19 Jan 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
Attempts to circumvent a protest ban in Bahrain’s capital were put to an end with rubber bullets and tear gas yesterday, according to opposition group Al-Wefaq. Small groups of protesters on their way to Ras Rumman, the diplomatic quarter were dispersed by security forces. Protesters were quick to circulate pictures and videos online of what seems to be the standard recipe for a protest in Bahrain: peaceful demonstrators, tear gas and rubber bullets. Authorities banned the protest, under the pretence of “security.”
On Sunday, King Hamad renewed his overtures for “progress and reform”— announcing plans for constitutional reform through the expansion of parliamentary power and limiting the executive branch. Promises for constitutional reform have been met with cynicism and criticism from opposition members, as reports of violence against protesters have continued after the release of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report. Members of Al-Wefaq claimed that such changes were merely “cosmetic.”
In true bureaucratic fashion, the government also announced on Tuesday that preparations are now being made to implement the “national reconciliation programme” based on the findings of the committee on the findings of the committee appointed by the King to investigate the crackdown on protesters in February and March of last year. No word yet on whether or not officials plan to create a further committee to investigate the preparations for implementing the report.
Despite talk of reconciliation and moving forward, reports of a conflicted reality continue. The Ministry of Interior claimed that they found the dead body of Yousif Ahmed Muwali on 13 January, after he had been missing for five days. Officials declared that drowning was the cause of death, but family members of Muwali claim that he was tortured and imprisoned based on marks on his corpse. They have yet to see his autopsy. Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was severely beaten by security forces at a 6 January protest. Members of the international community called for an investigation of the incident, and despite eyewitness reports, Bahraini officials denied beating Rajab, insisting that they actually helped the injured activist to an ambulance. Rajab, internationally renowned for speaking out against human rights violations in Bahrain, has experienced torture in the past.
Bahrain’s current climate is not promising — with reports of regular beatings and detention of peaceful demonstrators, tear gas, and intimidation of human rights defenders, which does not seem to stray far from the systematic torture and violations documented in the BICI report.
The civil unrest will not keep Bahrain from hosting a three-day International Air Show this week. The show is expected to garner 50,000 attendants from across the globe. While corporate jet setters are allowed into Bahrain, members of the human rights community are kept out of the country. Brian Dooley, director of the Human Rights Defenders Programme for Human Rights First, was refused permission to enter Bahrain, and told that such visits should be delayed until March, once the work of the implementation committee would have been completed. Rick Sollom from Physicians for Human Rights was also denied entry, on the account of government officials being under “tremendous work pressure.” While Index was in Bahrain on an international mission with 5 other rights groups in November, government officials reassured us that they were interested in welcoming rights organisations, as long as they followed the procedure for entry, as a part of their commitment to transparency and creating dialogue with the international community. It is disappointing to see that a commitment emphasised in the time around the release of the BICI, in actuality, was an empty promise.
10 Jan 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
A Bahraini policeman has been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for his involvement in protests against the government last year. 25 year-old Ali al-Ghanami left his guard post during protests on 17 February 2011, which left two protesters dead and more than a hundred injured. Speaking to the BBC, al-Ghanami’s brother said after witnessing dead and wounded being moved to a nearby hospital, Ali told crowds he could not work for a “killer institution.” Over the next month, Ali al-Ghanami spoke openly at rallies against the government of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
9 Jan 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was severely beaten by security services in Bahrain during a demonstration on Friday. Rajab was beaten on the back, head and neck and was taken by ambulance to Salmaniya hospital after participating in a peaceful protest in Manama. The activist, who is President of The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) told his lawyer that policemen gathered around him and began to beat him. Rajab has been released from hospital following treatment for concussion, back pain and bruises to his back and face.
28 Dec 2011 | Russia
Opposition leader Sergey Udaltsov has spent much of December under arrest and on hunger strike — but the unity of his supporters grows stronger as his health continues to deteriorate. “The authorities are trying to silence me, but they cannot silence tens of thousands people who got to know me because of my illegal arrest,” Udaltsov told Index.
Sergey Udaltsov is an activist and a leader of the Left Front public movement. He has been frequently arrested for holding peaceful, but unauthorised actions of protest. Amnesty International considers him “a prisoner of conscience“, who should not be detained at all.
Russian authorities grew used to arresting Udaltsov during the past few years and journalists even joked that he was likely to make friends with policemen who never gave up a chance to detain him. But this December, Udaltsov’s arrests are no longer the subject of jokes, and rights activists now fear for his life.
Udaltsov was arrested on 4 December while protesting with the masses demonstrating against allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections. He was sentenced to administrative arrest until 9 December and subsequently went on hunger strike and was sent to a hospital. He was then detained again sentenced again on 9 December for having allegedly escaped from police custody after protesting two months prior. On 25 December, Udaltsov was arrested once more for the same October protest, which has puzzled rights activists.
The incident in question occurred on 24 October. Udaltsov was detained while attempting to hold a one-man picket near the Central Election Committee building. But before he started, the police arrested him while he was speaking to journalists. Udaltsov was then sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest for allegedly having tried to hold an unsanctioned rally. He immediately went on hunger strike, and was subsequently hospitalised. He was discharged from the hospital not long before his arrest term expired, and a judge ruled in December’s proceedings that he had escaped while under arrest in October.
Many journalists and rights activists are certain that Udaltsov’s arrests were made to prevent him from participating in the two biggest rallies in post-Soviet Russia against unfair parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, it has almost been a month since the start of Udaltsov’s hunger strike. His stomach ulcer continues to worsen, and a pre-existing kidney condition is now aggravated.
Journalists and human rights activists expressed concern, as they were barred from the court room on 25 December, where Udaltsov was sentenced once again. Ekho Moskvy editor-in-chief Alexey Venediktov filed inquiries to Moscow state court chair Olga Egorova as well as Arthur Parfenchikov, the Russian Bailiff’s authority head, to ask for an explanation.
Judge Olga Borovkova, who sentenced the ill Udaltsov, is notorious for convicting opposition leaders and human rights activists during the past few years. Udaltsov’s supporters are now spreading leaflets with the slogan “Does Borovkova have a conscience?” The slogan angered Russia’s Upper House speaker, Alexander Torshin, who blasted the campaign for being “a pressure on the judge,” and alleged that journalists and activists had “broken down the door in the court room,” a charge refuted by witnesses.
Udaltsov says that police try to prevent him from talking on the phone and meeting visitors. While he is expected to be released on 4 January, there is not much confidence that he will not be arrested again for past activism that could hardly be regarded as illegal. “Anyone could be in my place”, Udaltsov told Index. The authorities have grown used to persecuting opposition leaders.
Ecologist Yaroslov Nikitenko, one of the activists gathered in front of the court house in support of Udaltsov on 25 December, was detained and arrested for 10 days for “having failed to follow a lawful order of policeman,” the same reasoning used to arrest Udaltsov in October. Nikitenko denies the accusation. Moscow authorities today refused to sanction a rally Udaltsov supporters planned to hold on 29 December, but supporters plan to rally anyway, risking the same fate as Nikitenko.
“Their stupid repression policy only unites opposition and angers citizens”, Udaltsov said. His wife Anastasia, also a Left Front activist and one of the organisers of the rallies on 10 and 24 December, agrees with her husband: “It seems like the officials are incapable of analysing the current political situation and the general protest feeling — they are harming themselves by making a hero and a martyr out of Sergey.”
Despite problems with his health, Udaltsov finds value repression from the state, as he believes that it “will only do good for the awakening of the civil society in Russia.”
