ADHRB launches joint report, “Patterns of Torture in Bahrain: Perpetrators must Face Justice”
The Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) in co-operation with its human rights partners Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), will launch a report entitled, “Patterns of Torture in Bahrain: Perpetrators must Face Justice.” The launch will take place during an online side event at the United Nations Human Rights Council’s 46th session at 2pm Geneva time On March 17th at this link on zoom.
Drawing on first-hand witness statements by survivors of torture, the report is a comprehensive study on the specific ways and means by which torture is perpetrated in Bahrain, with a particular focus on the period since the 2011 popular movement and the violent crackdown that followed. The report not only seeks to describe how torture in perpetrated in Bahrain, it goes one step further by examining the concrete steps that need to be taken at domestic and international level to end the culture of impunity that facilitates the use of torture and prevents accountability.
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 ADHRB raises the Spread of Culture of Impunity in Bahrain at the Human Rights Council
We would like to thank the mandates of the Special Procedures for their work; and raise concerns about poor conditions in Bahraini prisons. As well as ongoing religious discrimination, reprisals, impunity, and police brutality in Bahrain. Just a quick look at the joint communication reports on Bahrain shows ongoing systematic human rights violations in Bahrain and it’s lack of serious or constructive cooperation with the UN mechanism.
In this regard we would like to point to a book titled “Zafarat” published by Bahraini activists’ news agency “Bahrain Alyoum” in which scores of detailed testimonies of victims of torture and Bahraini political prisoners are documented.
One of those victims in this book is the Bahraini political prisoner Shaikh Zuhair Ashoor who was arrested for his opposition to the dictatorship in Bahrain and for charges related to freedom of expression and speech. During his detention and interrogation, he was subject to severe torture and to several human rights violations, and recently, he was subjected to enforced disappearance from 10July 2020 to 17 January 2021 during which he was subjected to various forms of torture and harassment as a form of reprisal for his stances and activism calling for the prisoners’ rights. He is currently held in Jau Prison, where he is serving his life sentence.
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EU Parliament Urgent Resolution Condemns Human Rights Situation in Bahrain
The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly in a plenary session today to adopt an urgent resolution condemning human rights abuses in Bahrain, including an increase in the use of the death penalty, the continued use of torture against detainees and the persecution of human rights defenders, lawyers and other civil society figures, while calling on Bahrain’s government to enact reforms, the European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR), Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), stated today.
The resolution, which passed by 689 votes to 11 with 45 abstentions, represents the first major intervention by the European Parliament on human rights in Bahrain since a similar resolution was adopted in June 2018. The vote followed the signing of an agreement between EU High Representative Josep Borrell and Bahrain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani last month aimed at promoting cooperation in “areas such as trade, research and innovation, clean energy and renewables.”
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