At least 500 Bahrain prisoners on hunger strike, amid continuation of abuse

At least 500 prisoners in Bahrain are undergoing a hunger strike in what is said to be the largest such demonstration within the Gulf state’s prison system, amid authorities’ ongoing detention of prisoners of conscience. 

According to The Guardian newspaper, detainees began refusing food on 7 August, with increasing numbers of prisoners having joined the hunger strike throughout the following weeks.

In a statement from the detainees, which was released through the country’s banned Al-Wefaq opposition party, the hunger strike is being carried out with a series of demands, including an increase to the one-hour per day limit on time outside their cells, the allowance to conduct prayers in congregation at the prison mosque, relieving restrictions on family visits, improvements to education facilities, and access to proper medical and health care.

“These are not frivolous demands, but necessary ones required for human life,” the prisoners’ statement stressed. The demands come amid increasing reports on the commonness of Bahraini prison authorities’ denial of medical treatment to detainees, the use of solitary confinement, and various other abuses.

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The Bahraini government denied such abuses, however, with its national communication centre telling the paper that it “is committed to protecting human rights and ensuring that international standards are met for all dealings with inmates at its reform and rehabilitation facilities.” The government insisted that the officers and other employees at Jau prison “are fully committed to dealing with inmates in accordance to the law.”

Authorities also claimed there were no prisoners of conscience held within its system, despite Jau prison reportedly being a site notorious for holding such prisoners and political detainees.

The office of Bahrain’s interior ministry ombudsman was also quoted as asserting that it has conducted investigations to “ensure the inmates obtain all their rights, whether from health care, visits or contact with their families, and are not being subjected to ill-treatment.”

According to Sayed Alwadaei, a former inmate at Jau prison and a figure at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird), this hunger strike “is probably one of the most powerful strikes that has ever happened inside the Bahraini prison system; the scale of it is overwhelming.”

In the tiny Gulf island state, political prisoners reportedly number around 1,200, just under a third of the total prisoner population of 3,800. According to Bird, that means Bahrain has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the Middle East.

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