Bahrain extends prison terms for 13 in mass trial following sit-in

A court in Bahrain sentenced 13 prisoners to an additional time in jail over a sit-in they held while in detention in 2021 that prison authorities say was violent, rights group reported yesterday.

The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) said that the convictions issued the day before were part of a mass trial of 65 defendants.

“The Court convicted 12 defendants to three years in prison and one defendant to a year in prison on charges that included causing unrest in the prison and resisting prison police orders. 52 defendants were acquitted,” BIRD said.

“During the sentencing, none of the defendants were brought to the court, and the trial was marred by severe due process violations, including the right to attend the trial or meet with a lawyer.”

The rights group said the court also failed to investigate “allegations of torture against inmates by prison officials”.

The incident involves 65 political prisoners who staged a sit-in protest at Jau prison in April 2021 after the death of political prisoner Abbas Malallah as a result of medical negligence. Ten days into the sit-in, on April 17 2021, special forces and officers at Jau Prison used excessive force against inmates, and subjected many of them to torture in what became known as “the bloody Saturday attack”.

“This mass trial demonstrates a core problem in Bahrain’s corrupt judicial system where prisoners of state violence and victims of torture are condemned while torturers avoid any accountability,” BIRD’s Director of Advocacy, Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei, said.

Bahrain’s government has continued to deny the accusations of ongoing abuses of prisoners and detainees, with its General Directorate of Reform and Rehabilitation insisting that “all inmates have the right to non-violent protest”.

READ: HRW calls on Bahrain to resolve grievances of detained activists