This statement was originally published on bahrainrights.org on 1 July 2019.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights issued its yearly final report, entitled “Bahrain: repression of speech and deprivation of rights”, in both English and Arabic languages. The report is published to highlight the status of human rights in Bahrain in 2018 through documentation and statistics on all forms of violations (arbitrary arrests and judgments and suppression of all forms of peaceful expression).
In a chronological order, the four parts of the report shed light on what happened in Bahrain, including persecution, discrimination, unfair use of power against citizens (249 nationality revocations), and the suppression of peaceful demonstrations. The report shows how the authorities try to mute mouths through arbitrary arrests.
The report includes a graph in each section (covering three months) showing the number of arrests through various methods: raids on houses, checkpoints, arrests from the street and others. That is in addition to a graph showing the number of peaceful demonstrations and those that were suppressed. Moreover, all the practices adopted by the authorities against human rights practices, from the disbanding of the Al Wefaq Islamic Party to the activation of the political isolation law and harsh sentences amounting to a total of 6383 years’ imprisonment.
The report concluded with recommendations to the Government of Bahrain to:
– Sign and accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that aimed at abolishing the death penalty
-Protect freedom of religion for all citizens in Bahrain
– Urge the government of Bahrain to repeal the amendment to the Military Law and to restore the law to its previous version, which prohibits the prosecution of civilians in military courts
– Provide basic guarantees for all civilians accused in military courts and who face re-trials in civil courts with legal access to lawyers
– Immediately and unconditionally release all journalists and prisoners of consciousness that were arrested as a result of expressing their opinion through the media.
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Source: MEDIA FEED
