New report documents Saudi abuses, Bahrainis go on hunger strikes
International concern is growing as the health of Mr Hassan Mushaima and Dr Abdul Jalil Al Singace continues to deteriorate. Both have been targeted for serious medical negligence and other abuses. Mr Mushaima, 72 suffers multiple illnesses including heart, cancer, arthritis and ear infection. For three weeks now, Dr Al Singace has been on hunger strike demanding proper medical care, family contact and the return of a book he had finished after four years of research. Political prisoner, Ibrahim Al Mo’men and other detainees have joined in a hunger strike. Bahraini activists in London have also been on hunger strike since yesterday outside Bahrain Embassy.
Yesterday the second anniversary of the execution of two native Bahrainis was marked inside and outside the country. Several protests were seen last night in various parts of the country. A seminar was held online last night to mark the sad anniversary with participants calling for the trial of khalifi senior official starting with the head of the regime. He had signed the death sentences which was unlawfully imposed on Ali Al Arab and Ahmad Al Malali who were executed on 27th July 2019. The crime was carried out despite the pleas from Amnesty International and other NGOs not to carry out the death penalty after a grossly unfair trial based on “confessions” extracted under torture. In 2016 three native Bahrainis, Sami Mushaima, Abbas Al Sami’e and Ali Al Singace were also executed by the khalifi killers. Two Bahrainis are awaiting execution; Mohammad Ramadan and Hussain Moosa. International pressure is mounting on the khalifi killers to stop these executions which are considered “extra-judicial killings”.
Following the scandal of the Israeli surveillance spyware known as Pegasus project, Bahraini journalists and activists have been summoned by the khalifi torturers. Former journalist at al Wasat newspaper, Jaffar Al Jamri is one of those asked to appear at one of the regime’s torture chambers. Democratic lawmakers in Washington have called on the Biden administration to consider placing the Israeli group, NSO Group which developed Pegasus on an export blacklist and said recent revelations of misuse reinforced their conviction that the “hacking-for-hire industry must be brought under control”. The statement by four members of Congress followed reports by the Pegasus project, a collaboration of 17 media organisations including the Guardian, which investigated NSO, the Israeli company that sells its powerful surveillance software to government clients around the world.
Yesterday a native Bahraini political prisoner died as a result of gross negligence and lack of medical care. Hassan Abdul Nabi Mansoor, 35, succumbed to his sickle cell disease. He was serving a three-month sentence for calling for political reforms in the country. For several days he was pleading for medicine at the Dry Dock prison, but his jailers failed to provide him with proper medical care or medicine and his transfer to hospital was intentionally delayed. This lack of care contributed to Mr Mansoor’s tragic death at young age.
Seyyed Hashem al-Wadi’i top Shia cleric has been detained in Hamad town for holding Eid prayers. The violent security raid against the Shia community is amid Al Kalifa claims on coexistence, freedom of religion and respecting diversity in the Persian Gulf Arab state. The US Department of State in its annual report on freedom of religions has quoted a number of international human rights organizations on restriction of freedom of religions targeting the Shia community in Bahrain and detention of the Shia clerics in the country.
A new crisis is developing at the notorious Jau prison. The political inmates at Bloc 20 have refused to consume their meal after they realized that filth had contaminated the tea and food provided by the prison management. This is in addition to the poor quality of most of the supplied foods.
Yesterday an in-depth study of the Saudi prison system was launched. It was prepared by ALQST for Human Rights detailing sub-standard health and hygiene conditions, reckless medical negligence, and increasing use since 2017 of private detention facilities to carry out torture far from scrutiny. The report titled “Shrouded in Secrecy: Prisons and Detention Centres in Saudi Arabia”, builds on the organisation’s seven years of documenting human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. Most of the prisoners surveyed were unlawfully arrested, and most of them were held without charge or release beyond the statutory time limit. Half of them developed health problems as a result of their conditions of detention, and nearly all reported torture or other forms of ill-treatment including threats, beatings, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and denial of family contact. “The Saudi authorities have repeatedly failed to address the issues,” says ALQST Deputy Director Joshua Cooper.
A Saudi court sentenced a Sudanese journalist to four years in prison for social media posts critical of the kingdom, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. Ahmed Ali Abdelkader, a 31-year-old media personality and journalist, was jailed for “insulting the state’s institutions and symbols”, “negatively speaking about the kingdom’s policy … and speaking on (media platforms loyal to parties hostile to the kingdom) in a way that is harmful to the kingdom” among other charges. The charges are linked to tweets and media interviews he shared on Twitter in which he criticized Saudi actions in Sudan and Yemen.
Bahrain Freedom Movement
28th July 2021