Harsh sentences for Bahraini activists ‘deeply regrettable’ – UN human rights chief
UN News Center – 6 September , 2012

6 September 2012 – The United Nations human rights chief today described the a Bahraini appeals court’s decision to uphold convictions and sentences of 20 human rights activists and political opponents as “deeply regrettable.”

“Criticizing the Government and calling for reforms are not crimes,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said in a news release. “The Government must engage in an open, genuine and meaningful dialogue with the opposition, across the political spectrum. This is the only constructive way to defuse an increasingly tense situation.”

Since February, there have been clashes in Bahrain between security forces and demonstrators, a year after widespread civil protests first emerged in the Gulf country.

According to a news release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the individuals whose sentences were upheld Tuesday were initially convicted last year by Bahrain’s Court of National Safety, essentially a military court, on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the Government, amongst other changes. Some were also charged with espionage.

After the convictions were upheld by the National Safety Appeals Court, the Government announced that all the cases would be transferred to civilian courts. The appeals proceedings took place this year.

“I had welcomed the Bahraini Government’s decision to transfer these cases to civilian courts, as military trials of civilians raise serious problems as far as the equitable, impartial and independent administration of justice is concerned,” Ms. Pillay said.

“But now, given the gravity of the charges, the scant evidence available beyond confessions, the serious allegations of torture and the irregularities in the trial processes, it is extremely disappointing that the convictions and sentences have been upheld in appeals proceedings that often took place behind closed doors,” she added. …more

Bahrain security forces attack pro-democracy protesters
5 September, 2012 – Tehran Times

The regime forces on Wednesday used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protesters in the capital, Manama, the northeastern island of Sitra, the northern village of Tubli and the western village of Sadad, Press TV reported.

The demonstrators also expressed solidarity with leading opposition figures and condemned the recent verdicts against them.

The protests came after a Bahraini civilian court on Tuesday upheld jail sentences against at least 13 opposition leaders.

The jail terms, seven of them life sentences, were previously issued by a military court.

Human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and opposition leader Hassan Mushaimaa are among those sentenced to life in prison.

On August 23, a Bahraini appeals court upheld a three-year prison term for prominent rights activist Nabeel Rajab over taking part in “unauthorized protests.”

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of anti-government protesters have been staging regular demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested in the crackdown.

Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.
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EU ‘disappointed’ as Bahrain upholds activists’ sentences
5 September, 2012 – Agence France Presse

BRUSSELS: EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Wednesday she was “disappointed and concerned” after a Bahrain court upheld convictions against a score of activists accused of trying to overthrow the monarchy.

“I am disappointed and concerned at the decision of the Bahraini Court of Appeal to uphold the harsh sentences against Mr Abdulhadi Khawaja and nineteen other individuals,” Ashton said in a statement.

The court Tuesday retried 13 leading opposition figures, including seven facing life in prison, as well as seven others who remain at large.

Among those sentenced was Khawaja who in June ended a 110-day hunger strike.

The defendants, who played leading roles in month-long protests last year demanding democratic reforms, did not turn up in the appeals court, the lawyers said.

The opposition swiftly condemned the “vindictive” rulings and accused the court of staging “mock trials,” the United States expressed its concern, while London-based Amnesty International denounced the ruling as “outrageous.”

“I hope that the appeal before the Cassation Court will be fair, transparent and conducted in the full respect of international obligations Bahrain has subscribed to,” Ashton said.

“I will continue to monitor the process and the overall situation in the country very closely,” she added on behalf of the European Union.

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U.S.: Rights Activists Call on U.S. to Revise Bahrain Policy
By Jim Lobe – IPS

WASHINGTON, Sep 6 2012 (IPS) – Human rights activists are calling on the administration of President Barack Obama to radically revise its policy toward Bahrain in light of the decision by an appeals court in the kingdom this week to confirm harsh prison sentences against 13 opposition activists.

The court’s decision, which also confirmed the conviction of the 13 men by military courts in the aftermath of mainly peaceful anti-government protests during the so-called “Arab Spring” last year, followed the sentencing three weeks ago by yet another court of Nabeel Rajab, the director Bahrain’s most important human rights watchdog, to a three-year prison term for helping organise opposition rallies.

“I’m hoping the administration is doing a radical rethink of its policy on Bahrain,” said Brian Dooley, a Gulf specialist at Human Rights First. “It’s pretty clear that its original plan – to support the so-called reformers in the government – just hasn’t worked. The behind-closed-doors, softly-softly approach clearly hasn’t delivered.”

The appeals court decision was roundly denounced by international human rights groups.

“Today’s court decision is yet another blow to justice and shows once more that the Bahraini authorities are not on the path of reform but seem rather driven by vindictiveness,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, who also noted that many of the defendants have testified that they were tortured during their initial detentions.

“Instead of upholding the sentences, …the Bahraini authorities must quash the convictions for the 13 men who are imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their human rights and release them immediately and unconditionally,” she added.

The ongoing repression in Bahrain – of which the appeals court decision and Rajab’s sentencing are only the latest examples – has posed a major challenge to the credibility of the Obama administration’s claims to support human rights and democratic reform throughout the Arab world.

While it has continuously urged dialogue between the government, which is dominated by the long-ruling Al-Khalifa family, who are Sunni Muslims, and representatives of the Shi’a community, which makes up between 60 and 70 percent of the kingdom’s population, since anti-regime protests broke out in early 2011, it has been reluctant to exert serious pressure to achieve that end.

Its reluctance is explained both by the fact that the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, whose assets have been significantly boosted as tensions with Iran have increased over the past 18 months, is based in Bahrain and by the strong backing – even encouragement — Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter and Washington’s most important U.S. ally and arms-purchaser in the Gulf, has provided the Al-Khalifa family.

Concerned that Manama might have been tempted to compromise with the demands of the opposition, which initially included prominent Sunnis as well, for democratic reform, Riyadh, along with its neighbour, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), sent some 1,500 troops and police across its causeway to Bahrain in support of the government’s crackdown in mid-March 2011. …more

Bahrain Monarchy Teaches Lessons Of Inefficient Counterrevolution
September 5, 2012 – The Trench

In the aftermath of Nabeel Rajab’s three-year prison sentence, The Trench observed that the Bahraini monarchy must want the island’s democratic uprising to continue for a minimum of three years. “Minimum” being the operative word, because the monarchy evidently wants to set an indefinite date for the uprising’s end. On Tuesday Bahrain’s High Court of Appeals ruled against some of the country’s highest-profile activists and delivered a range of lengthy prison terms, conceivably to crush the opposition.

Except the only way to “defeat” Bahrain’s opposition – without losing King Hamad’s crown in the process – is the institution of genuine democratic reforms at the parliamentary and judiciary levels.

The King’s latest moves are so predictably unjust that their “shock” should only exist as a sheer force, like ice water, rather than as a result of false expectations. Some defendants have already endured horrific conditions in Jaww prison and other confinement centers as they await a protracted appeal process. Seven are being tried in absentee for “crimes” that either fail to exist, or are legitimized by the revolutionary situation at hand. The idea of due process is absent before and after the final verdict, systematically destroying any possibility of a fair trial. All opposition parties, human rights groups and activists of consequence have roundly denounced the rulings as a total violation of justice, along with many of Bahrain’s Western allies (out of coercion, not free will).

According to state media, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain expresses its refusal of the statements related to the court sentences issued by the Supreme Appeals Court Tuesday, September 4, 2012 ‘in the case of “overturning of the government and communication with foreign entities along with the violation of constitutional laws.'”

As for the effects of Draconian sentencing, this act will produce the same popular backlash as Rajab’s unjust imprisonment and further extend Bahrain’s democratic uprising. Nothing short of mass slaughter inspires revolutionary action in the same manner as imprisoned leaders, who provide ideological hubs to rally the resistance around. In short, the quickest path to ending Bahrain’s uprising involves freeing them and opening a convulsive negotiating process. The longest path unjustly imprisons and tortures them.

King Hamad is cunning enough to have stayed below the West’s tolerance for this long, but the delusion of his inner circle cannot be permanently masked by tear gas and favorably media coverage. Tactical successes continue to be negated by strategic errors, ultimately playing into the weaker side of an asymmetric conflict, and the monarchy appears to be semi-sincere in its belief of invincibility. This overconfidence is partly responsible for Bahrain’s current state of affairs, yet new examples crop up by the week. Overlooked in the aftermath of Rajab’s sentencing, King Hamad’s Eid-ul-Fitr address demonstrated just how defiant his regime is by speaking about the uprising in past tense. Revolutionaries mutate into “strife-mongers.” …more

It suits the Bahrain regime and the British establishment to co-operate in a phoney reform process

Bahrain’s citizens pay the price for Britain’s dealings with the kingdom
Louisa Loveluck – guardian.co.uk – 6 September, 2012

Last year, the Bahraini government praised the findings of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) into institutional failures that caused the death of 35 individuals between 14 February and 15 April 2011. It committed to the professionalisation of the police force and the introduction of greater accountability for those charged with torture. Ten months on, the BICI’s recommendations read as a hollow reminder that little progress has been made. On Tuesday, an announcement was made that the convictions of 20 prominent dissidents were being upheld, despite widespread condemnation over the politicised nature of the judicial process.

Practical attempts to address the most heinous allegations have been minimal. Instead, implementation efforts have been carefully orientated towards international allies, hiring western advisers to legitimise the reform process and send a message to the world that action is being taken. A number of prominent British establishment figures have risen to the occasion.

John Yates, the former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, was hired last December to overhaul Bahrain’s police service in line with international human rights standards. Since then, he has become the de facto security spokesperson for the Bahrain government. In April, when the Bahrain Formula One grand prix took place against a backdrop of heated protest, Yates appeared across international news outlets defending the stuttering reform process and framing the unrest as “criminal acts” against “unarmed police”.

The few reforms announced to the public wither in the face of basic scrutiny. In April, Yates announced that he was hiring 500 community police officers to improve relations with the public. However, far from extending an olive branch to a suspicious citizenry, the police continue to make extensive use of teargas as well as shotguns in the name of crowd control.

So why was the commissioner hired, if not for his ability to implement genuine reforms? It’s possible the Bahraini government saw him as part of a package. Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, told me that Yates was seen as a key to “the highest levels of government”, although British ministers insist there was no contact over Yates’s appointment, reports suggest he has since enjoyed an unprecedented degree of contact with British officials. In June, he accompanied interior minister Lt Gen Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa to diplomatic engagements in London, even meeting with junior Foreign Office minister Lord Howell.

A number of similarly well-connected British lawyers also travelled to Bahrain in April, this time advising on the BICI’s recommendations regarding accountability for torture. Among their number was Sir Daniel Bethlehem, a former Foreign Office legal adviser who returned to the bar for a brief period before assuming his new role. As with Yates, the involvement of Britons as advisers has resulted in few tangible changes. Despite extensive documentation of state-led human rights abuses, only five low-level personnel have been imprisoned, taking the rap for what the BICI called “systematic … mistreatment which … amounted to torture.” The gulf between Bahraini rhetoric surrounding the lawyers’ appointment and their practical achievements reinforces an impression that they too have been hired as the publicly acceptable face of a reform process that is going nowhere.

The British government has supplied the security forces of Bahrain with crowd control weapons and British advisers have been co-opted into the abortive reform process. But British involvement doesn’t there, our oldest institutions continue to train a steady stream of Bahraini nationals for active service. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, this training comes at a high cost to the British state. Although it costs £78,000 to train a single recruit, Bahrain only pays £48,400 an individual. The Ministry of Defence has therefore subsidised Bahraini military training with at least £380,000 in the past three years alone.

But for a government committed to boosting ties with a “key defence ally”, this will be seen as a small price to pay. As former regional partners such as Egypt undergo their own political struggles, British officials place an increasingly high premium on alliances based on trust and deep historical roots. The price for this co-operation is complicity in the slow and steady crackdown on the human rights that Britain purports to defend. …source

U.N. chief slams jailing of Bahrain opposition leaders
6 September, 2012 – Agence France Presse

Ineffectual UN Chief Ban Ki-moon in denial about his current status as US Door Mat

UNITED NATIONS: U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon Wednesday sharply criticized tough jail terms imposed on 13 leading Bahraini opposition figures, calling on the country’s leaders to ensure the right to a fair trial.

“The secretary-general is concerned by the harsh sentences, including life imprisonment, upheld by a Bahrain appeals court,” Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement.

The jail terms, which included seven life sentences, were imposed for charges of plotting to overthrow the Sunni Gulf monarchy during last year’s Shiite-led protests.

Ban “urges the Bahraini authorities to allow all defendants to exercise their right to appeal and to ensure that due process is observed.”

And he “reiterates his appeal to the Bahraini authorities to ensure the application of international human rights norms, including the right to a fair trial, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” the statement added.

The U.N. chief also renewed his belief “that there needs to be an all-inclusive and meaningful national dialogue that addresses the legitimate aspirations of all Bahrainis.”

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