Bahraini prisoners suffer ill-treatment, Biden’s Saudi visit condemned
Political prisoner Hussain Fadel Abdulla has been suffering serious pain in his kidneys for a long time. As he has not received adequate medical care, his life is now in danger as his conditions deteriorate further. After one week of no contact political prisoner, Hussain Al Sa’di contacted his family for one minute only. He was furious that he was being kept in an isolation unit without knowing why. He suffers serious irregular heartbeats. The family of political prisoner Hussain Fadel Al Biladi are worried that they have not heard from him for ten days. Their anxiety increased when they heard that the prisoners at Bloc 5 of Jau Prison had been recently attacked and many of them injured. He has been behind bars for the past eight years for demanding political reforms in the country. It has been confirmed that political prisoner, Hussain Butti is suffering from TB (Tuberculosis) after he was tested. But two days later he was transferred back to the prison cell and left to live among healthy prisoners. His family has already been informed of his illness. Political prisoner Ali Ma’tooq woke up to find himself in his hospital bed at Salmaniya Hospital. He was later told that he had been transferred to hospital few hours earlier when he suffered bouts of serious fits. He was prescribed some pills by a neurologist before he was returned to the torture cells at the notorious Jau prison. His family is demanding his immediate and unconditional release.
On Thursday 30th June medicines and electronics were seized in police raids on the Bahrain Victorious team led by the dictator’s son. Riders and staff members had their homes searched in an international anti-doping operation four days earlier, ahead of their travel to the Tour de France, and on Thursday Danish police swooped on the team’s hotel in Copenhagen a day before the start of the Tour.
On 5th July Amnesty International issued a statement to mark one year of hunger strike by Dr Abdul Jalil al-Singace. It said: Unjustly jailed Dr. Abduljalil al-Singace, who has been on a hunger strike for a year, since 8 July 2021, announced on 29 June that he would also stop taking salts, in protest at the Bahraini authorities’ withholding some of his medication, increasing concerns over the deterioration of his already poor health. Abduljalil al-Singace, a Bahraini academic and human rights defender, has served over 11 years of a life sentence in Bahrain’s Jaw prison for his peaceful role in Bahrain’s 2011 uprising. He must be immediately and unconditionally released, and pending that, granted immediate access to any necessary healthcare.
One of Bahrain’s most prominent anti-regime protesters Haji Abdulmajeed Abdulla Hasan has been ordered to appear in court later this month over his participation in International Quds Day marches earlier this year.
Rights groups and MPs have condemned UK Minister’s failure to raise serious human rights concerns as first visit to Bahrain coincides with prisoner’s one year hunger strike anniversary. Wendy Chamberlain MP tweeted her disbelief at the FCDO’s indifference to the suffering of Bahrainis under khalifi dictatorship. She said: By failing to mention human rights, democracy or political prisoners, Amanda Milling runs the risk of whitewashing the Bahraini regime’s repeated violations. The UK Gov’t must end its silence and inaction. It’s time the FCDO urged Bahrain to release Dr Abduljalil AlSingace.
The forthcoming visit by the US President, Joe Biden has been shrouded by serious controversies. Family members of several US nationals who are being held in Saudi Arabia and Egypt were not invited to attend a recent call with Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, in a move described as “infuriating and discriminatory” by one critic. During his 2020 campaign for the presidency, Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” to punish the kingdom and its young crown prince for ordering the 2018 murder and dismemberment of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden’s decision to abandon that pledge has been met by a sense of betrayal and anger by Saudi and other dissidents and human rights activists who say Biden is unlikely to make any practical gains from an unreliable partner. The call did not include families of Salah Soltan, an academic and legal US permanent resident and the father of human rights defender Mohamed Soltan, who is in prison in Egypt, or Hosam Khalaf, who has been held without a trial since 2017. It also did not include the families of the American Walid Fitaihi, a doctor who is under travel ban in Saudi Arabia, or the families of Salah al-Haidar and his mother Aziza al-Yousef, a prominent women’s rights activist and US national who are all barred from leaving Saudi. The family of Badr Ibrahim, a US-Saudi journalist, was also not invited.
This week the Saudi Specialised Criminal Court issued a one-year jail sentence on an innocent young man. Abdulla Ibrahim Aal Sayel has been in detention since September 2019 and had campaigned for the release of the political prisoners. This week, Saudi businessman Prof. Yousef Muhammad Rabie Al-Hajj, was arrested when his house in Jeddah was raided, and taken to an unknown destination.
Bahrain Freedom Movement
6th July 2022