Gulf News - 25 October 2005
By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief

Manama: A human rights activist has called for the enactment of distinct family status laws for Bahrain's various religious groups.

"Every faith and sect in the country should have the opportunity to choose the legal and judiciary system that governs their personal status," Nabeel Rajab, former head of the defunct Bahrain Human Rights Centre, has said.

"We must ensure that there are appropriate procedures to ensure the active participation of all religious denominations in the drafting, approval and amendment of their own laws on personal matters," he said yesterday in a press statement.

Testimony given by BCHR president Abdulhadi Alkhawaja at the Third Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders, organized by Front Line, October 2005

Mazen Mahdi - Arab News - BAHRAIN, 15 October 2005

Ten Saudis being held by US authorities at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba will file cases in US federal courts in the next couple of weeks against US President George W. Bush demanding to know the cause of their detention and requesting a preliminary injunction to release them, according to Bahrain Center for Human Rights Vice President Nabeel Rajab.

They will be joining twenty-eight others of their compatriots who had filed similar cases in the past, as an estimated 121 Saudis remain detained there out of 520 prisoners, mainly Arabs, who continue to be held there without being charged for suspicion of being fighters for Al-Qaeda or having direct links to them.

World Organisation Against Torture

Geneva, 10 October 2005. In connection to the mission carried out between 25 and 28 September 2005 by the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in order to assess the situation of human rights defenders in Bahrain, OMCT would like to emphasize and comment on several issues addressed by the Bahraini press following the departure of the delegation from Manama.

Firstly, OMCT reiterates what was said in the press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bahrain, held on 28 September 2005, that no conclusions will be made regarding the mission before the publication of the report, which is expected to be issued in the coming two months.

Gulf News -10 October 2005
From Hemu Gorde

MANAMA — A senior US lawyer representing six Bahraini detainees in Guantanamo Bay has praised the government of Bahrain for taking a keen interest in the case, while adding that without the assistance of the kingdom's ministry of foreign affairs his firm would not be able to get the required information about the physical condition of some of the clients.

Noted rights lawyer Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, whose New York-based firm Dorsey and Whitney is representing Bahraini detainees for the past two and half years on behalf of the now-defunct Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), said in a statement that his firm was "pleased to learn that the ministry of foreign affairs will inquire about the health of our clients at Guantanamo Bay who may be participating in a very serious hunger strike. In fact, it has become clear that authorities at Guantanamo Bay will do everything in their power to prevent us from learning about the condition of our clients."

Statements of Bahraini detainees in Guantanamo Bay: Jum'ah Mohammed AbdulLatif Al Dossari, Isa Ali Abdullah Al Murbati, Abdullah Al Noaimi, and Adel Kamel Abdullah Haji.

Released by their law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP.

To read the full statement click on the link below.