Open Letter to Bassiouni by Ali Mahdi Alaswad – Resigned Bahraini MP

Open Letter to Bassiouni by Ali Mahdi Alaswad
by Ali Mahdi Alaswad – 20 March 20, 2012

Dear Prof. Cherif Bassiouni,

I feel compelled to write to you as someone who had genuine faith in your commission from the very beginning, on the date of the report from the Implementation Commission.

As a resigned MP I encouraged people to testify to the BICI, argued with the skeptics that BICI could be a force for good and spent much time promoting your Commission far and wide.

Whilst I understood the limitations of your remit I was over all encouraged by your final report and believed it could be the first step towards the democratic change that the people of Bahrain have been crying out for.

Like many I saw the potential of your Commission to finally end the gross violations that the people of Bahrain have suffered for decades and that have been horrifically accelerated since February 2011.

It is for this reason more than anything else that I must respectfully register my disappointment with your recent comments in your interview with Sir David Frost on Al Jazeera English (March 20th 2012).

You claim very clearly and confidently that since you and your fellow investigators entered Bahrain there have been no more allegations of torture and mistreatment.

I must sadly inform you that this claim is false and given your role in Bahrain and continued presence you should know this. The fact that you cannot recognize this suggests that either you are being fed incorrect information that you are not verifying, or you are remaining willfully ignorant of the reality. I hope it is not the latter, but whatever the reason, you are overlooking the facts and this is extremely unhelpful to the Bahraini people.

If you had simply stated that there has been no torture since July 2011 at least we would know that you believe this to be the case. But I found it truly astounding that you claim that there have been no further allegations.

In January there were two cases of deaths whilst in custody which can be attributed to torture. Since you are clearly not aware of these cases I shall report them to you now and I hope you can change your stance with immediate affect.

On 13th January 2012 the body of 24-year-old Yousif Ahmed Muwali was found on a beach. He had last been seen 5 days previously when he was arrested during a demonstration. When his family was able to see his body they found clear marks of torture. Tell me, Professor Bassiouni, how do you think Yousif came to be washed up on a beach a few days after being arrested, with signs of torture on his body?

The second case relates to 37-year-old Muntadher Saeed Fakhar who died on 25th January 2012. He was arrested and taken to Hoora Police station where at some point over the next 24 hours he died. …more