Bahrain: wave of arrests and death sentences since the beginning of the war

Translated by Celeste Valentini

After a month from the beginning of the American and Israeli military operations against Iran, the situation doesn’t seem to spare the countries of the Middle East. The Iranian response was swift: the military forces stroke the capital of Bahrain, Manama, though drone and missile attacks. Sometimes they targeted civilians, too. In the Gulf state, where the Shia population is ruled by a Sunni minority, two people were killed and, according to the Bahrain News Agency, 46 were wounded.

Human Rights Watch witnesses and reports the authorities of Bahrain for using the war to legitimate more violations of the population rights, through a strong crackdown on dissent: they arrested people whose only fault was to share photos and videos of the Iranian attacks on social media, to peacefully mourn the murder of Ayatollah Khamenei –the former supreme leader of Iran – and to protest against the Israeli-American attacks.

The 6^th of March the Civil Defense Council declared that every measure undertaken was intended to “maintain public security in light of Iranian aggression against the Kingdom of Bahrain”. Every form of protest was forbidden, too, for the “population safety”.
The Ministry of Interior also stated that forty people were arrested because of “abuse of social medias” and “expressions of sympathy for the Iranian aggression, which constitute treason”.

A clear example is the arrest of Hussei Naji and Ali Mahdi while they were heading the American embassy to peacefully protest against the Iranian aggression. According to the authorities, the reasons for the arrest were: “inciting hatred against the government”, “supporting a hostile state” and “provoking public disorder during wartime”.
Just like them, Muneer Mirza Ahmed Mushaima was also arrested in his house, during the night of the 4^th of March, by thirty agents of the Public Security Forces. Some of them were in plain clothes, too. The accusation was “managing a social media account containing illegal content”. But the phone used as evidence does not seems to be his.

In another case, Youssef Ahmed declared that at 3:30 a.m. on March 8^th some men - apparently police officers – arrived at his house and interrogated him and his 16-year-old son. Youssef said: “There were two cars without the police insignia”. Then he added: “Even when they requested my ID and I asked who they were, they replied they were police officers but they didn’t show me any badge”.
The officers controlled the son’s phone and went away. They returned the following afternoon to arrest him without providing explanations and mostly important without a warrant.

The actions of the Bahraini authorities dangerously resemble the crime of enforced disappearance, when detainees are not allowed to call their families or lawyers for several days, nor is their location disclosed to their loved ones.
Enforced disappearances consist of detaining a person without providing information about their whereabouts or the reasons for their arrest: this is a crime against humanity. The enforced disappearances are forbidden by the International Humanitarian Law and the International Human Rights Law.

That’s not all: on March 9, the Public Prosecution Office of Bahrain announced it had “sought the death penalty for several defendants on charges of espionage”.
On the same day, the Police Media Center of the Interior Ministry announced the arrest of five Pakistani and one Bangladeshi worker because “they filmed, published and shared videos showing the effects of the Iranian aggression, expressing solidarity for it and glorifying these hostile acts in such a way as to undermine public order and safety”.

The escalation of the conflict involving Israel, the United States, and Iran mirrors the internal escalation taking place in Bahrain, where the latest actions add to a long history of repression of the freedom of speech and the arbitrary detention of political leaders and human rights defenders in the country. Moreover, proper healthcare has been denied to the majority of the population despite their urgent needs, which often arise from torture or long-term detentions.

It should be noted that Bahrain is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects the right to freedom of expression and to peaceful assembly. Furthermore, it has ratified the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which obliges countries retaining the death penalty to limit its use only in exceptional circumstances and for “the most serious crimes” – a definition that excludes peaceful assembly and online expression.
In spite of this, the government has always limited citizens’ rights through a restrictive legislation, starting from the Penal Code, the counter-terrorism law, the press law and the cybercrime regulations.

By virtue of this, at the beginning of the month the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) raised the alarm regarding further concerns over detentions and the crackdown on freedom of speech and expression. According to the documents of the BCHR, between the 1^st and the 2^nd of March sixty people have been arrested while protesting against military actions following the coordinated Israeli-American strikes against Iran. Among them there were minors as well, and their involvement further aggravates the situation: according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the arbitrary detention of minors for exercising their rights is strictly forbidden.

During the 61^st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR), several NGOs expressed concern over the latest events. In this regard, on the 12^th of March the United Nations Security Council condemned the Iranian strikes on the Gulf States, calling for an immediate ceasefire. This resolution was supported by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which Bahrain is a member, along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait, and it officially stated that the Iranian military had committed a violation of international law.

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