العربية
By: Brian Dooley
A lot can happen in 14 years. Seismic historical shifts haven’t taken that long. Neither the Russian revolution, nor the Great Depression, nor both world wars combined lasted 14 years.
Yet the tiny country of Bahrain – the smallest in the middle east – has failed to find a way to move on from the trauma of its government’s response to mass pro-democracy protests which erupted 14 years ago today.
The peaceful uprising that started on February 14, 2011, was met with a violent government crackdown, where hundreds of people were tortured – some to death – and prominent peaceful dissidents, including labor leaders, doctors, nurses, and clergy, were jailed. I reported regularly for Human Rights First from Bahrain during 2011 and 2012, witnessing and documenting attacks on civilians, observing unfair trials, and taking testimony from tortured prisoners.
The convulsions of 2011 still largely define Bahrain’s 2025 international image, partly because most of those prominent activists are still in prison. Today, jailed Human Rights Defenders Abdulhadi Al Khawaja and Abduljalil Al Singace, and dissidents Hassan Mushaima, Sheikh Ali Salman and Mohammed Habib al-Miqdad, are among the best-known Bahraini names in the world, their cases regularly raised with the UN and discussed at other international fora.
Bahraini diplomats are continually forced, more than a decade later, to defend what happened in 2011. They had to ditch Bahrain’s 2022 bid for election to the UN’s Human Rights Council after human rights NGOs circulated information on its human rights record going back to 2011.
Al Khawaja, Al Singace and Mushaima were all featured in the 2024 UN Secretary General’s report on activists who were subjected to reprisals for their cooperation with the UN. This week the EU High Representative Kaja Kallas confirmed that the EU had called for the unconditional release of of Al Khawaja and other prisoners at the latest EU-Bahrain Human Rights Dialogue, in December 2024
Much of the conversation Bahrain’s officials are still condemned to repeat involves why the kingdom’s security forces tortured medics after they had treated injured protestors, why no-one has been held accountable for the torture, and why peaceful dissidents are still held in prison, and often denied medical care. Many of the men who were jailed 14 years ago are now elderly, and increasingly frail.
Bahrain’s image is largely stuck back in 2011, partly because the men ruling the country and responsible for the crackdown then are still in power. The king is still the king, his son is still the crown prince (and is now also the unelected prime minister.) The family remains in power by force, supported by Washington–its military ally. There are no free and fair elections to allow a change in government, and peaceful political opposition groups are not allowed to exist.
The British government warns travelers to the country that “It could amount to a crime if you post online any message, video or photograph that is critical of the Bahrain government or monarchy.”
Bahrain understandably finds it hard to promote itself as a Twenty-First Century state when its government is stuck in medieval times.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
Bahrain has started to make some progress in the last year or so, releasing hundreds of political prisoners.
This is welcome, and if it could bring itself to release those regarded as the most prominent leaders, the biggest names, it would make worldwide news. Groups like us, and other longtime critics of Bahrain’s cosmetic reforms on human rights, would publicly applaud the releases as real progress. Bahrain’s government could enjoy some rare, positive international media coverage, and open a new conversation with the rest of the world.
Until the men are released, we and many others will continue our international public advocacy on their cases, and Bahrain’s government will be condemned to handle problems it created for itself 14 years ago.
Bahrain locked itself into the past by jailing those men in 2011, and keeping them there until now. It should do itself a favor, and release all its peaceful dissidents still in prison, immediately and unconditionally.