BCHR Second Open Letter to Head of the Bahraini Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI)

BCHR Second Open Letter to Head of the Bahraini Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI)

Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni
Chair, Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry
18 August 2011

Dear Sir,
Thank you for your letter dated 9 August 2011, in which you outlined the position of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI).

Whilst we, at the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), are of course pleased that the government has demonstrated “extraordinary willingness… to listen to anything we bring to his [minister of interior] attention and act on it”, the main issue raised by our previous correspondence with you was your statement that this willingness from the minister “leads me to believe that on his part there was never a policy of excessive use of force or torture.” It was this last statement which we sought clarification about, since we did not understand how you had reached this conclusion at such an early stage. Your letter in response was noticeably silent on this point. You did note that you believed it was “premature to reach any conclusions”, which we are certainly in agreement with.

Whilst appreciating the difference between individual criminal responsibility and the responsibility of superiors, there is a wealth of evidence confirming that, at the very least, the government and the ruling establishment had knowledge and condoned the actions of the security forces.

The most notable examples of this are the speeches of Marshal General Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Commander in Chief of the Bahrain Defence Force, and the actions and speeches of Nasser Al Khalifa, the son of the reigning monarch. Khalifa bin Ahmed threatened protesters in remarks made to BNA in May, saying, “I say to those who did not get the message, ‘If you return we will come back, stronger this time'”. In a public forum, on state television, Nasser Al Khalifa threatened retribution to all those involved in the protests regardless of their position in society and their profession. In a telling final statement, Nasser Al Khalifa noted that, as an island state, those involved in the protests in Bahrain had “nowhere to escape to”. Within a few hours of this statement, the systematic targeting of athletes involved in the protests commenced. To compound this, Nasser himself became personally involved in the torture of at least two opposition leaders, Abdulla Isa Al-Mahroos and Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad, both of whom have provided testimonies which have been sent to the BICI.

Other witnesses have come forward to testify that they were beaten by different members of the Al-Khalifa family, such as Fatima Al-Bagali, who was tortured at West Riffa detention center on the 9th of May by the General Director of Southern Province Police, Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, because of a speech she had made at Pearl Square. Ayat Al-Qurmezi, also arrested for an anti-government poem she had read at Pearl Square, and Dr Fatima Hajji, have also claimed to have been tortured in detention by Noura Al-Khalifa.

These testimonies are, worryingly, the tip of the iceberg. In these circumstances, I hope you can appreciate that your comments to Reuters that “there was never a policy of excessive use of force or torture”, even if taken out of context, were highly prejudicial and created much anxiety and anger amongst the victims of this policy.

The actions of Bahrain’s ruling elite have consistently reinforced the message that dissent, in any form, is simply not to be tolerated in Bahrain. The targeting of individuals, both physically and economically, has been systematic. State television has pursued an agenda akin to the McCarthy witch hunts; naming and publically humiliating those involved in the recent protests. Indeed a number of state sanctioned websites have sprung up in which people are encouraged to name “traitors” to the regime. This state-sanctioned pressure has been compounded by the mass expulsion by state entities of employees who have been “tainted” through their association to the opposition.

It is in this context that it becomes difficult to believe that those in authority did not have knowledge of the persecution being effected through state apparatus. We would be happy to provide a range of evidence to confirm the assertions made in this letter and look forward to working with the BICI to achieve its stated goals and bring to light the situation in Bahrain.

Yours sincerely

Nabeel Rajab
President
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
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