13 NGOs have signed an open letter concerning the situation in Bahrain in the light of the upcoming mass demonstration on 14 August. As it is short and to the point here is the full text copied from the FIDH website: Read the rest of this entry »
Posts Tagged ‘Bahrain’
Bahrain HRD Maryam al-Khawaja banned by British Airways from flight
August 10, 2013
Maryam al-Khawaja (c) IBT
The International Business Times of 9 August reports that Maryam al-Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) has been prevented from boarding a British Airways flight from Copenhagen to Bahrain because of a ban issued by the government Bahrain. Why did the UK airline agreed to the ban without giving any motive for the blocking order or any advance notice?. “I had the flight this morning from Copenhagen and everything was fine. I did the online check-in yesterday,” she told IBTimes UK. “I was blocked at the boarding and told to check with the counter because there was a problem. The lady called the office in London who told her that there was a denied boarding message as a decision from Bahrain government”. Al-Khawaja holds dual Bahraini-Danish citizenship but has not renewed her Bahraini passport . Her father Abdulhadi and sister Zainab are in jail for their role in pro-democracy protests.
Related articles
- Bahraini Activist Barred From Flight to Kingdom – ABC News (abcnews.go.com)
- Bahraini activist barred from flight to kingdom (star-telegram.com)
The EU should toughen its stand on Bahrain on 30 June say 6 big NGOs
June 27, 2013A JOINT STATEMENT by the following 6 international NGOs: Front Line Defenders, Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR), Human Rights Watch (HRW), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) urge the EU to call for the release of human rights defenders and peaceful protest leaders in Read the rest of this entry »
20 Members of the US Congress Urge Bahrain to finally accept visit by to U.N. Special Rapporteur
June 11, 2013Twenty Members of Congress are urging Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa to reconsider his decision to postpone indefinitely the visit of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Méndez, who has twice been denied access to the Kingdom Read the rest of this entry »
“Free Bialatski!”, “Free Nabil” shouted by FIDH in the streets of Istanbul
May 27, 2013
The participants of the 38th Congress of the International Human Rights Federation (FIDH), which has started on 23 May in Istanbul, organized a procession with the demand to release their colleagues political prisoners Read the rest of this entry »
Bahrain and human rights: contrasting views
May 23, 2013
Bahrain‘s Human Rights Minister during a visit to Morocco on 22 May stated: “Bahrain Has Presented Itself as a Model in Implementing BICI’s Recommendations”
He said that despite the regretful incidents that happened in 2011, the kingdom of Bahrain has presented itself as a model in its wise dealing with those events, highlighting Bahrain’s bold steps in this regard, including the establishment of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), led by international eminent judges, the acceptance of the recommendations featuring in BICI’s final report and the political leadership’s commitment to implementing them, out of its belief in the importance of protecting human rights. Read the rest of this entry »
To boycott or not: Rebecca Vincent devotes a post to this issue after seeing the Malmo Eurovision song festival
May 20, 2013A long and very interesting blog post on Al-Jazeera (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/05/2013519690697916.html) by Rebecca Vincent goes back to Azerbaijan 2012 and reflects on the pros and cons of boycotts as an action to tool for human rights defenders:
“As an estimated 125 million viewers tuned in to watch the grand final of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden, on May 18, I could not help but think how different this year’s Eurovision experience was from last year’s, when the contest was held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Read the rest of this entry »
Another prominent Bahraini Human Rights Defender, Naji Fateel, arrested
May 3, 2013
Bahrain’s crackdown on human rights defenders continued today with the arrest of another prominent figure, Naji Fateel. The arrest is the latest in a string of recent events calling into question the Kingdom’s claims of reform and progress. On 2 May 2013 at dawn, police arrested human rights defender Naji Fateel at his home in the village in north-west Bahrain. He is being held without formal charges at a location which is still unknown. Naji Fateel is a board member of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights and a blogger who has been active in reporting human rights violations in Bahrain. The human rights defender gives daily speeches during marches in villages in which he discusses the importance of documenting violations and calls for people to form monitoring committees. Read the rest of this entry »Bahrain refuses – again – UN Rapporteur on Torture
April 26, 2013Bahrain’s state news agency reported earlier this week that Juan Méndez, the UNs special rapporteur for torture, had “put off his visit” scheduled for early May following a letter from Salah bin Ali Abdulrahman, Bahrain’s human rights affairs minister. The letter outlined “reasons for the request to postpone the visit”, the agency said. However, Mr Méndez said on Wednesday 24 April (according to the National) that there was no choice in the matter, calling the refusal to play host to his visit “a unilateral decision by the [Bahraini] authorities“. “This is the second time that my visit has been postponed, at very short notice. It is effectively a cancellation, as no alternative dates were proposed, nor is there a future road map to discuss“.
So much for the much-touted Government-commissioned report of 2011 in which the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry found evidence of torture committed by the country’s security forces during a pro-reform uprising and the subsequent Government’s promise to coöperate with the UN to address the issues. Refusal to coöperate may pay again!
via Bahrain shuts out UN torture probe – The National.
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- UN ‘deep disappointment’ with Bahrain (bbc.co.uk)
- Bahrain blocks visit of UN official (bbc.co.uk)
Jailed Bahraini doctors should be released now, says Mary Lawlor
March 27, 2013In a piece in the Irish Times of 27 March 2013 Mary Lawlor, Director of Front Line Defenders, makes a strong plea for the release of the medical staff arrested and ill-treated in Bahrain:
“Medical ethics is apparently too sensitive an issue to discuss in Bahrain following the cancelling of an international conference that was being organised by the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland RCSI and Médecins Sans Frontières. Hardly surprising given that the Bahraini government jails and tortures medical professionals and human rights defenders……………..
….It is a pity that the RCSI did not feel strongly enough on the issue of medical ethics to speak out publicly when colleagues, some of whom had studied in Dublin, were being tortured in police custody in 2011………But the reality is that the government continues to jail those who raise their voices in defence of human rights. At this moment Dr Ali Al Ekri, Dr Saeed Al Samahiji and Ibrahim Al Demistani, a nurse, remain in prison having been convicted of “trying to overthrow the monarchy”, by treating injured demonstrators and speaking out about killings and torture. At the same time another 20 medics and health professionals will find out today whether the charges of participating in illegal gatherings have been upheld against them. They face the possibility of receiving a three-month prison sentence, although in practice, many of them have already spent that time in prison awaiting trial. Even those medics who have been released or who have had charges against them dropped have been removed from their posts. …. Repression in Bahrain is not a secret. Medical ethics would best be served by releasing the medics from prison together with Nabeel Rajab and all those human rights defenders who have had the courage to speak truth to power.”
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- Full report of observer mission to trial of Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain now available (thoolen.wordpress.com)
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 