Calls for F1 to stop racing on Bahraini blood, Seven Saudis executed
This weekend the Formula1 season starts in Bahrain. Racing in Bahrain implies serious human rights risk. Last year, activists urged for lessons to be learned from earlier races. Unfortunately, there is little evidence of any positive influence from F1 management in the field of human rights. While international car sports is failing to address human rights risks related to their events, and the issue of sportswashing, human rights activists remain behind bars. The F1 management have ignored calls to stop racing on martyrs blood in Bahrain. Few years ago three women were incarcerated for opposing holding the game in Bahrain. Najah Yousuf, Nafisa Al Asfoor and Raihana Al Mousawi spent up to three years in jail for opposing the F1 race in Bahrain.
On Monday 26th February khalifi courts imposed a one-year prison sentence on Khalil Mohammed Yousuf from Aali town. He was accused of taking part in pro-Palestine protests and had been detained in December. Another political prisoner was also given a one-year prison sentence. Mohammed Abbas (also from Aali town) has been in jail since 20th December. He was arrested when he was crossing the causeway between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
In the early hours of Thursday 22nd February, regime’s forces arrested a young native Bahraini youth and took him to the torture chambers. The house where Sayed Hashim Al Wadaei lives was surrounded by 20 police cars, raided the house, thoroughly searched the house turning it everything upside down and terrorized the sleeping family and led Sayed Hashim away. On 26th February, Amnesty International, on its twitter account, condemned the khalifi regime for the arrest. It said: “the khalifi authorities do not hesitate to detain arbitrarily members of this family (Al Wadaei) in revenge for the activities of Sayed Ahmed”. The young boy had been detained recently for taking part in a peaceful protest to support Palestine.
The khalifi regime has taken more serious decisions against the native Bahrainis. It has asked the religious institutions (mosques, Hussain halls and religious centres) not to invite Quran reciters from outside the country in Ramadan. For decades Bahrainis have invited such people from Iraq and Egypt. This decision is in line with an earlier ban on inviting preachers during the Ashura season. This decision confirms the suspicion that the khalifis have been planning demographic change in the country which had been inhabited by native Baharna, centuries before the khalifi invasion and occupation of the land.
Seven Saudi men were executed Yesterday (Tuesday), the highest number put to death in one day since 81 were killed in March 2022. The Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) convicted the men on terrorism charges, accusing them of betraying “their homeland, threatening its stability and endangering its security”, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported, citing the Interior Ministry. The men’s names were listed in the SPA announcement, which is often the only information released about executions in the kingdom, but with little further detail. Riyadh has now executed 31 people this year, after putting at least 172 people to death in 2023, rights groups monitoring executions in Saudi Arabia have said. None of the men executed on Tuesday were known to be on death row, Duaa Dhainy, a researcher with the European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR), told Middle East Eye. In the past eight years, she said, ESOHR only had knowledge about three percent of death penalty cases before executions were carried out.
Seven years ago, the Saudi authorities arrested Jalal al-Labbad for participating in protests when he was under 18. After a grossly unfair trial, he was sentenced to death in 2022, a verdict upheld in secret by the Supreme Court in 2023. He is now at imminent risk of execution.
Three years ago, US intelligence released findings that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation to murder journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Instead of being held to account, MBS has instead been rehabilitated by many.
Five years ago, the Saudi authorities arrested Jordanian citizen Abdelrahman Farhaneh, and later sentenced him to 19 years in prison. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found Farhaneh’s sentence to be arbitrary and has called for his release.
Human rights bodies have expressed concerns at the continued suffering of Afghan refugees in United Arab Emirates (UAE). Many of these refugees have been stuck in the UAE for more than two years since they fled Afghanistan. These NGOs have called on UAE authorities to release them so they may seek asylum somewhere else. While some of them were resettled in other countries up to 2,700 Afghans remain stranded in the Gulf nation after not qualifying for resettlement.
Bahrain Freedom Movement
28th February 2024