Four United Nations (UN) Special Procedures offices have published on their website the allegation letter sent to the Government of Bahrain on June 28, 2021, concerning the human rights violations faced by Sheikh Zuhair Jasim Mohamed Abbas and Ali AbdulHusain Ali Hasan Ali AlWazeer. These included arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, and non-access to due process rights. Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) served as the source of information on these cases, through its UN Complaint Program. The allegation letter – signed by the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment – detailed the cases of Sheikh Abbas and AlWazeer, and expressed its concerns regarding the alleged violations that the two prisoners have suffered. It also listed the relevant international human rights laws allegedly violated, and requested the Government of Bahrain take measures to halt these violations and hold perpetrators accountable. It is noteworthy that the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention may transmit the cases through its regular procedures, in order to render an opinion on whether the deprivation of liberty was arbitrary or not, to which the government must respond separately.

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Sayed Hashem Mohsen Fadhul was an 18-year-old Bahraini national who was arbitrarily arrested in 2015. He has been subjected to torture and ill-treatment on multiple occasions and is currently held in Jau prison where he is serving his sentences. Sayed Hashem was arrested on 30 May 2015 in Bani Jamra as he was going to buy food from Al-Sater market. He was monitored by spies, and the car that he was in with his friend was followed and surrounded by riot forces, officers in civilian clothing, an arrest bus, and a helicopter. He tried to escape by foot and entered Bani Jamra where he was chased by all these forces, surrounded behind Al-Sater market, and severely beaten in front of passing eye witnesses. He was beaten so severely that he was carried out while bleeding and unconscious. When he was placed in the car, he was beaten for a second time. Authorities then took Sayed Hashem to Al-Budaiya police station, Al-Khayyala branch, where he was severely beaten again. They carried him around the village searching in many locations for any weapons he possessed, and whenever he said he did not own any weapons, he would be kicked and beaten on the head and body. He was also brought to his house by bus, where he remained, while masked civil forces searched his house and disheveled his possessions without any court order or warrant. Authorities had previously raided the house several times before his arrest, as Sayed Hashem had been wanted for a year and a half.

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