Bahraini prisoners on hunger strike, five Saudis executed
More than a dozen detainees in Jau Prison, who have been held in ‘isolation’ since last August, have been on hunger strike for 11 days. According to rights activist Ebtisam al Saegh, two of the inmates were spotted at the prison clinic. The group has now spent 330 days in isolation. They have not been allowed to contact their families for 11 days, ie, since they started their hunger strike. Their families have expressed fear and anxiety as the khalifi dictator continues to wreak havoc in the country with repressive policies under his dictatorial rule.
The political prisoners at Jua prison have complained about the officer in charge on the Eid Al Adha day who prevented them from performing the Eid prayers. Lieutenant Mal Allah threatened to punish them if they did. They were threatened with retributions as their cells remained closed.
Bahraini political prisoner Muhammad Hassan Al-Raml has been on hunger strike for the last 16 day and his family is now warning that his life is in danger. Al-Raml suffers from a number of chronic illnesses. He launched his hunger strike to protest the lack of medical treatment. The family of Bahraini political prisoner Mohamed Abduljalil Abdulla is warning that the 35-year-old’s health sharply deteriorated amid his ongoing hunger strike in protest at the worsening prison conditions and lack of medical care.
On 3rd July the Saudi regime executed five people charged with attacks on a religious place. The five men — four Saudis and one Egyptian national — were tried for the terrorist attack on the Imam Hussain mosque nine years ago killing five people and injuring more than ten others in the city of Dammam located in the kingdom’s eastern province of Qatif, home to most Saudi oil and most members of its Shia minority. State media said one man was beheaded while the others were executed by other means. The convicts were identified as Ahmed bin Muhammad Asiri, Nessar bin Abdullah Al-Mousa, Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Mousa, and Abdullah bin Abdul-Rahman Al-Tuwaijri, all Saudi nationals, and the Egyptian, Talha Hisham Muhammad Abdo. This brings to 66 the number of executions since the beginning of the year.
Saudi Arabia has imprisoned a woman for 30 years for criticizing the Neom megacity project on Twitter. The Special Criminal Court (SCC) sentenced Fatima al-Shawarbi to 30 years during a recent appeal hearing. She is in her 20s and from Al-Ahsa province. Al-Shawarbi was convicted over anonymous tweets in which she criticized Saudi Arabia’s treatment of people forcibly removed from their homes to make way for the construction of the planned city. She was arrested in 2020. She also criticized Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women, and called for a constitutional monarchy rather than the system of absolute rule that now exists.
The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) has issued a letter to King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, expressing concern over reports that ten former judges of Saudi Arabia have been charged with ‘high treason’ – a charge that carries a potential death sentence. The IBAHRI notes that the judges’ arrests form part of the ongoing dismantling of the independence of the judiciary and legal profession in Saudi Arabia through the intimidation, hindering, harassment and improper interference of judges, lawyers and jurists. In conclusion, the letter calls on Saudi Arabian authorities to ‘cease the use of incommunicado detention and to immediately and unconditionally release all those who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained; to ensure the right to a fair trial and due process; to review the scope of the death penalty without delay to ensure that its imposition and implementation are strictly limited to the confines of international law… and to introduce an immediate moratorium on its use with a view to abolition.’
Young Saudi activist, Malik Al Duwaish has been handed a 17-year prison sentence by the SSC on false charges. The sentence followed the young man’s insistence to know the state of his jailed father, Sheikh Sulieman Al Duwaish who has been behind bars since 2016. The verdict was based on a short video clip in defence of the father.
Marking a decade since the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities sentenced 60 members of Emirati civil society to lengthy prison terms in a mass trial, Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “Although we are halfway through the year in which the UAE is in the international spotlight through its upcoming hosting of the most important annual climate change conference, COP28, its government has not released any of the 60 Emiratis it unjustly imprisoned in the notorious mass trial of 2013, even though 51 of those detained have completed their sentence. “Governments that could influence the UAE have stayed disappointingly silent on the need for these prisoners to be immediately released. COP28 will not bring about the ambitious action we need to avoid climate breakdown if it is held in an environment where the host state has laws that restrict the freedom of expression of participants and a track record of throttling civil society.
Bahrain Freedom Movement
5 July 2023