22 Mar 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured
Bahrain’s decision to file charges against Ebrahim Sharif underscores the country’s tactical use of judicial harassment to suppress freedom of speech.
Ebrahim Sharif, the former secretary-general of the secular opposition group National Democratic Action Society (Wa’ad), was charged with “inciting racial hatred against the regime” under article 165 of Bahrain’s penal code. The alleged offenses stem from tweets Sharif posted.
“As we have seen in Bahrain’s treatment of human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, the charges against Ebrahim Sharif target freedom of expression in an attempt to stifle even the mildest criticism,” Melody Patry, head of advocacy, Index on Censorship said.
In the charges the public prosecution office quoted one of Sharif’s tweets: “The ministry of justice threatens to dissolve the remaining opposition societies because they ‘lost the fundamentals of political activity.’ What remains of the decor of the democratic state?”
The prosecution alleges that the use of the word “decor” implies that there is no democracy in Bahrain, a crime according to them.
The prosecution is also citing three other Twitter conversations: an exchange in which Sharif reminded the Tunisian interior minister, who had demanded respect for Bahraini sovereignty, that Tunisia’s ousted president Ben Ali had expressed the same sentiment to repress the opposition during the Arab spring; a series of tweets about protester Abdulla Alzjooz, who Sharif referred to as a “martyr”; and a retweet of an Amnesty International poster commemorating the 6th anniversary of the arrests of leaders of the 14th February movement, with which Sharif included a message of respect.
The Bahrain Institute of Rights and Democracy reported that it is currently unclear whether the case will be transferred to the courts, or if the government has imposed a travel ban on the political leader, who was previously imprisoned from 2011 to 2015, and then again from 2015 to 2016 on similar charges stemming from his involvement in the pro-democracy movement and speeches he delivered. He could now face up to three more years in prison.
The charges against Sharif came on the same day a Bahraini court heard opened dissolution proceedings against Wa’ad. he Bahraini government is accusing Wa’ad of inciting violence and filed for the group’s dissolution earlier in March, though it provided no evidence of its allegations. Wa’ad’s lawyers requested time to respond to the charges, and the next court date is set for 17 April 2017.
13 Mar 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain News, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
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The trial of jailed Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab on charges of spreading “rumours and false news” was deferred for a second time on 7 March until 16 April. The charges relate to televised interviews in 2014 and 2015 in which he criticised authorities. In the meantime, he remains in detention after being denied bail.
This is one of two separate trials Rajab faces. The other is over tweets and retweets about the war in Yemen, which his accusers say “spread rumours in wartime”, insulted a neighbouring country (Saudi Arabia) and offended a statutory body within Bahrain. This trial has been postponed 11 times.
If convicted on all charges, Rajab faces up to 18 years in prison.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at Bahrain Institute of Rights and Democracy, said: “Bahrain is persecuting Nabeel Rajab for his speech. They would rather jail the messenger on human rights and double-down on repression than listen to what he has to say. The international community must take a stance.”
In February 2017 the European Parliament passed a resolution urging the EU and its member states “to intervene with the Bahraini Government in order to appeal for the release of Nabeel Rajab and of all those held solely on the basis of their peaceful exercise of freedom of expression and assembly”.
Rajab is the winner of a 2012 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for his efforts against human rights violations by the Bahraini government in 2011. He judged the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards last year and is also the president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.
Previously, Rajab had been arrested and sentenced to five years in prison in 2012 for criticising Bahraini authorities and for leading pro-democracy demonstrations. He has faced serious health problems due to his numerous detentions, which often were marked by solitary confinement and unclean conditions.
Bahrain regularly breaches basic human rights, and the persecution of Rajab is merely one example of the unjust treatment of those who attempt to exercise their freedom of expression within the country. Authorities have been taking increasingly harsh measures to prevent and punish dissent in the country.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1489420587513-b30cc26d-4ec8-5″ taxonomies=”716″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
14 Feb 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain News, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
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Bahrain’s Day of Rage on 14 February 2011 kickstarted one of the largest popular uprisings in the country’s history. Bahraini youth took to social media and called on people “to take to the streets” in protest of the endemic corruption, discrimination and injustice.
Many of the 55 peaceful demonstrations on the day were met with violence from police and soldiers, leaving more than 30 protesters injured and one dead.
Six years on, the Bahraini government has fostered an atmosphere of fear and repression, through the detention and torture of opposition leaders and supporters, designed to stifle all dissent.
Here are 10 articles and reports explaining where Bahrain is today and how it got here.
“Two Bahrainis appear to be at imminent risk of execution despite the authorities’ failure to properly investigate their allegations of torture, Human Rights Watch said today. Both Mohamed Ramadan and Husain Ali Moosa have disavowed confessions that they allege were the result of torture and that were used as evidence in a trial that violated international due process standards.”
– Human Rights Watch, 23 January 2017
“Bahrain continuously stifles free speech and silences critics. It also has the highest prison population per capita in the Middle East, including 3,500 prisoners of conscience.”
– Index on Censorship, 23 January 2017
The IP Spy Files explore how Bahrain’s government silences anonymous online dissent by targeting activists with ispy links on social media networks and subsequently arresting them.
“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.”
– Index on Censorship, 17 August 2016
“2015 saw a year-on-year increase of the systemic use of arbitrary detention of those who speak out against the Bahraini regime. Index calls on the Bahraini authorities to end arbitrary arrests and immediately release all prisoners of conscience.”
– Index on Censorship, 2 June 2016
“Bahrain, in particular, has intensified the use of stripping citizenship from those who dissent or speak out in protest as a form of punishment. Since 2012 – when the country’s minister of the interior made 31 political activists stateless, many of whom were living in exile – 260 citizens have fallen victim, 208 in 2015 alone. Eleven juveniles, at least two of which have received life sentences, and 30 students are known to be among them.”
– Index on Censorship, 28 April 2016
“Contrary to the popular narrative on Bahrain, sectarianism was not the dominant motivating factor behind the 2011 uprising or the protest movements which preceded it.”
– Middle East Institute, 19 January 2016
“As a family, we’ve decided that it would be important for us to write about the hardships we have personally endured on an individual and family level as a direct consequence of the punishment handed down by the government, which fears the pure and peaceful expression of speech.”
– Index on Censorship, 25 October 2015.
“Bahrain’s prison authorities continue to humiliate, torture and mistreat inmates at Jau Prison […] [P]sychological and physical torture, prevention of medical care, and massive overcrowding remain a systemic failure of Bahrain’s prison system.”
– BIRD, 26 June 2015
“Following the fall of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, hundreds of thousands of Bahraini protesters took to the streets of Manama, the capital city, on 14 February, 2011, to peacefully call for democratic reform. Officials were quick to crack down on protests, and the access of the international media was limited almost immediately after the start of the protests. Unlike other citizens demonstrating across the Arab World in 2011, the protests in Bahrain have received very little coverage, particularly considering the disproportionate number of people jailed and killed in the tiny country of 1.2 million people. ”
– Index on Censorship, 15 January 2012
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23 Jan 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain News, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”81222″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]The Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was due to be sentenced on 23 January but this was postponed for an eighth time. Rajab’s ninth trial date on charges of “spreading rumours in wartime,” “insulting a statutory body” and “insulting a neighbouring country” (Saudi Arabia) – all of which are related to comments on Twitter – will be 21 February.
A tweet by Index, which Rajab shared, is being used as evidence against him. He is the winner of a 2012 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for his efforts in speaking out against human rights infringements by Bahraini government in 2011 and was a judge of the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards in 2016.
“Bahrain’s continued judicial harassment of Nabeel Rajab only serves to mar the country’s image in the international community,” Melody Patry, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship, said. “This latest postponement is just more evidence of the Bahraini government’s disregard for global human rights norms. We urge Bahrain to immediately drop all charges against him.”
Rajab was arrested and sentenced in 2012 for voicing his critical opinions about Bahraini authorities and for leading pro-democracy protests. He has since been released and re-arrested multiple times, and his time spent in solitary confinement and unclean conditions have caused a serious decline in his health.
Rajab also faces numerous other charges, including for a letter he wrote to the New York Times in September 2016 and an opinion piece in Le Monde in December 2016.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “Nabeel Rajab faces over 17 years in prison for these pathetic charges. Now the UK is setting a dangerous precedent in providing bombs and jets to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, worth billions, while watching in silence as rights campaigners who took a principled stance against wars and torture are harshly punished.”
There are many who face a similar plight in Bahrain. Although it is considered to be one of the most connected countries in the world in terms of technology, Bahrain has a reputation for regularly blocking critical news, as well as human rights and opposition websites. Social media is strictly monitored and the government routinely revokes the citizenship of many of its critics, rendering them stateless.
Ebrahim Sharif, former secretary-general of the secular, left-wing National Democratic Action Society, was sentenced on 13 November 2016 to a three-year prison sentence for “inciting hatred against the regime” after speaking to the Associated Press.
He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2011 for the same charges. After facing brutal torture and imprisonment in solitary confinement for 56 days, Sharif received a royal pardon on 19 June 2015. He served four years and three months in prison.
Sharif is a member of the Bahrain 13, a group of high-profile human rights advocates who were arrested, tormented and sentenced by a Bahraini military court in 2011.
Many other activists have been jailed for exercising their right to free expression. Zainab Al-Khawaja is currently in exile in Denmark, where she is a dual citizen, with her two young children. They arrived there on 6 June 2016 after she was threatened with new charges that would result in long sentences and separation from her children, following her release a week earlier.
Her father, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, is currently serving a life sentence for the part he played in the 2011 demonstrations in Bahrain. He was head of the 2012 Index Award-winning Bahrain Center for Human Rights with Nabeel Rajab. Al-Khawaja’s sister Maryam is also currently in exile in Denmark.
In 2015, the Liberties and Human Rights Department of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society verified 1,765 opposition-related arrests. These included the incarceration of 120 children and five women.
On 9 October 2016, sports journalist Faisal Hayyat was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison by a Bahraini criminal court due to a tweet allegedly insulting the Sunni sect of Islam. Hayyat was also arrested in April 2011 for involvement in pro-democracy protests. He wrote on Facebook a few days before his most recent arrest about the extreme physical, psychological and sexual torture he endured while imprisoned.
Writer, blogger and president of the Women’s Petition Committee, Ghada Jamsheer, began her ten-month combined sentence on 15 August 2016. She was jailed in Bahrain for exercising her right to free expression on Twitter. She requested to be freed in order to serve the remainder of her sentences outside of the prison due to her debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, but the judge has yet to inform her of his decision.
On 17 July 2016, the Bahraini Public Prosecution decided to charge Nazeeha Saeed, an award-winning correspondent for Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya and France24, for illegally working for international media. In June 2016 Saeed faced a travel ban without her knowledge, only to discover that she could not leave the country when she wasn’t allowed to board a flight.
Many other journalists working for international media outlets have faced similar threats, including Sayed Ahmed Al-Mousawi, who was stripped of his citizenship in November 2015.
Bahrain continuously stifles free speech and silences critics. It also has the highest prison population per capita in the Middle East, including 3,500 prisoners of conscience.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1485190510938-e7ffcac4-a5c4-10″ taxonomies=”3368″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
