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Home > Islamic Monitor > Islamic Monitor 3 > Bahrain

Bahrain :  A Shameful Human 

                     Rights Record

            By Yasin T.al-Jibouri 

Bahrain’s struggle for democracy and hu­man rights goes back to 1954 when, on October 13 in the Sanabis village, 100 publicly elected Bahrainis from both the Shi’a majority and Sunni minority set out to form a legislative committee of 50 mem­bers. The Sunnis elected 18 from among themselves to form an executive commit­tee under the leadership of ‘ulema (theol­ogy scholars), highly respected dignitar­ies, and community leaders. Other meet­ings followed, and a petition was pre­sented to the Amir to establish a legislative Majlis based on Islam’s Shari ‘a (legisla­tive system). Not only was the petition ignored, but government forces fired live ammunition on March 9, 1956 at crowds assembling near the munici­pality building in support of the petition, killing a number of them. Since then, the people of Bahrain have gone underground to orga­nize opposition to the re­gime and to demand an end to Britain’s role in their country.

At the end of 1981, the ruling clan of Al

Khalifah conducted an intensive campaign aimed at distorting the message of opposi­tion groups organized by Bahraini Islam­ists and arrested 3,500 citizens, accusing them of plotting to undermine the regime and the country’s infrastructure. Those citizens were detained for periods ranging from a few days to seven or eight years according to a 1974 “state security law” authorizing the arrest and detainment of suspected insurgents for a maximum but renewable period of three years. Many of them were sentenced to various prison

terms. The harshest sentences were given to 73 young Bahrainis charged with plot­ting to overthrow the government and membership in theAl-Jabha al-Islam iyva ii Tahreer al-Bahrain (the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain), led by Sayyid Hadi al-Mudarrisi, a prominent Bahraini theologian, scholar, author, and public speaker. These 73 defendants have reportedly been tortured, and some have become terminally ill. Defendant Ja’fer Kazim al-’Alawi, for example, has a bro­ken leg from the beatings, and he is unable to walk or stand. Defendant Mansoor Au al-Ghasrah had all his teeth knocked out. Radi Mahdi Zaynud-Deen al-Darazi died on August 30, 1986, as a result of torture.

One of the letters which these defendants were somehow able to smuggle outside their prison. documents horrible tor­ture: all their nails were pulled out, they were forced to stay awake for six days, causing hallu­cination and illness. One defendant describes a torture method in which

the defendant was hung upside down while police dogs were encouraged to attack him and bite his face and chest. Another method involved an electric iron. Other reports indicate that, due to severe beatings, defendant Nadir al-Sayf, a resident of Tarut, had to be hospitalized at Damrnam’s Central Hospital (Dammam, Saudi Arabia) for a back operation. Rela­tives of these defendants were not al­lowed all these years to see them, nor was access granted to any medical delegation or independent human rights organizations to visit them. One doctor visits the prisoners twice a month for the sole pur­pose of dispensing tranquilizers.

The Saudi government took im­mediate advantage of the “discovery” of this “plot”: Minister of Interior Prince Nayef ibn Abdel-Aziz Al Saud asserted this “terrorist network” sought to over­throw not only the Bahraini government, but to undermine all Arab governments in the Gulf, and that its members were oper­ating throughout the entire Gulf region. Nayef ordered the officials of his Minis­try to go on a “witch hunt” to arrest anyone suspected of dissent. He then called upon the government of Bahrain to sign a security and cooperation treaty with his country which was, indeed, signed in 1987. Under the pretext of national security Bahraini authorities conducted a thorough search of the na­tional population from December 14,1981, to March 1, 1982, arresting more than 3,000 alleged supporters or affiliates of the “terrorist network.”

Reports of hu­man rights violations in Bahrain are numerous and arc recounted by various

sources including Bahraini nationals, Arab human rights organizations, and Western human rights advocates. Reports reviewed for this article include those by:

I.    Amnesty International

2.    The Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain

3.    The U.S. Congress

4.     The Arab Organization for Human Rights (Al Munazzamah al-A rabiyyah il Huqooqil     Jnsan)

5.     Lawyers and Human Rights in the Middle East

6.     Organization for the Islamic Revolution in the Arabian Peninsula

7.     The Arabic Arabian Peninsula (Al­Jazeera al-Arabia) of London, U.K., and

8.     Arabia Monitor of the International Committee for Human Rights in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula (JCHR-GAP), Washington, DC.

Part One of the U.S. Congress report on Bahrain concedes there is no official democratic establishment in the country, and it documents the ban on all political parties. It lists four underground opposition groups trying to change the political system in Bahrain.

1.     the Islamic Front for theLiberation of Bahrain

2.     the Islamic Call Party

3.     the Popular Front for the Libera tion of Bahrain, and

4.     the National Front for the Libera­tion of Bahrain.

  The report also describes the current ‘justice” system in Bahrain: Defense attor­neys are not given access to case files until one day be­fore the trial ,and they are not given more than a few min­utes to speak to their clients. Often, suspects are not tried in legitimate courts but are,instead, privately interrogated at military barracks which are off limit to media and attorneys. Relatives are not allowed to see the defendants during sentencing. Tor­ture is often used during interrogation.

Citizens suspected of dissent are often detained at Bahrain’ s International Airport then deported and seldom permit­ted to return. Reports have reached vari­ous human rights organizations detailing harassment of Bahrainis visiting Gulf Co­operation Council countries by Bahrain’s security agents. Sometimes these agents are not Bahrainis, but either British January 1994 or mercenaries hired by the British. Such harassment is justified by the joint secu­rity pact (described above) whereby dissi­dents of any member Gulf country may be detained by the other and later deported to be arrested and jailed.

For example, 26-year-old Bahraini citizen Salah Abdullah Habil al­Khawaja was arrested by Saudi security agents on January 2, 1988 during a visit for the rite of ‘Umra on his return home from Poona University, India. He was tortured and interrogated by the Saudis then handed over to the Bahraini authori­ties who tortured him on December 26, 1988, until he was overcome with epilep­tic seizures from exposure to electric shocks. Reports received by the Commit­tee for the Defense of Political Prisoners in Bahrain on January 20, 1989 indicated Salah’s condition was deteriorating and he could easily die. His 75-year-old father, Abdullah al-Khawaja, was verbally abused by Bahraini security officials during three attempts to request that a doctor be sent to examine his son. On March 18, 1989, the same Committee received news that Salah was forced to work as an informant. Salah has yet to be tried. When the Committee inquired about this, one security agent, ‘Adil Flaifil, implied Salah could easily be detained for three years under the “state security law.”

Security agents in Bahrain some­times resort to kidnapping suspected dis­sidents. Ya’qoob Yousuf al-Jafri disap­peared in early February, 1988. When his family informed officials of the “special investigation” section of the Ministry of Interior of his disappearance, they were told there was no knowledge of his where­abouts. These same officials had actually kidnapped Ya’qoob and detained him for interrogation. One year after his disap­pearance, Ya’qoob’s parents grew ill. It was only then that authorities from the capital city citadel (Qal’a) at al-Manarna prison summoned his parents, informing them the Minister of Interior had agreed they could visit their son.

Those deported outside Bahrain are sometimes not the dissidents them­selves but members of their families. According to Amnesty International’s 1990 report, Bahraini authorities wanted to implement the 1974 “state security law’~ in the case of 60-year old Abdullah Fakhru who was arrested in 1990 without official charges or trial. He was kept in prison for more than four months, suspected of op­position to Bahrains participation in the so-called “Gulf War.” In March of the same year, two Shi’a clergymen, Sayyid Alawi al-Baladi and Shaikh Ali ‘Ashoor, were briefly detained following their par­ticipation in a peaceful demonstration in Manama to protest the Iraqi governments mistreatment of the great scholar and theo­logian the late Grand Ayatullah Abul­Qasim al-Khoei. It is believed they were not released till the end of the year. ‘Atiqa Ali Ibrahim, wife of a prisoner of con­science who received a 15-year sentence, was arrested with two of her children at Bahrain’s International Airport as she re­turned from a trip to Syria. She was detained for one week before being forced to return to Syria. It was only in September 1990 that she was allowed to return home. On December 14, Dr. Abdul-Latif Mahmood al-Mahmood was arrested at the same airport upon return from Kuwait, sponsored by Kuwait University where he had delivered a lecture on the prospects for a unification among Gulf Cooperation Council member states. Dr. al-Mahmood, a highly recognized Sunni jurist (faqih) and an associate professor of Islamic stud­ies at Bahrain University, remained in jail until he was bailed out on December 28.

Those receiving the harshest sen­tences are, of course, suspected members or supporters of banned Bahraini reli­gious groups such as A1-Jabha al­Islam iyya ii Tahreer al-Bahrain (Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain), Jam ‘iyyat al-Taw ‘iya al-Jslamiyya (Is­lamic Awakening Society), and Hizbullah, the Bahraini branch of the Party of God. According to Amnesty International’s re­ports covering the period from 1989-1991, many have received the death sentence for allegedly attempting to overthrow the gov­ernment in 1981.

Fifteen prisoners of conscience arrested in June 1990 were reportedly tortured to force them to admit commit­ting “crimes” againsttheBahraini govern­ment. With the exception of one, they were all released on bail in October 1990. In its 1990 report, Amnesty International (Al) demanded an end to torture, solitary confinement, and the unsanitary prison conditions in Bahrain. In April of the same ye ar, Amnesty International submitted its report on Bahrain for review to the United Nations according to human rights Reso­lotions 728 and 1503. In May 1990 Al published its report on human rights vio­lations in Bahrain, expressing alarm at its findings. Bahrain’s Minister of the Inte­rior wrote Al in June asserting its report was full of “deliberate rumors and misin­lbrmation,” and denying the existence of prisoners of conscience in Bahrain. He also invited Alto visit Bahrain, but so far ,this visit has yet to be arranged.

Arbitrary arrests have also been reported. On September 14, 1992, after the celebration of the auspicious anniver­sary of the birth of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) at Al-Mumin mosque in Manama, security agents arrested Muhsin Abdel­Karim al-Shihabi, Abdel-Qadr Abdel­Karim al-Shihabi, Muhamad Muhsin Abdul-Karim, and Abdel-GhaffarMuham­mad al-Ghirbal, all residents of the Draq village. They were summarily tortured and abused then released. No charge was filed against them, nor were they given any reason for their arrest. On September 3, 1992, Saudi authorities arrested a Bahraini citizen named Muhammad al­‘All, 30, and charged him with possession of a book banned in Saudi Arabia. After twelve hours of interrogation, he was re­leased. Majeed Mee lad of Ras al-Rum man was arrested after being charged with par­ticipation in the funeral ceremony for the late Grand Ayatullah Abul-Qasim al-Khoei who died of heart failure in Najaf, Iraq on August 8, 1992. He was released after being tortured. Zaki Abdel-Majid, of al­Hoora, was arrested on August 22, 1992, and released on September 3, 1993, after being tortured.

The August 1992 issue of Al­Dameer (The Conscience), an Arabic pub­lication by the Arab Organization for Hu­man Rights, delivered a memorandum to Bahrain”s Ambassador in London on the mistreatment of prisoners and dissidents in Bahrain. The memo cited the example of Abdullah Ali Jaism Fakru, who was harassed and mistreated by Bahraini au­thorities for petitioning the amir to fulfill his promise to introduce democratic re­forms, and end human rights violations usurping personal freedom and security in Bahrain, including mistreat­ment of political prisoners, the absence of fair trials, and restrictions on individuals freedom of movement and travel.

Issue 117 of the Arabic newslet­ter Sawt aI-Bahrain (Voice of Bahrain) reported the Bahraini government granted citizenship to Baluchi, Pakistani, and non­Bahraini bedouins serving in its “defense force,” while denying it to many Bahrainis. This, according to the newsletter, proves the Bahraini government’s mistrust and apprehension of its own citizens.

In London, Amnesty International accused the Bahraini government of forc­ibly exiling” citizens suspected of links with a failed coup attempt which took place over ten years ago.

Since the early 1980s, following

the said attempt, many people have been rounded up, stripped of their Bahraini passports and forced into boats out of Bahrain... Wives and families of political prisoners who fled the country during the I 980s escaping harassment have tried to return to Bahrain only to be held for days at the international airport before being forcibly expelled.

On March 3, 1993, the chief American delegate at the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) motioned to suspend international moni­toring of human rights abuses in Bahrain. His motion was seconded by the govern­ment of Bahrain. Thus, the Al Khalifah were given a clean bill of health and are now more free than ever before to trample on human rights. This action comes de­spite the United States’ full knowledge of the Al Khalifas assault on human rights.