House Raises Concern over Bahrain Government’s Human Rights Abuses, Calls for State Department Report on Upcoming Bahrain Election

The House Appropriations Committee expressed deep concerns over ongoing human rights violations in Bahrain and required the US State Department to prepare a report detailing its actions to ensure free and fair parliamentary elections in Bahrain in November 2022.  The Committee’s actions were included in the Report to accompany the Fiscal Year 2023 State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Bill which was adopted by the full Appropriations Committee on June 29, 2022.

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Joint Letter: Make any meeting with King Hamad contingent on tangible human rights reforms

We are writing to raise serious concerns about your confirmed participation in the upcoming Jeddah Summit on 15 and 16 July given that the leaders attending this summit are some of the most brutal authoritarian rulers today. We understand that one-on-one bilateral meetings between heads of state often accompany summits such as this, and we urge you in the strongest of terms not to entertain such a meeting with the King Hamad bin Isa Al Kahlifa  of Bahrain unless the country demonstrates concrete progress on human rights, as outlined in our below requests.

We fear that unconditionally affording Bahrain’s King an in-person meeting will serve to legitimize the continued repression of his ruling dictatorship in Bahrain. 

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Self-inflicted wounds: Courting the good-will of Middle East dictators

News that President Biden is traveling to the Gulf region this month to meet with the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a betrayal of his promise to put “human rights at the center of our foreign policy, of the pro-democracy activists and journalists who have been imprisoned by the dictators of these countries, and of all the people who have died in defense of democracy. After months of quiet diplomacy to ease tensions between the US and Saudi Arabia in order to persuade the Kingdom to increase its global oil production and overset surging prices resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine, it seems that “progress” towards this end has been made: a meeting between President Biden and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman where the leader of the free world will kiss the ring of a violent tyrant and beg for access to more oil. This meeting will represent a disturbing reversal of policy from an administration that had previously referred to the kingdom as having “very little social redeeming value” and openly touted its commitment to making Saudi Arabia a “pariah”.

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Sayed Ali Mustafa Hasan

Sayed Ali was an 18-year-old student when he was arrested in a house raid in June 2022, and he had been previously arrested multiple times, for participating in a peaceful demonstration condemning the normalization agreement between Bahrain and the Israeli occupation. He was denied his due process and fair trial rights, and he is currently serving his sentence in New Dry Dock Prison.

Sayed Ali had been arrested for the first time at 17, on 7 October 2021, when multiple army vehicles raided his house. He was transferred from his house to Hamad Town Roundabout police station, and he was questioned from the morning until late at night without his lawyer or guardian, as he was still a minor, and he was not allowed to present any evidence. He was interrogated regarding a peaceful demonstration against normalization in Aali, where he lives. He was released after signing a pledge not to participate in assemblies or riots again.

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