العربية
The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights (BFHR) its annual report, entitled “Bahrain… The Map of Persecution: Undermining Civil Society,” in which it observes the most important 2016 human rights events, which indicate the continuation of human rights violations in Bahrain.
The report also reviews the most important violations faced by Bahrainis, including the violation of religious freedoms, arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearance, deprivation of nationality, banning gatherings, targeting civil society organizations, and unfair prosecutions.
According to the report, the fundamental rights and freedoms are seriously deteriorating in Bahrain, especially after restricting freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, religion and belief, and association, prosecuting dissidents, activists and human rights defenders through unfair trials, knowing that the right to peaceful assembly is banned in Bahrain since 2014.
The report also points out that the Bahraini authorities imposed arbitrary restrictions on the establishment of non-governmental organizations, through Civil Associations Law and Political Associations Law. Furthermore, the Bahraini authorities provided themselves with a legal pretext for arbitrary deprivation of citizenships, the report said.
The report highlights that the Ombudsman, the Special Investigation Unit, and the National Institution for Human Rights failed to fulfill their human rights roles.
In regards to recommendations, the report urges the Bahraini authorities to immediately and seriously implement the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) recommendations, and those of the UPR. They should also remove the ban imposed on the right to peaceful assembly, and stop adopting local laws in order to restrict the right to freedom of expression.
The report called on the Bahraini authorities to stop practicing forced disappearance, halt extra-judicial killings, guarantee fair trials for citizens, and allow observers to attend those trial.
The report emphasizes Bahrain’s need for international monitoring over the performance of the agencies created by the Bahraini authorities after the BICI report to reveal the truth. It stresses that there is also an urgent need for international monitoring of the implementation of the BICI recommendations and those of the UPR on Bahrain.
In a related context, the report called to appoint a UN special rapporteur on Bahrain, form an international investigations committee on all violations in Bahrain, establish a regional office for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights with full powers.
The report urges Bahrain to join the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, and urges Bahraini authorities to urgently lift the siege imposed on Diraz, as well as to cancel all citizenship revocation verdicts and bring back the deportees, and to begin national reconciliation.
Last but not least, the report urges the European Union states and other HRC member states to call on the Bahraini authorities to end death row sentences, halt their implementation against all prisoners of conscience, and consider this punishment to be a deprivation of the right to life. It calls on the USA to freeze the arms deals with the government of Bahrain, and the British government to prevent the government of Bahrain from using the UK’s support to cover up its human rights violations.