Persecution of native Bahrainis intensify, Another Saudi man beheaded

The khalifi forces in Bahrain have arrested a young native youth, Hussein Ayoub after ordering him to appear for questioning for undisclosed reasons. He was remanded in custody for one week ‘pending an investigation.’ Another young native Bahraini has also been detained. Reda Ali Al-Sheikh who is an orator and lamenter has been remanded in custody for one week.

Last Friday (15th June) senior cleric Sheikh Fadel Al-Zaki was turned away from Duraz Town by police. He was supposed to lead the Friday worshippers at the Imam Al-Sadiq mosque. It was the second week that the mass Friday prayers were banned as part of the intensified persecution of the overwhelming majority native population.

Political prisoner, Mohammed Abdul Nabi Jum’a has recently been heard on a smuggled audio message pleading for some rights as a human being. He has been denied the most basic rights of essential needs and medical care.

As the khalifi crown prince and prime minister, Salman Al-Khalifa landed in London last week to meet British officials many MPs wrote to the Government to protest his presence. The Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Scriven said: “The UK government should not be rewarding Bahrain with a trade deal that is silent on human rights and ethical trade whilst also using taxpayers money to fund training to some Bahraini institutions implicated in torture and human rights abuses.” British lawmakers have expressed their “grave concern” to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about political repression in Bahrain ahead of the visit. In their letter the politicians questioned the UK government’s allocation of £13 million ($16.6m) to Bahrain over the past decade despite a decline in human rights and democratic standards in the kingdom. They singled out two UK-funded institutions – the Bahraini Ministry of the Interior’s Ombudsman and the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) within the Public Prosecutors Office – that they said are associated with “clear human rights abuses”.

Bahraini political prisoner Muhammad Hassan Al-Raml is back on hunger strike to protest the ongoing denial of medical treatment. His family said his health is deteriorating. The 63-year old prisoner of conscience had to be rushed to a clinic last month after fainting during a separate hunger strike.

PEN America has taken up the case of political prisoner, Dr Abdul Jalil Al-Singace. It tweeted: “In Bahrain, authorities have withheld medical care from imprisoned academic Abduljalil Al-Singace, who is on hunger strike, & escalated their retaliation against him. Bahraini authorities should stop withholding medical treatment, & should #FreeAlSingace”.

On Sunday 18th June the torture officers at the notorious Jau Prison (Bloc 6) raided the cells of the political prisoners and confiscated their belongings. This is to pre-empt the possible marking in July of the Ashura season (the martyrdom of Imam Hussain) by the prisoners. All items that may be used to mark the occasion were taken away including books. The prison officers have been using hate speech against the political prisoners.

On Monday 19th June the Saudi regime committed another crime; beheading a young man from Qatif. Muslim Ahmed Al Milad was accused of opposing the Saudi dictators belonging to anti-regime group. He was born in 1993 in the Eastern Province and has been in jail for several years where he had been severely tortured.

Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, the widow of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, is suing the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group over the use of the firm’s technology in the lead-up to her husband’s assassination, Reuters reported last Friday. According to the lawsuit filed Thursday 15thJune in the Northern District of Virginia, NSO software infiltrated Elatr’s phone, allowing her messages to be read in the months prior to her husband’s murder in Istanbul in 2018. According to a Washington Post report in 2021, the spyware was placed on Elatr’s phone while she was being interrogated by security agents at Dubai Airport months before Khashoggi was killed. The Citizen Lab research group said the spying was carried out by a United Arab Emirates customer, and the US newspaper claimed it was a UAE government agency.

This week Reprieve, who campaigns against the death penalty, is sounding the alarm on behalf of two new child defendants in Saudi Arabia. Their names are Youssef al-Manasif and Abdullah al-Derazi. They were arrested and tortured into “confessing” to so-called crimes, which took place when they were just children – including attending protests. They were sentenced to death based on torture–extracted evidence. The torture of both Youssef al-Manasif and Abdullah al-Derazi faced is unfathomable. Not only were they held incommunicado but they were also tortured to the point of hospitalisation, which continues to affect them physically and psychologically.

Bahrain Freedom Movement

21st June 2023