A Bahraini court sentenced Ibrahim Sharif, former secretary-general of the secular, left-wing National Democratic Action Society, on 24 February to a year in prison over a speech made in 2015 calling for change in the kingdom.
Sharif was convicted on a charge of inciting hatred while acquitted on charges of promoting the toppling of Bahrain’s government.
Sharif’s lawyer, Sami Syadi, said he plans to appeal the ruling, and that he believed the time his client had already served would count toward his sentence.
Sharif was first sentenced to five years in prison in 2011. While in prison, he was tortured, held in solitary confinement for 56 days, and wasn’t allowed to contact his family or lawyer. He served four years and three months before being released on a royal pardon on 19 June 2015.
A month after his release, he made a speech in July during the annual commemoration of the killing of 16-year-old Hussam alHaddad by security forces in 2012. In it, he criticised the government for using violence to put down demonstrators, who were engaged in peaceful protests.
“In our case, there is no going back to building a wall of fear,” he said. “The government is only strong when we are cowards and is weak when we are courageous.”
He was subsequently re-arrested for the speech and spent seven months in custody before yesterday’s sentence.
Speaking to Index on Censorship before the ruling, his wife Farida Ghulam said: “Unfortunately, based on the last seven months of trials, it seems that the government is unwilling to entertain the basic right of freedom of speech and that Ebrahim may be sentenced again”
Index on Censorship calls for the immediate release of Ibrahim Sharif. His wife has previously written about the family’s ordeal in Index on Censorship, here and here.
Index on Censorship is saddened to hear of the death of Eric Avebury, a staunch defender of human rights. Lord Avebury continued to campaign despite declining health and we will, in particular, remember his defence of our friends and colleagues in Bahrain being persecuted for expressing themselves freely.
In October 2014, Lord Avebury spoke at Index on Censorship on the need for “genuine reform” in Bahrain, including the allowance of freedom of expression, “which is totally banned” in the country.
His Majesty Sheikh Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa,
King of Bahrain
Fax: +973 176 64 587
CC: His Excellency Lieutenant General Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa
Minister of Interior
Email: [email protected]
His Excellency Sheikh Khaled Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Fax: 00973 17 21 05 75; [email protected]
And Permanent Mission of Bahrain to the United Nations in Geneva
Fax: + 41 22 758 96 50; Email: [email protected]
21 January 2016
Your Majesty,
We, the undersigned NGOs, call on the Bahraini authorities to lift the arbitrary travel ban on human rights defender Nabeel Rajab in order that he be able to travel abroad with his family for the purpose of securing medical assistance for his wife, Sumaya Rajab.
Nabeel Rajab is President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights and on the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Division.
A public prosecutor imposed the travel ban on Nabeel Rajab without any judicial determination on July 13 2015, the day that Your Majesty pardoned him and ordered his release following his conviction for “publicly insulting official institutions” by criticizing the government on social media. The travel ban is related to two other speech-related charges that led to his arrest on April 2 2015, charges which prosecutors have not dropped.
The first outstanding charge is for allegedly “insulting a statutory body”, under article 216 of Bahrain’s Penal Code, based on his social media comments about the alleged torture of detainees in Jaw Prison in March 2015. The second accuses him of “disseminating false rumours in times of war,” under article 133 of the Penal Code, based on social media posts criticizing Saudi Arabia-led coalition air strikes in Yemen. Violations of articles 133 and 216 carry maximum sentences of 10 and three years in prison, respectively. Neither of the alleged acts upon which these charges are based were in any way recognisable criminal offences under international human rights law, and both involved the peaceful exercise of internationally protected rights to freedom of expression and to promote and protect human rights.
In November 2015, Sumaya Rajab was diagnosed with medical conditions requiring urgent and highly specialized treatment according to the medical expert team monitoring her condition. She was told that this treatment is not available in Bahrain.
In December 2015, Nabeel Rajab’s lawyers submitted their fourth appeal against the travel ban – they have submitted two requests to the attorney general, one request to the investigating prosecutor and one request to the Public Prosecution Office – requesting that it be lifted so he could accompany his wife. The Bahraini authorities have not responded to these appeals and the travel ban remains in place.
In November 2015, 81 Members of the European Parliament called on Your Majesty to lift Nabeel Rajab’s travel ban. The European Parliament passed a resolution in July 2015, shortly prior to Nabeel Rajab’s pardon, calling for his immediate and unconditional release alongside other prisoners of conscience. The same month, 44 members of the UK Parliament called on the government of Bahrain to drop Nabeel Rajab’s current charges and to release all political prisoners and those imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression. After his release, three UN human rights experts – Michael Forst, David Kaye, and Maina Kiai – called for Nabeel Rajab’s charges to be dropped. This followed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, call for the release of all those detained in relation to their peaceful activities in Bahrain in June.
We, the undersigned, therefore call on the Bahraini authorities to:
Drop all pending free speech-related charges against Nabeel Rajab;
Lift the travel ban immediately and unconditionally, thus allowing Nabeel and Sumaya Rajab to travel; and
Guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in Bahrain are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals, and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.
Signatories:
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Amnesty International
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
CIVICUS
English PEN
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Freedom House
Front Line Defenders
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Media Support (IMS)
International Service For Human Rights (ISHR)
Lawyer’s Rights Watch Canada (LWRC)
Maharat Foundation
No Peace Without Justice
PEN International
Physicians for Human Rights
Rafto Foundation for Human Rights
Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
SENTINEL Human Rights Defenders
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
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
Index on Censorship is saddened to hear of the death of Eric Avebury, a staunch defender of human rights. Lord Avebury continued to campaign despite declining health and we will, in particular, remember