17 Aug 16 | Academic Freedom, Bahrain, Campaigns -- Featured, Middle East and North Africa, mobile, News and features
Protesters in London demand the release of Abduljalil al-Singace, July 2015.
One year has passed since Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley sent a copy of the publication – Fired, Threatened, Imprisoned… Is Academic Freedom Being Eroded? – to jailed Bahraini academic, human rights activist and writer Abduljalil al-Singace to mark his 150 days on hunger strike.
Al-Singace’s hunger strike ended on 27 January 2016 after 313 days, but he remains in prison.
In a letter accompanying the magazine, Jolley aired concerns that al-Singace – who had been protesting prison conditions while being held in solitary confinement – had suffered torture and called on the Bahraini authorities to ensure he “had access to the medical treatment he urgently requires”.
Index magazine editor Rachael Jolley pens letter to Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior regarding al-Singace, 17 August 2015.
On 15 March 2011 Bahrain’s king brought in a three-month state of emergency, which included the through establishing of military courts known as National Safety Courts. The aim of the decree was to quell a series of demonstrations that began following a deadly night raid on 17 February 2011 against protesters at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, when four people were killed and around 300 injured.
Over 300 individuals were subsequently convicted through National Safety Courts, often for speaking out against the government or exercising their right to assemble freely. Many were punished simply for supporting or being part of the country’s opposition movement.
On a midnight raid at his home on 17 March 2011, al-Singace was arrested at gunpoint. During the arrest, he was beaten, verbally abused and his family threatened with rape. Disabled since his youth, al-Singace was forced to stand without his crutches for long periods of time during his arrest. Masked men also kicked him until he collapsed. The Bahraini authorities placed him in solitary confinement for two months. During this time the guards starved him, beat him and sexually abused him.
Al-Singace is part of what is known as the Bahrain 13, a group of peaceful activists and human rights defenders imprisoned in Bahrain in connection with their role in the February 2011 protests.
On 22 June 2011 a military court sentenced all members of the Bahrain 13 to between five years and life in prison, on trumped-up charges of attempting to overthrow the regime, “broadcasting false news and rumours” and “inciting demonstrations”.
Evidence used against them was extracted under torture, but this didn’t prevent their sentences being upheld on appeal in September 2011, at a civilian court in May 2012 and in January 2013 at the Court of Cassation. The Bahrain 13 has now exhausted all domestic remedies and are currently serving their sentences Jau prison, notorious for torture and ill treatment.
During their arrest and detention, the Bahrain 13 were subject to beatings, torture, sexual abuse and threats of violence and rape towards themselves and members of their family by police and prison authorities. Eleven of the 13 remain in prison.
The group consists of:
Al-Singace
Sheikh Abduljalil al-Muqdad, a religious cleric and a co-founder of the al-Wafaa Political Society. During his detention he has been beaten, tortured and told his wife would be raped.
Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a human rights activist and co-founder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. On 8 February 2012, he began a hunger strike to protest his wrongful detention and treatment in prison. He ended his hunger strike after 110 days on 30 May 2012. He went on hunger strike again in April 2015 to protest against the torture of prisoners at Jau.
Salah al-Khawaja, a prominent human rights activist, marriage consultant and the brother of Abdulhadi. The government previously arrested Salah in the 1980’s and 1990’s for engaging in political activity against the government. He was released on 19 March 2016.
Abdulhadi al-Makhdour, a religious cleric and political activist. Authorities prevented him from showering and performing his daily prayers. They spat in his mouth and forced him to swallow. They also denied him access to a lawyer and barred him from contacting his family.
Mohammed Habib al-Muqdad, a religious cleric and the president of the al-Zahraa Society for Orphans. During his time in prison he was sexually assaulted with sticks and forced to gargle his own urine. Security guards also electrocuted him on his body and genitals.
Mohammed Ali Ismael, a prominent political activist in Bahrain. During his imprisonment, he has been beaten and verbally abused.
Abdulwahab Hussain, a life-long political activist and leader of the Al Wafaa political opposition society. He was previously detained for six months in 1995 and for five years between 1996 and 2001. He was diagnosed with multiple peripheral polyradiculoneuropathy, a condition which affects the body’s nerves, in 2005 and suffers from sickle-cell disease and chronic anaemia. His health conditions have worsened as a direct result of the torture and ill-treatment, while medicine and treatment have been denied to him. During his current sentence he has contracted numerous infections.
Mohammed Hassan Jawad, human rights activist who campaigns for the rights of detainees and prisoners who has been jailed a number of times since the 1980s. During his current imprisonment, he was electrocuted and beaten with a hose.
Sheikh Mirza al-Mahroos, a religious cleric, a social worker, and the vice-president of the al-Zahraa Society for Orphans. During his time in prison, Al-Mahroos has been denied medical treatment for severe pain in his legs and stomach. Despite having the proper documentation, he was not permitted to visit his sick wife, who later died in early 2014.
Hassan Mushaima, a political activist and leader of the Al Haq opposition society in Bahrain who has been arrested several times for his pro-democratic activities. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2010, which he was successfully treating at the time of his arrest. Medical results have been denied to him in prison.
Sheikh Saeed al-Noori, a religious cleric and member of the al-Wafaa Political Society. During his detention he has been tortured, forced to stand for long periods of time and had shoes stuffed in his mouth.
Ebrahim Sharif, the former president of the National Democratic Action Society. He is a political activist and has campaigned for democratic reform and equal rights. On 19 June 2015, Sharif was released following a royal pardon, only to be rearrested on 12 July 2015. He was charged with “inciting hatred against the regime” for a speech he delivered in commemoration of 16-year-old Hussam al-Haddad, who was shot and killed by police forces in 2012. He was released again in July 2016 and remains out of prison but the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy he is at risk of being arrested again because of an appeal by prosecutors.
Source: The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.
Also read:
– Bahrain continues to use arbitrary detention as a weapon to silence critics
– Bahrain: critics and dissidents still face twin threat of statelessness and deportation
19 Jan 16 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns, Statements
NGOs from the around the world call for the immediate release of prisoner of conscience Dr. Abduljalil al-Singace on his 300th day of hunger strike. Dr. al-Singace began his hunger strike in March 2015 as a response to police subjecting inmates at the Central Jau Prison to collective punishment, humiliation and torture.
Since 21 March 2015, Dr. al-Singace has foregone food and subsisted on water and IV fluid injections for sustenance. Days later, Jau prison authorities transferred him to the Qalaa hospital, where he is still being kept in a form of solitary confinement.
Dr. al-Singace’s family, who visited him on 7 January, state that the prison administration is controlling his treatment at Qalaa hospital, and has for five months continuously, denied his need for a physical checkup by his hematologist at Salmaniya Medical Complex.
According to Dr. al-Singace’s family, he is not allowed to walk outside. He remains isolated in the Qalaa hospital, and is provided only irregular contact with his family. He is frequently denied basic hygienic items including soap, and is not allowed to interact with other patients in the hospital.
Dr. al-Singace is a member of the Bahrain 13, a group of thirteen peaceful political activists and human rights defenders, including Ebrahim Sharif and Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, sentenced to prison terms for their peaceful role in Bahrain’s Arab Spring protests in 2011.
Dr. al-Singace was first arrested in August 2010 at Bahrain airport. He had just returned from a conference at the British House of Lords regarding human rights in Bahrain. Security forces detained Dr. al-Singace for six months, during which he was tortured, and released him in February 2011 during the height of protests. However, Dr. al-Singace was rearrested on 17 March 2011, after his participation in peaceful pro-democracy protests. In detention, officers blindfolded, handcuffed, and beat Dr. al-Singace in the head with their fists and batons. Officers threatened him and his family with reprisals.
On 22 June 2011, a military court sentenced Dr. al-Singace to life for attempted overthrow of the regime. Since then, he has been imprisoned in the Central Jau Prison, and has only recently received treatment for a nose injury sustained during torture. He has been denied treatment for a similar ear injury also sustained during torture since his incarceration.
In 2015, Dr. al-Singace was awarded the Liu Xiaobo Courage to Write Award by the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, and was named one of Index on Censorship’s 100 “free expression heroes” in 2016. He has long campaigned for an end to torture and political reform, writing on these and other subjects on his blog, Al-Faseela, which remains banned by Bahraini Internet Service Providers. Bahrain has become a dangerous place for those who speak out, with peaceful dissidents at risk of arbitrary arrests, systematic torture and unfair trial.
We, the undersigned NGOs, call on the government of Bahrain to immediately secure the release of Dr. al-Singace and all prisoners of conscience, and to provide all appropriate and necessary medical treatment for Dr. al-Singace.
Signatories:
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
ARTICLE 19
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Croatian PEN
Danish PEN
English PEN
European Center for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Ghanaian PEN
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Icelandic PEN
Index on Censorship
Italian PEN
Norwegian PEN
PEN America
PEN Bangladesh
PEN Bolivia
PEN Canada
PEN Català
PEN Center Argentina
PEN Center USA
PEN Centre of German Speaking Writers Abroad
PEN Eritrea in Exile
PEN Flander
PEN Germany
PEN International
PEN Netherlands
PEN New Zealand
PEN Québéc
PEN Romania
PEN South Africa
PEN Suisse Romand
Peruvian PEN
Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF)
San Miguel PEN
Scholars at Risk
Scottish PEN
Serbian PEN
Trieste PEN
Wales PEN Cymru
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Zambian PEN
11 Nov 15 | Bahrain, Middle East and North Africa, mobile, News and features
Ebrahim Sharif received a royal pardon before being rearrested three weeks later. He was photographed with his family during his brief release.
This is the second of two posts by Farida Ghulam, joined by her daughter Yara and son Sharif, describing the impact the Bahraini government’s crackdown on freedom of expression has had on the family. Ghulam is an advocate for freedom of speech, human rights and democracy. She has campaigned for women’s rights and is currently active in the push for democratic reforms in Bahrain. Her husband, Ebrahim Sharif, who is a former Secretary General of the National Democratic Action Society (WAAD), is currently in detention awaiting trial on charges of inciting hatred and sectarianism and calling for violence against the regime. In 2011, Ebrahim Sharif was arrested as Bahrain’s government moved to suffocate calls for democratic reforms during the Arab Spring. He was released by a royal pardon in June 2015 and rearrested three weeks later. He faces 10 years for expressing opinions in a speech marking the memory of a 16-year-old killed while protesting against Bahrain’s government. Part one: Freedom in Bahrain: “It’s like a dream, isn’t it?”
My husband’s first and second arrests, in 2011 and 2015 respectively, have inflicted painful changes on our lives as a family. Since then most of our conversations have revolved around visit schedules, notifications, updates, mistreatment or exaggerated body searches.
We wait anxiously for these visits only to feel that nothing was said because there wasn’t enough time. Not only is time scarce, but visits are always monitored by policewomen. There is no sense of privacy and the speed that one has to speak with to cover most news makes it like “quick reporting”. Cameras are always filming and must not be blocked by our seating. Phone calls are always monitored and have been cut many times because of a word or a piece of unwanted news. This leaves us with zero privacy.
After the second arrest, a video recorder became compulsory in the visitation room at all times, and it is turned on right before the visit starts. Additionally, prison guards physically monitor us by being present inside and outside of the room for the entire duration of the visit. Although the visiting arrangements and procedures are tight and irritating, we insist on using that precious time with Ebrahim because it is part of his stolen freedom.
In addition to the frustration we feel due to Ebrahim’s freedom being stolen by arresting him on false charges related to his freedom of expression, we are further irritated with the fact that our rights to privacy and freedom of expression are tied down during these visits and phone calls. They have stolen many years of Ebrahim’s life, our lives, and our time together.
Although we do not know when this cycle of government-induced revenge will end, we are all stronger and more determined than ever. We will never accept injustice and will continue fighting for Ebrahim’s freedom, for our rights, and the rights of the people of Bahrain.
Farida Ghulam
November 2015
Yara Ebrahim Sharif
Daughter of Farida Ghulam and Ebrahim Sharif
I was a normal 20-year-old college student at the University of Washington in Seattle. I had just completed my exams and spring break was a few days away. While meeting a friend for coffee, I received a call that would change my life forever: “Yara, was your father arrested? It’s all over Twitter!”
I immediately called my mother to confirm, but she didn’t answer, so I called my sister, Aseel, who works abroad. She picked up the phone half asleep as it was 3am there and had no clue what I was talking about. I called my mother back and, luckily, she picked up. As soon as she confirmed the arrest and detailed the manner in which my father, Ebrahim Sharif, was arrested, I told her to slow down so that I could write all the details down on my laptop to publish online.
I recorded how masked men with guns came over our fence at 2am on 17 March 2011, arrested my father without a warrant, mocked my mother and left no contact information with our family. I didn’t know if my writing would gain any traction online or if anyone would read it because I had about 50 followers on Twitter at that time. Overnight, the followers jumped to over 3,000, and that’s when it all began.
I had hoped that it would all pass by and my father would be released soon. A month went by, and we still had no idea where he was, who he was with or if he had been tortured or not. I was instructed to stay in the US by my family and advising professors, so I took the quarter off and spent it in a bubble of depression, only responding to reporters who contacted me for statements, but for the most part, it was just a never ending gut-wrenching feeling.
My hope of my father being released in a few weeks never came true. I came back to see him after his unjustified sentence during visitation hours. Things continued like this for more than four years. I graduated from university while my father was in prison. I moved back to Bahrain in 2013, started part-time work and moved abroad a year later for an exciting job. I had hoped my father would be there for these moments, for him to fly with and help me choose an apartment, help set up some IKEA tables just as we had with my sister when she moved for work.
I had hoped to make and enjoy breakfast in my new apartment with my family, just as we had done five years earlier for my sister. None of these things happened. I had to inform my dad about everything either over the phone or on steel chairs during monitored visits where he was separated from us behind an open window.
There were no real-time updates — the kind of updates children like to give their parents in person, the kind of updates any child would want to celebrate with their parents. There was no flying to Bahrain to surprise my parents at home. Instead, I was flying to Bahrain to visit my father during scheduled hours after being frisked by policewomen.
The biggest personal impact of having my father arrested was that he never got to see me grow up. I was studying for my bachelor’s degree between the ages of 18 to 21. My father was arrested when I was 20. I am 25 now. My father won’t recognise the person I have grown to be, and I can only blame the government of Bahrain.
He doesn’t know who I was during those years, and who I am becoming. He doesn’t know the real growth I’ve experienced because a one hour monitored visit with eight other family members surrounding you gives you no chance to really connect for more than a few minutes. My relationship with my father was stolen from me; I was robbed from sharing important milestones with him and I can’t wait for the day to share my life with him, to update him on all the years gone by.
It has not been an easy road for me, or for any of my family members. My sister is still waiting on her wedding day, despite being married for four years now. She refuses to have a wedding without a father to dance with. My brother has graduated and moved abroad as well, with my father missing those milestones too. My mother continues to fight for his right to be free and for the freedom of the many people of Bahrain that share the same fate behind bars. Despite these being difficult times, we know that our father’s conscience is clear. He is in jail because he stands on the right side of history — because he defends the less fortunate and speaks the truth. He is a man of courage and conviction, and we can learn a lot from him.
As my father said in his hearing in the Higher Court of Appeals on 5 June 2015: “They may imprison our bodies, but they will not be able to imprison our dream… a dream of freedom and dignity for our people.”
Sharif Ebrahim Sharif
Son of Farida Ghulam and Ebrahim Sharif
No one should ever wake up to a call in the middle of the night to hear that something terrible has happened to a loved one, but that’s exactly what I went through in my sophomore year of college when my father was arrested in Bahrain for daring to speak his mind.
A friend of mine at the University of Michigan woke me up with his call, and sounded a little tense and upset as he asked me if I had heard the news and if I was OK. I had no idea what he was talking about, and that’s when he told me my father had been arrested and no one knew where he was. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I felt like the walls were closing in on me, I couldn’t breathe, my heart was racing as I sat there in my dark dorm room, thousands of miles away from home, completely powerless to help.
My family was kept in the dark about my dad’s whereabouts for quite a while afterward. Occasionally there would be rumors that he had been spotted at some hospital or other receiving treatment, but that was all we had to go on. The feeling that my life was crashing down around me was with me every day, made worse by the fact that I still had lectures to attend, tests to take, projects to work on. I had to go about my life while my dad was missing. It was a soul crushing experience, having to force myself to put aside my fears and my worries and my sadness and work on that next calculus set or programming assignment. Over time, we got more details as to my dad’s whereabouts, and eventually he was allowed to call us; just hearing his voice was an incredible relief because it meant that he was alive.
My dad has been forced to miss the entirety of my adult life. I’m a very different person now than I was when I got that call all those years ago, and I’ve had to go through the process of becoming an adult with only infrequent windows of contact with him, usually lasting no more than 10 minutes every other week at most. He couldn’t even attend my graduation. With every major life event I went through I had to wait a week or more before I could tell him about it. Even when we did get to talk, I had to condense topics and prioritise because there just wasn’t enough time. Even then we were censored as there were topics we weren’t allowed to discuss over the phone, especially politics. Until his temporary release that lasted all of three weeks, the extent of my interactions with my dad as an adult were all through these little 10 minute windows, and occasionally longer visits when I was back home, where everything we said was being monitored. Not being allowed to even have a private conversation is insidiously oppressing — everything I say has to pass through a filter: “Can I say this? Will the monitors cut the call off? Am I OK with the Bahraini government knowing this?”
I am glad at the very least that my dad got to see my sisters and I as we are now, without any surveillance or prison walls separating us, for those three weeks that he was free. I want my dad back more than anything and am hopeful that he will be a full part of our lives again soon.
To learn more about Ebrahim Sharif, please visit https://freesharif.wordpress.com/ or follow us on twitter: @FreeSharif and Facebook
27 Aug 15 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns, mobile, Statements
Dr Abduljalil al-Singace is a prisoner of conscience and a member of the Bahrain 13, a group of activists arrested by the Bahraini government for their role in peaceful protests in 2011. Dr al-Singace is a blogger, academic, and former Head of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bahrain. Dr al-Singace is currently serving a life sentence ordered by a military court on 22 June 2011.
The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry met with Dr al-Singace in 2011 and collected testimony regarding his arbitrary arrest and torture. Despite the existence of this testimony, in 2012 a civilian appeals court refused to investigate Dr al-Singace’s credible allegations of abuse and upheld the military court’s decision. Dr al-Singace has received no compensation for the acts of torture that he suffered, nor have his torturers been held accountable for their actions.
On 21 March 2015, Dr al-Singace went on hunger strike in protest at the collective punishment and acts of torture that police inflicted upon prisoners following a riot in Jau Prison earlier that month. Today, he passed 160 days of hunger strike.
Dr al-Singace suffers from post-polio syndrome and is disabled. In addition to the torture Dr al-Singace has suffered, his medical conditions have deteriorated considerably as a result of his incarceration. Prison and prison hospital authorities have denied him physiotherapy and surgery to his nose and ears. He is currently being held in solitary confinement in a windowless room in Al-Qalaa hospital.
We remind the Bahraini government of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Bahrain acceded to in 2006. Under the ICCPR Bahrain must ensure that no individual is subjected to arbitrary detention (Article 9) and that everyone enjoys the right to freedom of expression (Article 19). We demand that the government release all individuals who are arbitrarily detained for exercising their right to free expression, whether through peaceful assembly, online blogging or other means. We also remind the Bahraini government of its obligations arising from the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), to which Bahrain is a state party. In 2015, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that arbitrary detention and torture are used systematically in the criminal justice system of Bahrain.
We, the undersigned NGOs, call on the Bahraini authorities to release Dr Abduljalil al-Singace and all prisoners of conscience in Bahrain.
We further call on the international community, and in particular EU member states and the United States, to demand release of Dr al-Singace.
Background Information
Dr al-Singace has been the target of judicial harassment since 2009, when he was arrested for the first time and charged with participating in a terror plot and inciting hatred on his blog, Al-Faseela, which was subsequently banned by Bahraini Internet Service Providers. Dr al-Singace had blogged prolifically and critically against governmental corruption in Bahrain. He was later pardoned by the King and released, although his blog remained banned in Bahrain.
In August 2010, police arrested Dr al-Singace on his return from London, where he had spoken at an event hosted by the House of Lords on Bahrain. A security official at the time claimed he had “abused the freedom of opinion and expression prevailing in the kingdom.”[1] Following his arrest, Bahraini security forces subjected Dr al-Singace to acts of physical torture.
Dr al-Singace received a second royal pardon alongside other political prisoners in February 2011. He was rearrested weeks later in March following the imposition of a state of emergency and the intervention of the Peninsula Shield Force, an army jointly composed of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
On 22 June 2011, a military court sentenced Dr al-Singace to life imprisonment. He is one of thirteen leading human rights and political activists arrested in the same period, subjected to torture, and sentenced in the same case, collectively known as the “Bahrain 13”. A civilian appeals court upheld the sentence on 22 May 2012. The “Bahrain 13” are serving their prison sentences in the Central Jau Prison. Among the “Bahrain 13”, Ebrahim Sharif, former leader of the secular political society Wa’ad, was released by royal pardon on 19 June 2015, but was rearrested weeks later on 11 July, following a speech in which he criticized the government. He currently faces charges of inciting hatred against the regime. On 9 July 2015, the EU Parliament passed an Urgent Resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the “Bahrain 13” and other prisoners of conscience in Bahrain.
During his time in prison, authorities have consistently denied Dr al-Singace the regular medical treatment he requires for his post-polio syndrome, and have failed to provide him with the surgery he requires as a result of the physical torture to which he was subjected in 2011. Dr al-Singace has an infected ear, suffers from vertigo, and has difficulty breathing.
A combination of poor quality prison facilities, overcrowding, systematic torture and ill-treatment led to a riot in Jau Prison on 10 March 2015. Though a minority of prisoners participated in the riot, police collectively punished prisoners, subjecting many of them to torture. Authorities starved prisoners, arbitrarily beat them, and forced them to sleep in courtyards for days, until large tents were erected. Fifty-seven prisoners are currently on trial for allegedly instigating the riot.
In response to these violations, Dr al-Singace began a hunger strike on 21 March. It has now been 160 days since Dr al-Singace has eaten solid foods, and he has lost over 20 kilograms in weight. Dr al-Singace subsists on water, drinking over four litres daily, fizzy drinks for sugar, nutritional supplements, saline injections and yoghurt drink. His intake is monitored by hospital nurses.
Since the start of Dr al-Singace’s hunger strike, he has been transferred to Al-Qalaa Hospital for prisoners, where he has been kept in solitary confinement in a windowless room and has irregular contact with medical staff and family. Prison authorities prevented condolence visits to attend his nephew’s and mother-in-law’s funerals. Dr al-Singace should be immediately released, allowed to continue his work and given full access to appropriate medical treatment without condition.
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
ARTICLE 19
Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR)
Bahrain Human Rights Observatory
Bahrain Human Rights Society
Bahrain Institute of Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Bahrain Press Association
Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
English Pen
Ethical Journalism Network
European – Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights (EBOHR)
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
Front Line Defenders
Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR)
Index on Censorship
International Forum for Democracy and Human Rights (IFDHR)
Irish Pen
Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (KRC)
Maharat Foundation
Mothers Legacy Project
No Peace Without Justice
PEN American Center
PEN Canada
Pen International
Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)
Rafto Foundation
Redress
Reporters Without Borders
Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
Sentinel Human Rights Defenders
Shia Rights Watch
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
The European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Tunisia Initiative for Freedom of Expression
Vivarta
Wales PEN Cymru
