3 September 2010

Amnesty International has urged the Bahraini government to set up a prompt, impartial and independent investigation into allegations that well-known members of the country’s Shi’a Muslim community arrested in recent weeks were tortured or otherwise ill-treated while being detained incommunicado.

Acts of physical and psychological torture perpetrated against Messrs. Abduljalil Al-Sengais and Abdulghani Ali Issa Al-Khanjar while in detention

1 September 2010

The Observatory has been informed by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) about the acts of physical and psychological torture perpetrated against Messrs. Abduljalil Al-Sengais, Spokesperson and Director of the Human Rights Bureau of the Haq Movement for Civil Liberties and Democracy, and Abdulghani Ali Issa Al-Khanjar, Spokesperson of the National Committee for Martyrs and Victims of Torture (NCMVT), while in detention.

Counterterrorism Charges Against Activists Follow Weeks of Incommunicado Detention

September 1, 2010

"Bahraini authorities should immediately investigate these allegations of torture and guarantee the physical and psychological well-being of the four men. The attorney general has a legal obligation to throw out any coerced confessions and any evidence obtained by ill-treatment, including information that led to the men's indictments."
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

(Washington, DC) - Bahraini authorities should immediately look into allegations of torture by four opposition activists who had been held in incommunicado detention for more than two weeks, Human Rights Watch said today. In their formal interrogation sessions with prosecutors, the four contended that their captors had subjected them to torture and degrading treatment.

“...I was handcuffed and blindfolded the entire time, they beat me on my fingers with a rigid instrument; they slapped me on my ears and I was pulled by my nipples and ears by tongs, and I was hit with a rigid object on my back and that was to force me to sign papers I had no knowledge what was written on them…” - Dr. Abduljalil Alsingace

• Transferring other detainees to hospitals without knowledge of their conditions in solitary confinement
• The Public Prosecution bans any publication on the case in order to cover up torture and other violations
• The continuation of temporary arbitrary kidnappings by the militias of the national security in which they are stripped naked and tortured
• No other choice but to dissolve the national security apparatus and present those responsible to public independent trials
• Any official in the government, who ordered or had knowledge of these violations without immediately stepping in to stop it, according to the International law, is legally responsible

28th August 2010

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has received with great concern information that Dr. Abduljalil Alsingace (Head of the Human Rights office at the HAQ movement) was subjected to severe physical and psychological torture in which he almost lost his hearing ability and has severe injuries in his back and other parts of his body. The information received also includes the transfer of some activists and human rights defenders to hospitals due to torture including Shaikh Mohammed Habib Almuqdad (religious figure, human rights activist and president of Alzahra charity society of orphans), Abdulghani Khanjar (head of the national martyrs committee and torture victims, and the official spokesperson for the Truth and Justice coalition which is made up 11 societies and organizations, both human rights and political), and Abdulhadi Alsaffer (active member of Committee against rise in prices and Detainees and families committees). The center has also been following up on the kidnappings committed by the national security militia in the Bahraini villages and streets in an offensive and arbitrary manner.

Report by Karen Dabrowska, in London (mathaba)

A reversion to torture and attempts to alter Bahrain's demographic balance were highlighted at a London seminar held at the beginning of August in the House of Lords.

The seminar, chaired by Baroness Falkner of Margravine of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliamentarians for the Liberal Democrats, marked the annual anniversary of the country's independence and the dissolution of the only legitimate parliamentary experience in 1975.

11 July 2010

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses its deep concern for the recent developments in what is known as the Ma'ameer case and the violent incidents which accompanied the verdict.
Contrary to the expectations, the High Criminal Court issued a ruling on Monday 5 July 2010 which convicts seven individuals from the village of Ma'ameer, and sentenced them to life imprisonment on the charge of causing the killing of Sheikh Mohammed Riyad, a Pakistani national 58 years old on 7 March 2009, and who died two weeks after his car was burnt during security confrontations in the village of Ma'ameer. This trial strikes a lot of doubt in its integrity and independency,

Tyres burn at an intersection in Tubli village on the outskirts of the capital Manama on Monday night. Mazen Mahdi for The National

Mazen Mahdi
July 08. 2010 12:55AM UAE

MANAMA // The sentencing of seven youths to 25 years in prison for their roles in a riot-related arson that left a Pakistani immigrant worker dead could be more than Bahrain’s fragile security situation can handle, politicians and rights activists warn.

A BAHRAINI rights group yesterday said it was still stunned by life sentences handed down to seven Molotov cocktail killers on Monday.

Three of their co-defendants, including one who is still on the run, were cleared by the High Criminal Court.

But the government-registered Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS) claimed the verdict was political and questioned how all seven men could be equally responsible for the death of Shaikh Mohammed Riaz in March last year.