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Bahrain is committing serious human rights violations through death sentences

October 10, 2022 at 5:41 pm

A Bahraini girl holds up a placard bearing a portrait of jailed human rights activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja in Manama, Bahrain on 5 September 2014 [MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH/AFP/Getty Images]

Bahrain is committing serious human rights violations by sentencing to death eight men, human rights groups have stated.

In a joint report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, Bahraini courts’ recent ruling of death sentences for eight men constitutes human rights violations due to the judgment being based on “manifestly unfair trials based … on confessions allegedly coerced through torture”.

According to the report, the defendants’ rights to a fair trial were also routinely violated as they were reportedly denied legal counsel during interrogation and the right to cross-examine prosecution witnesses.

Despite court records and official documents resulting in “credible” allegations, the rights groups stated in the report, the courts still concluded that no abuse had taken place in summary rulings packed with “inconsistencies and … contradicted by undisputed evidence”.

READ: 600% rise in death sentences in Bahrain since 2011

Michael Page, HRW’s deputy Middle East Director, stated that “Bahraini officials routinely proclaim that the government respects fundamental human rights but, in case after case, courts relied on coerced confessions despite defendants’ credible claims of torture”. Page added that the “many human rights violations that underlie these death sentences reflect not a justice system but a pattern of injustice.”

Since 2017, after Manama ended a seven-year-long break from the death penalty, six people have been executed in the Gulf State. The eight who were recently given the same sentence are among 26 men, overall, who are currently on death row in the country.

Only after Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa – who holds the power to either ratify, commute, or pardon sentences – actually ratifies the judgment, can the men be executed.

Following protests against the government in 2011 and the subsequent crackdown by security forces, at least 139 people have been given charges relating to “terrorism”, in what rights groups and activists say is an active attempt to suppress any opposition within Bahrain.

READ: Britain will only intervene in Bahrain if death sentences are confirmed