It is time to achieve justice for the “Bidoon” in Kuwait: An international campaign to demand an end to the violations against them

 17 July 2023 – Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) has launched today an international campaign to pressure Kuwait to respect the rights of the “Bidoon” community and put an end to the violations they face in terms of access to basic services in education, healthcare, and employment, as well as freedom of expression and assembly. The campaign also calls on Kuwait to cease discriminatory practices against them and grant them citizenship.

The campaign begins by sending a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA, as well as the Chairpersons and members of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Joint Committee for Human Rights in the parliaments of the aforementioned countries. It also addresses the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations. The organization urges these entities to:

• Pressure the Kuwaiti government to respect its human rights obligations and to ensure that the Bidoon community is entitled to their fundamental rights, including access to education, healthcare, and basic services.
• Demand the end of discriminatory practices against the Bidoon by ensuring that they are integrated into society and removing the restrictions that they currently face.
• Pressure Kuwait to adopt a strategy to naturalize all Bidoon community members and end their statelessness and adhere to the international convention on this matter
• Demand the unconditional release of Bidoon activists who have been arbitrarily detained for demanding their basic rights.

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UN WGAD finds the detention of six Bahraini students arbitrary and subjected to torture and coerce confessions

 17 July 2023 –The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) adopted an opinion on  20 June 2023 and published it on its website during its 96th session concerning six Bahraini students, three of whom were minors at the time of the arrest, who were arbitrarily arrested and subjected to gruesome human rights violations. Concerned with the severity of the torture the six individuals were subjected to, the Working Group found that their detention was arbitrary under Categories I and III.

The WGAD indicates that the complaint which was submitted by Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) includes the same pattern of violations that have been submitted in other complaints, including “warrantless, pretrial detention with limited access to judicial review, denial of access to lawyers, forced confession, torture and ill-treatment and denial of medical care.” As such, the Working Group indicates that the severe violations concerning the deprivation of liberty should be remedied by Bahrain, with the appropriate action being the immediate and urgent release of all six prisoners. They also called for an impartial investigation to identify the perpetrators of the violations and to hold them accountable. The Working Group also referred this complaint to two other UN Special Procedure offices, the Special Rapporteur on torture and the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, and welcomed the opportunity to conduct a country visit.

ADHRB welcomes and wishes to express its utmost support for the present opinion and reiterates the WGAD’s call to release the six prisoners immediately.

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Abduljabbar Isa Mohamed

Updated: Abduljabbar Isa Mohamed was a 20-year-old Bahraini worker at a McDonald’s when he was arrested without a warrant in November 2021. He was sentenced in a mass trial lacking fair trial procedures for a duration of ten years. Currently, Abduljabbar is suffering, along with many political prisoners, from the escalating policy of medical negligence in Jau Prison, which poses an imminent danger to the prisoners’ health.

On 22 November 2021, officers in civilian clothing and riot police arrested Abduljabbar from the street after the end of his shift in the Juffair region without presenting an arrest warrant or providing a reason for his arrest. Abduljabbar was not summoned prior to his arrest nor wanted by the authorities. His arrest was part of a series of arrests conducted by authorities on the same day in several areas such as Al-Aker, Duraz, and Nuwaidrat.

Abduljabbar was taken to the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID). He was held there for two weeks, during which time he would call for a few seconds to tell his family he was in the CID and that he was alright before the call would be cut off. During interrogation, Abduljabbar was interrogated without the presence of his lawyer, and officers subjected him to severe beating, threatened to arrest his brothers, and was threatened by electric shocks and raping. They forced him to sign the investigation record prepared in advance without reading it under death threats. They also subjected him to discriminatory treatment on the basis of his sect. He was told, “let Iran benefit you.”

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