Human rights in Bahrain
[5] The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry was established on 29 June 2011 by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to assess the incidents that occurred in the Kingdom during the period of unrest in February and March 2011 and the consequences of these events.
[15] He was kept in detention in Thailand while the Australian government and many international organisations and individuals lobbied for his release, until it was announced on 11 February 2019 by the Thai Office of the Attorney-General (OAG)[16] that the extradition case against al-Araibi had been dropped by the criminal court at Bahrain's request.
[36][39] According to Dr. Saeeid Shahabi, a London-based journalist,[40] On 28 April 2007, the lower house of Bahraini Parliament passed a law banning unmarried migrant workers from living in residential areas.
[63][64][65] In 1996 the UK newspaper The Guardian stated that, "if Bahrain is to preserve its reputation as a financial and service center in the Gulf, then the government must begin to forge a new national consensus and end the apartheid against the Shi'ites".
A separate investigation by the Pegasus Project revealed that 20 loyalists close to Bahrain's government, including two members of the royal family, were also listed in the leaked database of numbers targeted or hacked by NSO.
"[104] The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry was established on 29 June 2011 by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to assess the incidents that occurred in the Kingdom during the period of unrest in February and March 2011 and the consequences of these events.
[8] On 1 April 2022, the Amnesty International reported that Bahraini human rights defender, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja was being denied medical treatment for suspected glaucoma, as a result of the injuries he sustained due to torture in 2011, including a broken jaw.
[110] In January 2012, Richard Sollom, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights, was denied entry to Bahrain, where he had travelled to monitor the appellate court trial of the 20 previously sentenced medics.
Bahrain had promised greater transparency in the wake of an international investigation into the human rights violations that occurred during the uprising, yet refused to allow Sollom, who carried a valid entry visa, to view the trial or even enter the country.
The initial attempt to get parliamentary ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was blocked in February 2006 on the grounds that leading MPs said contradicted Islamic laws.
"[117] On 25 November 2020, The Guardian reported that three political prisoners, who claimed to have been victims of human rights abuses in Bahrain, appealed Lewis Hamilton to use his position as F1's champion to highlight the reality of their dilemma to the world.
[121] On the weekend of 31 January/1 February 2015, 72 Bahraini citizens, including "about 50 journalists, bloggers, religious figures, doctors, political and human rights activists" and about 20 people "suspected of or known to have left Bahrain to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria", had their citizenships revoked.
[134] On 11 July 2020, the UK foreign office was urged to intervene to stop the execution of Mohammed Ramadan and Husain Moosa, two Bahraini pro-democracy activists who were given death sentence by a Bahrain court, despite claims of confessions extracted through torture.
[142] In March 2015 the Lebanese feminist poet and journalist Joumana Haddad was banned from taking part in a cultural event in Bahrain, due to accusations that she would promote atheism and target Islamic values.
[142] In 2016, a Bahraini court sentenced Ibrahim Sharif, a founding member of the secular National Democratic Action Society (Waed) party, to one year in prison on the charge of "inciting hatred" for making a pro-democracy speech.
[142][146] In November 2016, a Bahraini court sentenced journalist and blogger Faisal Hayyat under Article 309 of the penal code to 3 months in prison for a tweet deemed to have insulted a "religious symbol and group.
[143][144] According to the MOI, during the year, the ministry investigated 26 individuals for defamation of religions, a charge usually stemming from statements made during sermons, and the government prosecuted six of them for inciting religious hatred and sectarianism.
[140] Despite the government’s tight grip on information, opposition websites and foreign news outlets based outside Bahrain still attract traffic from users inside the country who bypass restrictions using proxy servers, dynamic IP addresses, and VPN applications.
[140] Regulatory restrictions severely limit users' ability to publish content online, while government censorship imposes indirect economic constraints, leaving many outlets reliant on personal funding.
[140] In January 2017, Bahrain ratified the Arab Treaty on Combating Cybercrime, a framework aimed at regulating the misuse of telecommunications, curbing financial fraud, and preventing the spread of terrorism and pornography online.
[140] Cybercafés are also subject to increased oversight, with a commission from four ministries ensuring strict adherence to rules that prohibit access to minors and mandate that all computer terminals remain fully visible to observers.
According to Shiite leaders interviewed by the reporter, work crews have often arrived "in the dead of night, accompanied by police and military escorts", to demolish the mosques, and in many cases, have hauled away the buildings' rubble before townspeople awake so as to leave no trace.
[166][167] Recently they have blocked the popular site anonymous.com[168] In October 2006, the Criminal Court issued a ban on the publication of any news, information or commentary on the series of allegations in the Bandargate scandal, which has continued to date.
Concerns about vigilantism resulted in a call by Central Municipal Council vice-chairman Abbas Mahfoodh for closer cooperation between politicians and the Interior Ministry to stamp out rioting, after residents of the town of Tubli confronted and chased away three masked men who allegedly planned to commit acts of sabotage using Molotov cocktail firebombs.
[141] During Ramadan, Bahrain enforces strict laws prohibiting the public consumption of food, drink, or smoking during daylight hours, with violators—Muslim or non-Muslim—facing jail terms of up to one year and fines up to 100 Bahraini dinars, in accordance with Articles 309 and 310 of the Penal Code.
[180] These regulations aim to preserve respect for the fasting period, one of Islam's five pillars, but raise significant concerns regarding freedom of religion and civil rights, particularly for non-Muslim citizens, and or secular individuals, and expatriates who do not observe Ramadan.
[203] According to Human Rights Watch,[43] in as of 2011 there were more than 458,000 guest workers in Bahrain, many of whom experience prolonged periods of withheld wages, passport confiscation, unsafe housing, excessive work hours and physical abuse.
The ban was criticized by construction companies saying that the government's decision would delay their projects, but according to the Ministry of Labour, migrant workers' protection representatives and human rights activities have welcomed the move.
In a joint letter sent to the crown prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, six British politicians and Members of Parliament stated that Bahrain's continued participation in the Saudi-led bombing campaigns destroyed ecosystems and contaminated the soil and water in Yemen, while contributing to the humanitarian disaster in the country.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Foreign Ministry jointly organised a workshop in Manama, bringing in NHRI experts from Jordan, Morocco and Northern Ireland to meet a wide range of Bahraini civil society.
