Local Editor
Amnesty International revealed that between June 2016 and June 2017 at least 169 critics of the Manama regime or their relatives were arrested, tortured, threatened or banned from traveling.
In a new report ‘No one can protect you’: Bahrain’s year of crushing dissent, the rights group puts the spotlight on Manama’s repressive tactics used to crush civil society and violently crack down on protests.
According to Amnesty’s Research and Advocacy Director for the MENA region, Philip Luther, “the majority of peaceful critics, whether they are human rights defenders or political activists, now feel the risks of expressing their views.”
“Using an array of tools of repression, including harassment, arbitrary detention and torture, the government of Bahrain has managed to crush a formerly thriving civil society and reduced it to a few lone voices who still dare to speak out,” Luther adds.
Throughout the twelve-month period, the rights group documented nine cases involving the use of torture against regime critics, eight of them in May alone.
“We have heard horrific allegations of torture in Bahrain. They must be promptly and effectively investigated and those responsible brought to justice,” said Philip Luther.
The now-jailed Bahraini human rights defender, Ebtisam al-Saegh, was sexually assaulted and beaten by members of the National Security Agency (NSA) during her ‘interrogation’ in May. She later revealed that one of the NSA operatives told her: “no one can protect you”.
The report also accuses Manama of embarking on a systematic campaign to eliminate freedom of speech, which targets the country’s human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, political activists, Shiite clerics and peaceful protesters.
One of Bahrain’s prominent human rights defenders, Nabeel Rajab, was recently sentenced to two years in prison for speaking to journalists and faces a further 15 years over tweets deemed critical of the regime.
“I was jailed five times in the past year… Most of the time I’m banned from travelling, targeted, jailed, tortured, and my house targeted, attacked by rubber bullets and teargas… My children [have been] targeted by the government, [as have] my wife, my family, my mother, whom I lost while I was in jail and I was not allowed to see her before she died,” Rajab told Amnesty before his latest arrest in June 2016.
These methods of repression run parallel with an all-out campaign to dismantle Bahrain’s opposition, which includes the dissolution of the Al-Wefaq and Waad political parties.
Meanwhile, Amnesty designated the situation in Bahrain’s northwestern village of Diraz as the most notable clampdown on freedom of assembly. Security forces killed six people in Diraz, including two teenagers, in an effort to disperse an 11-month sit-in, organized in support of Bahrain’s highest religious authority, Sheikh Isa Qassim.
But despite Manama’s blatant disregard for human rights, the regime continues to receive both political and military support from western allies, namely the UK and the US.
“The failure of the UK, USA and other countries that have leverage over Bahrain to speak out in the face of the disastrous decline in human rights in the country over the past year has effectively emboldened the government to intensify its endeavor to silence the few remaining voices of dissent,” Luther explains. “The outlook for human rights in Bahrain looks bleak if the authorities continue this crackdown unchecked. They should start by immediately reining in their security forces, releasing prisoners of conscience and allowing banned civil society organizations to operate again. They should also make sure that those who have been subjected to torture and other serious violations are delivered justice.”
Source: LualuaTV, Edited by Website Team
