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Bahraini man goes on hunger strike in UK to support jailed father

August 3, 2018 at 4:12 pm

Ali Mshaima,a Bahraini activist, is protesting the detention of his father by Bahrain outside the Embassy of Bahrain in London, UK

A Bahraini activist is on the third day of his open hunger strike outside the Embassy of Bahrain in London, UK, in protest of the Manama government’s detention of his father.

Ali Mshaima started his hunger strike on 1 August and has been outside the embassy in Knightsbridge since.

His 70-year-old father, Hassan Mshaima, an active member of the opposition in the Kingdom, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court for “attempting to overthrow the monarchy” in 2011.

He has been tortured and has had medical appointments refused, according to a report by  Human Rights Watch. He suffers from high blood pressure, diabetes, gout, and a urinary tract infection, as well as being a former lymphoma cancer patient.

I want to save my father, who is being denied access to urgent medical care. His medication has run out and prison authorities refuse to refill his prescription without shackling him in handcuffs and humiliating him in the process. He has not seen our family for 15 months. I will not stop my hunger strike until I save my father,” Ali said.  

Read: Bahrain court upholds jail sentence for 3 dissidents

Despite the repression in Bahrain, the UK government has continued to arm and support the regime. Since 2012, the UK government has provided £5 million-worth of assistance to Bahrain in support of its “reform programme”. However, the Kingdom has witness a deterioration in its human rights record.

Sayed AhmedAlwadaei, director of advocacy for the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said Mshaima’s detention is “degradingand “shames Bahrain’s rulers and exposes the hypocrisy of their so-called liberal allies in London and Washington. If the UK government believes in the human rights of Bahraini people then it must end its complicity in the repression and abuse.”