that I witnessed in activists and ordinary citizens across the country. After two years of attacks, the majority of people in Bahrain only want peace, but they will not compromise and allow for their human rights to be trampled upon.

Maryam Al-Khawaja

Acting-President

Bahrain Center for Human Rights

(Source / 16.02.2013)

Bahrain Grants Citizenship to 5,000 Sunni Syrians

 

TEHRAN (FNA)- Bahrain has granted citizenship to 5,000 Sunni Syrians, a measure seen as al-Khalifa’s plan to change the demographics of the Shiite-dominated country to the benefit of the Sunni population.

“The Bahraini government in collaboration with the UAE’s Economic Cooperation Office in Jordan has attracted and granted citizenship to Sunni Syrians,” an informed source in the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan disclosed on Sunday. The source said by the start of the 2013, 5,000 Sunni Syrian citizens residing in refugee camps in Jordan received Bahrain citizenship. The Syrian nationals received 10,000 dinars after being transferred to Bahrain by Qatar Airways flights and they are given a house and a job with a monthly $825 income, the source said. Earlier reports also said that Bahrain’s national air carrier, Gulf Air, has transited a total of 1,000 loyalists to Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein to Manama on several flights, including on Gulf Air Flight No. GF976, on December 22. “The Bahraini government has begun granting nationality to and recruiting (former Iraqi dictator) Saddam Hussein’s forces and has already attracted 1,000 of these forces who have become Bahraini citizens after going through administrative procedures,” an informed source at the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) told FNA on Wednesday. The Saddam loyalists were immediately granted Bahrain’s citizenship, given houses, and recruited by the country’s security organization upon their arrival in the tiny Persian Gulf country. They were the last group of Saddam’s loyalists who were transferred to Manama International Airport from Amman, Jordan’s capital. They had fled Iraq through the country’s land borders with Jordan. A former commander of Iraq’s presidential guard, Tareq al-Shamri, was in charge of transferring Saddam’s loyalists to Bahrain from Jordan. This is not the first time that the Bahrain’s Al Khalifa regime grants Bahraini citizenship and recruits mercenaries from other countries in a bid to continue with the suppression of its opponents who attend daily protests in Manama and other cities across the country in thousands. The Bahraini government which feels desperate to bring back calm to the crisis-hit country had also earlier recruited about 5,000 Salafis from Jordan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February 2011, calling for an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty’s over-40-year rule. Violence against the defenseless people escalated after a Saudi-led conglomerate of police, security and military forces from the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member states – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar – were dispatched to the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom on March 13, 2011, to help Manama crack down on peaceful protestors. So far, tens of protesters have been killed, hundreds have gone missing and thousands of others have been injured. Police clampdown on protesters continues daily. Authorities have tried to stop organized protests by opposition parties over the past month by refusing to license them and using tear gas on those who turn up. The opposition coalition wants full powers for the elected parliament and a cabinet fully answerable to parliament. Amnesty International has announced that more than 200 people, arrested as part of the clampdown against Shiite political opposition in Bahrain, are at the risk of being tortured. Around 250 individuals in Bahrain, who are believed to have been detained, are at risk of torture, the group said. Human Rights Watch also accused Bahrain of restricting the travel of rights activists to prevent them from talking about the arrest of opposition members. The Sunni-dominated government has intensified the crackdown against the Shiite population, arresting dozens of opposition figures on the allegation of planning to topple the government. The population of Bahrain is predominantly Shiite. However, the majority group has long complained of being discriminated against by the Sunni-dominated government in obtaining jobs and receiving services. (english.farsnews.com / 06.01.2013)

Bahrain protesters demand departure of PM

THOUSANDS of Shi’ite protesters in Bahrain have demanded a transition government and the removal of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, who has been premier since 1974, witnesses say.

They said the demonstrators marched in the village of Diya near the capital Manama, chanting “Resign, Khalifa!” and waving Bahraini flags.

The Shi’ite opposition in the tiny Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom is led by al-Wefaq, which wants a government of technocrats to rule in a transition leading to a constitutional monarchy.

Since February last year, Bahrain has been shaken by opposition protests that the authorities accuse of being exploited by Shi’ite Iran across the Gulf.

At least 80 people have died since the start of the unrest in February 2011, according to the International Federation of Human Rights.

The opposition insists that the premier stand down and that the government be headed by the leader of the elected majority in parliament.

(mobile.news.com.au / 22.12.2012)

Bahrain: Disturbing Updates on the Current Situation of Talib Ali and 4 Other Citizens kidnapped by the authorities

 

Photo (Left to Right) : Saeed Al Hirz, Ahmed Abdullah, Ebrahim Al-Sharqi, Talib Ali, Hassan Al-Moalim 

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) expresses its grave concern over the well-being of 5 citizens of Mehazza, who have reportedly been kidnapped by the Bahraini authorities in Nov 2012 following the siege and house raids on the village (see BCHR report for more detailsbahrainrights.org/en/node/5536). These men were taken by the security forces without any information about their location being known for several weeks, and now they are being detained in Bahraini prisons while sham charges are being brought against them. According to received information, these men are being ill-treated, they are being tortured, and they have been denied access to adequate medical care.

Said Yousif Al-Muhafadha, Acting Vice President and Head of Monitoring at the BCHR met with the families of detainees after the men were first allowed to receive visitors. This was several weeks after they were first kidnapped by the Bahraini authorities. Al-Muhafdha received very disturbing and worrying updates from the families on the detainees’ current situation.
The family of Talib Ali (36 years-old, and father of two children), who was reportedly kidnapped from his car on the 14th of November 2012, stated that Talib informed them that he was severely tortured and sexually assaulted. His family members reported that Talib was beaten with sticks all over his body, and especially in his face, they were able to see that his eyes were very red and his face was swollen.

Photo: Daughter of Talib Ali holding a poster that reads in Arabic, “State their Fate” 

His family stated that Talib became partially deaf in his right ear and that his right jaw is broken due to the repeated beatings that he was subjected to for 15 days. Tabil informed his family that he was shocked with electric wires on his stomach, waist and the private parts of his body. They were able to see that Talib is missing 4 finger nails. Two finger nails were reportedly removed from each hand while he was being tortured.

Talib was taken to the 7th floor at the Public Prosecution office on the 16th of November, 2012, at 1:00 AM to be interrogated by Public Prosecutor Fahad Al-Boainain. Talib stated to his family that Al-Boainain put a gun on the table and threatened to kill Talib if he did not confess to the fabricated charges against him, which allege that he participated in bombings in Adliya city; as many as 15 police officers were waiting to beat him if he did not sign the document.

Talib was deprived of his right to have a lawyer present while being interrogated and while at the public prosecution. The BCHR documented many reports on the complicity of the Public Prosecution in supporting these human rights violations.
(Read more : bahrainrights.hopto.org/en/node/5357 )

Talib is now reportedly being held at Hid Police Station in solitary confinement, where he is being blind folded and handcuffed while under high security surveillance as reported by his family.

Along with Talib, Saeed Al Hirz, Ahmed Abdullah, Ebrahim Al-Sharqi, and Hassan Al-Moalim also stand accused of the same alleged crimes and their families confirmed to BCHR that they were also subjected to severe torture, with the support of the public prosecution. All of these men are all in solitary confinement. Their health has deteriorated to the point that they are hallucinating, and adequate healthcare is still not being provided to them.

Therefore, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights demands the following:

• The immediate intervention of the international community, human rights groups and the United Nations to put an end to the arbitrary arrests and brutal torture practices employed by Bahrain’s Security Forces.

• The release of Talib Ali and others convicted in cases where the judgment is only based on confessions extracted under torture, which is internationally prohibited.

• The investigation into claims of systematic torture.

• Accountability against those involved in torture and bringing them to a fair and independent judiciary.

(www.bahrainrights.org / 16.12.2012)

 

Bahrain court cuts activist’s jail sentence

(Photo for illustrative purposes only)

The prison sentence of a prominent Bahraini rights activist jailed for taking part in unlicensed protests was cut by a year by an appeals court on Tuesday, his lawyer said.

In a case criticised by rights groups, Nabeel Rajab, founder of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, had been serving three years for leading protests against the wide powers of the Sunni Muslim al-Khalifa dynasty which rules the island kingdom.

Bahrain, the base of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been in turmoil since the pro-democracy protests led by its Shi’ite Muslim majority erupted last year. Washington has called on its ally to talk to the opposition.

A hero to protesters but a villain for those Bahrainis who fear the protests will bring Shi’ite Islamists to power, Rajab was originally sentenced by a lower court in August, a verdict Washington said was deeply troubling and rights campaigners called a “dark day for justice”.

The judge ruled in three cases on Tuesday, all related to participating in peaceful protests, and handed Rajab a one-year jail sentence in one case and six months each in the other two cases, said lawyer Mohammed al-Jishi.

He said Rajab had yet to decide whether to appeal again, adding: “It is a very harsh verdict.”

“We were expecting the judge to issue one sentence for the three cases collectively, but he treated them as three separate cases and each had a separate sentence,” Jishi told Reuters by telephone from Manama.

Tuesday’s hearing was attended by monitors from rights groups and foreign diplomats, Jishi said.

The Bahrain government’s Information Affairs Authority said in August the charges against Rajab had been related to violence. Public prosecutors had said Rajab’s participation in marches and “provocation of his supporters” led to violence, including throwing petrol bombs and blocking roads.

Rajab has been in jail for about seven months for other charges, Jishi said.

Since April, the authorities have stepped up efforts to crack down on unrest. Activists cite an increased use of shotgun pellets, whose use officials have declined to confirm or deny.

In November, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed bin Abdullah al-Khalifa said the Gulf Arab kingdom had temporarily banned all rallies and gatherings to ensure public safety and stability are restored.

Several activists have been jailed for organising or taking part in unlicensed anti-government protests.

Bahrain’s ruling family used martial law and help from Gulf neighbours to put down last year’s uprising, but unrest has resumed.

The opposition says that little progress has been made towards its demands for reforms including a parliament with full powers to legislate and form governments. Many Shi’ites complain of political and economic marginalisation, a charge the government denies.

(www.arabianbusiness.com / 11.12.2012)

Lawyer: Bahrain sentences activist’s daughter to jail

A Bahraini court on Monday sentenced the daughter of prominent opposition activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja to one month in jail for taking part in an unauthorized demonstration, her lawyer said.

Zainab al-Khawaja, the eldest of the Shia rights activist’s daughters, was found guilty of entering the “prohibited area” of Pearl Square, the main symbol of 2011 protests crushed by security forces, on 12 February, the lawyer said.

She also was fined 100 dinars (US$258).

Her lawyers disputed the charges, saying there was “no formal decision declaring that Pearl Square is a forbidden area.”

Defense attorney Mohamed al-Wasta also said on his Twitter account that the prosecution ordered Khawaja’s detention for a week on charges of incitement against the regime.

Khawaja, whose father is serving a life sentence for plotting against the state, has faced courts on several occasions already this year.

Her lawyer says she was arrested on Sunday after visiting a hospital in Manama to check on a youth injured during a demonstration.

In October, Khawaja was freed after serving a two-month jail term for destroying government property.

The judiciary accused her of tearing apart a portrait of King Hamad during detention, according to Amnesty International.

In May, she served a one-month prison sentence for assaulting a police officer.

Bahrain came under strong criticism from international human rights organizations over last year’s deadly crackdown on the protests, led by the majority Shiites in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

An international panel commissioned by King Hamad to probe the government’s clampdown found that excessive force and torture had been used against protesters and detainees.

 

http://www.egyptindependent.com//sites/default/files/imagecache/highslide_zoom/photo/2012/12/10/72636/photo_1355149481203-1-0.jpg” />

 

(www.egyptindependent.com / 10.12.2012)

Bahrain Congratulates the Palestinian People

 

New York, Nov. 30. (BNA) – The Kingdom of Bahrain has congratulated the brotherly Palestinian people on the UN General Assembly’s resolution granting Palestinian a non-Member Observer State status, affirming that the adoption of the decision by a overwhelming majority reflects the International Community’s solidarity with the Palestinian people and support for its struggle to achieve its inalienable rights of being free and establishing an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. In a statement to the General Assembly, the Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Jamel Fares Al-Ruae highlighted HM the King’s address to the world marking International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in which he said that the occasion was “a remainder to the whole world of the UN’s permanent responsibility towards the Palestinian people and the need to resolve its just cause peacefully, fairly and comprehensively within international legitimacy, adding that the occasion is an opportunity for the International Community to renew its commitments to lifting the injustice that has been inflicted on the Palestinian people since 1948.” Al-Ruwaie also cited HM the King’s assertion that the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People “reflects the International Community’s commitment to continuously supporting the Palestinian people in its just struggle to get its legitimate indivisible rights through ending the atrocious Israeli occupation of its territories and establishing its independent state, with Jerusalem as its Capital.” The kingdom of Bahrain was among the first countries which backed the Palestinian request to be granted a non-Member Observer State status at the United Nations. It also expressed hope that the UN Security Council approves the request submitted by Palestine on September 23rd, 2011 to be recognized as a full-member state at the UN, calling for the need to resume peace negotiations as soon as possible, in accordance with the concerned UN Security Council’s resolutions, the Madrid Peace Conference, the Road Map, the Arab Peace Initiative and the vision based a two-state solution in order to reach a deal on all pending issues. It also called upon the International Community and UN agencies to continue supporting the Palestinian people in order to be able to establish its sovereign independent state as soon as possible. (www.bna.bh / 30.11.2012)

US concerned about Bahrain violence, weak follow-up on reforms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — US officials voiced concern Tuesday that Bahrain’s failure to implement key reforms outlined in an independent 2011 report is making political dialogue more difficult and widening fissures in society in ways that would benefit Iran.

Bahrain, where the US Fifth Fleet is based, has been under Western pressure to implement recommendations for police, judicial, media and education reforms made by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, an independent commission of international legal experts.

“We are worried that this society is moving apart rather than coming together in a way that would ensure both human rights and stability,” said a senior US official, speaking to reporters on condition he not be identified by name.

“It’s absolutely clear that if society breaks apart, Iran will be the big winner and beneficiary,” added the official.

(www.maannews.net / 20.11.2012)