Helping Torture Victims in Bahrain

Challenge

In Bahrain, the criminal justice system relies on torture to do its job. Rather than collecting evidence and building a case, police officers often find it faster and easier to just beat a confession out of a person. Sometimes they go ever father, using electrocution and even sexual violence to get their victims to confess. Children as young as twelve have been brutalized by this horrific practices, leaving behind victims without either legal recourse of treatment back to well-being.

Solution

Since 2013, ADHRB had maintained a program to help victims of state violence in Bahrain obtain access to justice and medicine for injuries caused by torture. We represent victims before governments around the world and before United Nations tribunals, where we obtain judgments on their behalf and government intervention to stop their abuse. We also provide them with treatment to put them on the road to recovery.

Long-Term Impact

We will help hundreds of victims of torture in Bahrain fight against their abusers and obtain the treatment necessary to recover from their abuse.

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UN WGAD warns that Systemic Deprivation of Liberty in Bahrain may constitute Crimes against Humanity

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) published on its website their Opinion from 20 July 2022 concerning five young Bahraini citizens sentenced in an unfair mass trial known as the Soleimani Cell Case. The Working Group found that the individuals were arbitrarily arrested in violation of international human rights law. These five individuals are part of a group of 18 defendants tried by the Bahraini High Criminal Court on 31 January 2021. The WGAD called on the Bahraini government to take immediate measures which include releasing the prisoners. 

As a matter of practice, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) regularly receives information from Bahraini individuals and employs their accounts as key evidence in submitted complaints by the United Nations (UN). ADHRB welcomes this Opinion by the UN and urges the Bahraini authorities to follow the recommendations without delay.

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Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Bahraini imprisoned for reciting a prayer was arbitrarily deprived of liberty

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) published an Opinion on its website formed on 15 July 2022 concerning AbdulNabi AbdulHasan Ebrhaim Khalil, a 50-year-old Bahraini citizen from Hamad Town who recites prayers during religious occasions as a Maddah at Ma’tam AlSammakeen. He was sentenced to a year in prison for reciting Ziyarat Ashura, a common prayer recited by Shia all over the world during Muharram. He was released after seven months in detention on alternative sentencing. The Working Group affirmed that AbdulNabi’s detention had been arbitrary due to clear violations of due process and fair trial rights as well as its connection to his right to freedom of religion, rendering his detention a discriminatory act based on his exercise of this right. As a result, the Working Group has referred his case to the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief.

Through its UN Complaint Program, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) regularly receives information from Bahraini individuals and employs their accounts as key evidence in submitted complaints to the United Nations Special Procedures Offices. As such, the documentation collected by ADHRB was the source of information upon which the WGAD based its Opinion on AbdulNabi’s case.

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Sadeq Jaafar Shamlooh

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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