I want to tell you about the decline in justice and the legal procedures in Bahrain, where people including children are detained, tortured, forced to sign unseen confessions and jailed for long periods. All you get from Mr Robertson and his predecessor Mr Burt, The U.K. Ministers for the Middle East and Northern Africa is their “concern” and that they talk quietly to the Khalifa regime about “due process.” There is no due process.

Mohamed Abdulla Tajer, (25) was detained on August 6th 2013. He was targeted to stop the well known defence lawyer Mohamed Tajer persueing political cases and defending “terrorists.” He was sentenced to SEVEN years today. He was charged with “attacking” the police but actually defended young ladies attacked by police on a demonstration. The accuser is an officer at the notorious Samaheej police station. The police accusations are based on secret sources and difficult for the defence lawyers to question. The police officer brought the person he claimed was the “victim” of the attack to identify Mohammed which he duly did.

The other defendants Sayed Ali, (34) Sayed Hussain (36) and Mohamed Oun Ali (26.) all got seven years. Mohamed Tajer the lawyer has tried to see his client Mohammed three times but failed. On 2nd December Mohammed denied all charges and said he was tortured to confess. The Prosecutor said he couldn’t drop all the charges against Mohammed or the fact he’d been tortured, but offered to state he’s been punched ONE TIME. After 2nd December 2013 session he was forced to sign more papers to incriminate himself to avoid further torture. He missed two court sessions because the prison bus was late and prisoners are always abused and strip searched beforehand at the prison. He never saw his lawyer before sentencing. He has been in Dry Dock Prison but will now move to Jau Prison.

Mohamed has hemorrhoids but the Prison Authorities won’t allow the operation. He only gets painkillers. When he attended Salmanya Hospital in February he was told he needed medicine, a proper diet and salt and water baths –impossible in the overcrowded, unhygienic prison where there are 5 beds for 12 men and no clean water. He is a quiet, reserved young man who works in an office, targeted to put pressure on his relative Mohamed Tajer
. Please help Mohammed by raising his case with your M.P. and Congressman. It is time the U.S. and U.K. Governments put pressure on the Khalifas to improve the legal system and prison conditions as a prelude to negotiations.

Redha al Ghasra and eight people escaped from prison recently. They were picked up and he is now being extensively tortured. He had seconds on the phone to his parents to say he was fine and sounded terrible. He was sentenced to 42 years and received none of the normal prisoner privileges. He has been in solitary confinement for weeks. In a previous escape, he dressed up as a woman and when captured was tortured in the road, in front of the people.

His family demonstrated outside the CID building and were threatened that if any picture was taken, they couldn’t see their son. His Mum’s poster says:

Sayeeda Warsi, will your Government continue to silently accept the repeated systematic torture of my son and thousands of Bahrainis?

The Ghasra family have had 70 raids on their home and two of Redha’s brothers are in exile. So what is your Government going to do? Will it ignore what is happening to the Bahrainis, like the plight of the Jews in the Second World War, or do something honourable and intercede?