ROUTINE ABUSE, ROUTINE DENIAL
Copyright © June 1997 by Human Rights Watch.
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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Human Rights Watch conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world. Our reputation for timely, reliable disclosures has made us an essential source of information for those concerned with human rights. We address the human rights practices of governments of all political stripes, of all geopolitical alignments, and of all ethnic and religious persuasions. Human Rights Watch defends freedom of thought and expression, due process and equal protection of the law, and a vigorous civil society; we document and denounce murders, disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, discrimination, and other abuses of internationally recognized human rights. Our goal is to hold governments accountable if they transgress the rights of their people.
Human Rights Watch began in 1978 with the founding of its Helsinki division. Today, it includes five divisions covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, as well as the signatories of the Helsinki accords. It also includes three collaborative projects on arms transfers, children's rights, and women's rights. It maintains offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Moscow, Dushanbe, Rio de Janeiro, and Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly.
The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Michele Alexander, development director; Cynthia Brown, program director; Barbara Guglielmo, finance and administration director; Robert Kimzey, publications director; Jeri Laber, special advisor; Lotte Leicht, Brussels office director; Susan Osnos, communications director; Jemera Rone, counsel; Wilder Tayler, general counsel; and Joanna Weschler, United Nations representative.
The regional directors of Human Rights Watch are Peter Takirambudde, Africa; José Miguel Vivanco, Americas; Sidney Jones, Asia; Holly Cartner, Helsinki; and Eric Goldstein, Middle East (acting). The project directors are Joost R. Hiltermann, Arms Project; Lois Whitman, Children's Rights Project; and Dorothy Q. Thomas, Women's Rights Project.
The members of the board of directors are Robert L. Bernstein, chair; Adrian W. DeWind, vice chair; Roland Algrant, Lisa Anderson, William Carmichael, Dorothy Cullman, Gina Despres, Irene Diamond, Fiona Druckenmiller, Edith Everett, Jonathan Fanton, James C. Goodale, Jack Greenberg, Vartan Gregorian, Alice H. Henkin, Stephen L. Kass, Marina Pinto Kaufman, Bruce Klatsky, Harold Hongju Koh, Alexander MacGregor, Josh Mailman, Samuel K. Murumba, Andrew Nathan, Jane Olson, Peter Osnos, Kathleen Peratis, Bruce Rabb, Sigrid Rausing, Anita Roddick, Orville Schell, Sid Sheinberg, Gary G. Sick, Malcolm Smith, Domna Stanton, Maureen White, and Maya Wiley.
ABOUT THIS REPORT
Material for this report was gathered by Human Rights Watch/Middle East between March 1996 and February 1997. The government of Bahrain rejected our request to send an official information-gathering mission to the country. Human Rights Watch representatives did visit Bahrain briefly nonetheless, where they met with defense lawyers and persons who had been detained by the authorities, as well as prominent persons in various professions and in business. Because of the unauthorized nature of the visit, however, Human Rights Watch was unable to speak with government officials, and our access to persons in neighborhoods under surveillance was severely constricted. In addition, Bahrainis living in the country, even lawyers and prominent businesspeople, agreed to speak with Human Rights Watch only on condition that they not be identified. We also met with Bahrainis living in exile in Dubai, Kuwait, Beirut, Damascus, London, Lund and Copenhagen, and with Bahrainis living in and visiting the United States. Interviews referred to in the text, unless the location of the interview is specified, took place outside of Bahrain.
This report was written by Joe Stork, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. Steve Rothman, intern at Human Rights Watch/Middle East, and Shira Robinson, Human Rights Watch/Middle East associate, provided greatly appreciated research assistance. Clary Bencomo and Gamal Abouali of Human Rights Watch/Middle East helped with the translation of Arabic documents. Kuwaiti human rights activists who cannot be named provided translation assistance with interviews conducted in that country. Several Bahraini lawyers also provided invaluable assistance and clarifications on points of Bahraini law, but they cannot be named for reasons of personal safety. Said Essaloumi, of Article 19, kindly shared with Human Rights Watch an unpublished report covering press freedom issues in Bahrain.
This report was edited by Jeri Laber, senior advisor to Human Rights Watch, and Eric Goldstein, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. Shira Robinson and Awali Samara, Human Rights Watch/Middle East associates, prepared the text for publication.
1. INTRODUCTION
Human rights abuses in Bahrain are wide-ranging and fall into two basic categories. The first relates to law enforcement and administration of justice issues. These encompass the behavior of security forces toward those under arrest and detention, and when confronting civil disturbances; arbitrary detention; physical and psychological abuse of detainees; denial of access to legal counsel; and denial of the right to a swift and impartial judicial hearing. The second area of human rights violations relates to the broad denial of fundamental political rights and civil liberties, including freedom of expression, freedom of association and assembly, and the right to participate in the conduct of public affairs. In terms of numbers of people affected, the situation has been particularly acute since the end of 1994, with the onset of a period of protracted civil unrest that has continued into the spring of 1997.1 This unrest has increasingly taken on the coloration of a sectarian conflict between the majority Shi`a population and the Sunni ruling family and military-political establishment. The government of Bahrain has dismissed the unrest as the work of "Hizb Allah terrorists" instigated and supported by Iran.
Respect for human rights has long been problematic in Bahrain, and many abusive practices derive from the policies pursued by Great Britain prior to independence in 1971. From the early 20th century on, British colonial rule grafted numerous legal and administrative reforms onto a tribal form of local political authority centered around the Al Khalifa family. These reforms were also propelled by the transition from an economy organized mainly around feudal-type estates to a more complex commercial and industrial economy based on oil production and export. In the pre-independence period, as rule of law was constructed in numerous domains, political challenges to local and colonial authority continued to be dealt with in summary fashion, with little regard to emerging international norms of political and civil rights.
The first years of independence, from 1972 to 1975, constituted an interlude of sorts. A partially-elected constituent assembly constructed a constitution that endorsed a wide range of internationally recognized civil and political rights and called for a National Assembly of thirty elected and up tofourteen appointed cabinet ministers ex officio, with powers to review (though not initiate) legislation and interrogate members of the government. Although political parties remained illegal, a national campaign and elections in 1973 led to the emergence of three relatively distinct groupings-a so-called People's Bloc, mainly leftists and Arab nationalists; a Religious Bloc comprising teachers and religious court judges mainly from rural constituencies; and an Independent Middle.
The political detente between the ruling Al Khalifa family and the disparate forces of civil society came apart in 1975, when the government was unable to obtain National Assembly approval of a State Security Measures Law, which authorized arrest and imprisonment for up to three years without charge or trial for undefined "acts" or "statements" that could be construed to threaten the country's internal or external security. In August 1975, the government dissolved the National Assembly by decree. The constitution stipulates that in such an event elections for a new assembly must be held within two months. This the ruling family, nearly twenty-two years later, has steadfastly refused to do, and this refusal is one major factor underlying the current unrest.
In 1976, the year following the dissolution of the assembly, the government decreed a new penal code that substantively nullified many of the civil liberties and political rights protected by the constitution and effectively criminalized a wide range of nonviolent political activities. Over the more than two decades of unconstitutional rule by decree that have followed, other decrees discussed in this report have further undermined basic political and due process rights. As a consequence, Bahrain since 1975 is country where citizens risk search and seizure, and incarceration without charge or trial, for speaking out publicly in a manner that the government regards as hostile or critical. Public advocacy of restoring the National Assembly provisions of the constitution falls into this category. Communications among citizens, and between residents and persons outside Bahrain, are monitored. Political parties and organizations are proscribed, as are independent trade unions. Public meetings and gatherings require prior authorization, which in practice is not given. Radio and television media is directly controlled by the state; a combination of state censorship and stringent self-censorship rules out critical discussion in print of domestic politics or of relations with neighboring states. Abuses that are categorically forbidden by Bahrain's constitution, as well as by international law, such as torture and forced exile, are practiced routinely, as matters of state policy.
Recent decrees have expanded the articles of the penal code coming under the jurisdiction of the so-called State Security Court, where most due process protections are absent. Among the thousands of persons detained in the course of the past two-and-a-half years of protracted unrest, most who have been chargedhave been tried before the security court. Defendants wait many months, sometimes more than a year, to be tried. According to defense lawyers and former detainees, beatings and other forms physical and psychological abuse in the course of arrest and during detention are common and are frequently administered by security personnel as a form of extra-judicial punishment. This abuse becomes especially severe when used to secure confessions, and frequently amounts to torture. A person brought before the security court first meets his or her lawyer only on the day of the first hearing, and subsequent meetings in practice occur only at the time of subsequent court hearings. Security court sessions are generally held in camera. Uncorroborated confessions, secured in the absence of counsel, are sufficient for conviction. Judgments of the security court cannot be appealed. There are no instances known to Human Rights Watch where Bahraini authorities have conducted an investigation as a result of allegations of torture, or where anyone in a position of responsibility has been disciplined for committing such acts.
The government of Bahrain denies that it sanctions torture or other forms of physical abuse in any manner. The government also maintains that its policies do not in any way violate international human rights standards. In response to a letter to the government from Human Rights Watch, Bahrain's ambassador in Washington, Dr. Muhammad Abdul Ghaffar, wrote, "The allegations made against Bahrain originate from a very small, but skillful group of fundamentalist zealots and extremists, who are connected to terrorists in Bahrain.... They have disseminated their propaganda through manipulation of the media and of the international human rights movement."2 At the same time, the government's repeated refusal to grant visas to allow independent human rights monitors to conduct research or attend trials undermines the credibility of such denials. Bahrain is not a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) or to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).3 The government recently reached an agreement with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to inspect prisons and interview detainees, and the ICRC began conducting visits in November 1996. While this is a positive development, it is no guarantee that abuseswill be exposed because the ICRC as a matter of policy keeps its findings confidential and shares them only with the government of Bahrain.
The government of Bahrain's dismissal of the country's political unrest as Iranian-sponsored "terrorism" has enjoyed the public support of Arab states in the region, especially Saudi Arabia. Bahrain's most important military and political allies outside the region are the United States and the United Kingdom. Bahrain is the site of the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, and the country has generally supported U.S. military and strategic policy in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. is the Bahrain Defense Force's major source of weapons. Washington has publicly endorsed Bahrain's attribution of responsibility for its unrest to Iranian meddling, and, except for the Bahrain chapter in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, has refused to speak out critically about the human rights situation in the country. The U.K.'s approach has been similar to that of the U.S., although, perhaps owing to the presence in London of a vocal Bahraini opposition community, it has publicly expressed concern in very general terms about human rights practices of the government of Bahrain.
2. RECOMMENDATIONS
To the government of Bahrain concerning law enforcement and administration of justice:
* Amend the State Security Measures Law of 1974, the Penal Code of 1976, and all other laws and decrees to eliminate those provisions that violate rights protected by Bahrain's Constitution, including those provisions that allow for unlimited or arbitrary detention. Enact amendments to those laws that will ensure the rights of a detainee to challenge promptly the lawfulness of his or her detention before a judicial authority and to have prompt access to family and legal counsel in accordance with international standards.
* End the practice of detaining persons for unlimited or extended periods without charge or trial for vaguely-defined "acts" or "statements." Release immediately all persons being so detained or bring formal charges and try those persons in a court of law in which they have full access to defense counsel, the right to call defense witnesses and to question prosecution witnesses, and the right to appeal the verdict to a higher judicial tribunal in accordance with international fair trial standards.
* Ensure that members of the Ministry of Interior directorates of Public Security, Criminal Investigations, and State Security comply with the requirements of the criminal procedure code and with international law enforcement standards in conducting arrests and searches of premises.
* Establish by legislation, in accordance with the constitution of the state of Bahrain, a Supreme Council of the Judiciary to supervise the functions of the courts (Article 102[d]) and a judicial body competent to rule on the constitutionality of laws and regulations (Article 103).
* End the practice of interrogating detainees without allowing them to exercise their right to legal counsel. Release or conduct an independent judicial review of the cases of all persons convicted solely on the basis of uncorroborated confessions secured without the presence of defense counsel. This review should take the form of a public hearing involving the accused and legal counsel of his or her choice.
* Abolish the State Security Court and end the practice of trying detainees before any tribunal that is closed to the public and in which basic fair trialstandards are not guaranteed. Release all persons convicted by the State Security Court, or conduct an independent judicial review of their cases and reverse or amend convictions and sentences accordingly. This review should take the form of a public hearing involving the accused and legal counsel of his or her choice.
* Transfer the office of public prosecutor from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs, and take other steps as necessary to separate institutionally the state's public security and the administration of justice functions.
* Appoint a special independent public prosecutor to investigate deaths at the hands of the security forces, including those occurring in detention, and alleged acts of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment committed by officers with the Special Investigation Service, the Criminal Investigation Directorate, and the Public Security Force. This prosecutor should be empowered to report publicly on the findings of such an investigation and to bring charges against any officials implicated as responsible for ordering, for carrying out, or for tolerating such acts of torture or acts resulting in wrongful death. The special prosecutor should receive the firm public backing of the head of state, Amir Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, and have a length of tenure sufficient to ensure independence.
* Appoint an independent commission to investigate overall law enforcement and administration of justice under the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs, and to recommend changes in the 1976 Penal Code and in the administration of justice that will bring that administration into compliance with Bahrain's constitution and with international standards.
* Establish a public register of all detainees, in accordance with international standards, that will include names and whereabouts of those arrested, time of arrest, by which order and under what charge, to be updated on a frequent and regular basis and made available without restriction to judges, lawyers, families, and human rights organizations.
* Enact legislation that will allow victims of torture, prolonged or arbitrary detention, and other gross abuses of basic human rights, or their families,to obtain compensation from the government and from those responsible for such violations.
* Take immediate steps to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
To the government of Bahrain concerning the provision of basic political rights:
* Amend the 1976 Penal Code to eliminate or modify those articles and provisions that unduly restrict the ability of Bahraini citizens to exercise peacefully their rights to freedom of assembly, association, and expression, in particular Articles 134A, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169, 178, and 222.
* Restore the right of Bahraini citizens to participate in public affairs and governance, directly or by means of freely elected representatives, in accordance with international law and with Chapter Two of Bahrain's constitution.
* In accordance with Article 26 of the constitution, end the practice of monitoring postal, telephone, and electronic communications among persons inside Bahrain and with persons outside the country, except when subjected to the oversight of an independent judicial authority.
* End the practice of forcibly exiling Bahraini citizens and announce that Bahrainis living in exile are free to return to the country. If the authorities have reason to believe that a person returning from exile is guilty of a crime, that person may be formally charged and tried before a court of law in which he or she has full access to defense counsel and the right to call defense witnesses and to question prosecution witnesses, and to appeal the verdict to a higher judicial tribunal in accordance with the law.
* Amend the Law of Social and Cultural Societies and Clubs so as to eliminate all unreasonable obstacles to nonviolent political and trade union activity.
* Amend Amiri Decree No. 14/1979 with Respect to Publications in order to eliminate undue restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and to receive information.
* Restore civilian leadership to the Ministry of Education and Bahrain University, and restore a policy of faculty recruitment and student admissions to the university that does not discriminate against persons based on their religion or their political opinions.
* Take steps to regularize the status of Bahrain's biduun population-long-term residents without nationality-by facilitating their applications for citizenship and passports and by permitting the return to Bahrain of biduun who have been arbitrarily or summarily deported.
* Allow international and Bahraini human rights workers to exercise their rights to seek, receive, and disseminate information in Bahrain concerning the human rights situation there.
To the United States:
The high-level and long-standing political and military relationship between the U.S. and Bahraini governments presents the opportunity for the U.S. to take an overdue vocal and assertive role in addressing recurrent human rights violations in Bahrain. U.S. government officials have told Human Rights Watch that U.S. concerns in this regard are conveyed regularly to the government of Bahrain by the U.S. ambassador in Manama. If this is indeed the case, there are no signs that demarches at this level, and in this fashion, are producing any results. We therefore urge the Clinton administration, as a matter of high priority, to:
* Publicly criticize human rights abuses by the government of Bahrain that are recurrent, systematic, and matters of state policy, and discontinue the policy of public silence concerning those abuses.
* Raise the issues discussed in this report with Bahraini officials at the highest levels, and urge the government of Bahrain to take specific and measurable steps toward implementing the above recommendations.
* Instruct the embassy staff in Manama to request permission to attend trials in state security courts and to demonstrate U.S. concern about court proceedings that fall short of international fair-trial standards.
* Instruct Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Rights and Labor John Shattuck to focus more of his attention and his office's resources on the human rights problems of the Middle East, including Bahrain.
* Ensure that Bahrain's compliance with international human rights standards is on the agenda of all meetings between high-level U.S. and Bahraini officials, including meetings during visits of U.S. military and Department of Defense officials.
* Instruct the embassy staff in Manama to request the right to visit Shaikh Abd al-Amir al-Jamri, in order to demonstrate U.S. concern about the lengthy detention without charge or trial of persons for whom no evidence has been divulged that they have committed or advocated acts of violence.
* Request the embassy staff in Manama to improve its monitoring and accurate reporting of human rights in Bahrain, as reflected in the Bahrain chapter of the annual U.S. State Department Country Reports, by subjecting to greater critical scrutiny the claims of the government with regard to its policies and by assessing directly and without innuendo the accuracy of allegations of government violations made by the Bahrain Human Rights Organization and the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Bahrain.
* Make clear to the government of Bahrain, both publicly and privately, that persistent and recurrent human rights violations will affect negatively the depth and quality of relations with the United States, including military and security relations, and that improved respect for human rights will, by contrast, strengthen those relations.
* Instruct the ambassador in Manama and visiting U.S. military and diplomatic officials to raise the issue of human rights in interviews with Bahraini media.
* Urge the government of Bahrain to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture.
* Request the government of Bahrain publicly to respond positively to requests by international human rights organizations for visas to conduct research missions.
To Members of Congress:
* Schedule hearings before the House International Relations and the Senate Foreign Relations Committees in which the human rights record of the Bahraini government is explicitly on the agenda.
* Question administration officials, during hearings and briefings on Middle East and Persian Gulf developments, about human rights developments in Bahrain.
* Request the administration to assess and report publicly on steps being taken by the government of Bahrain to ensure basic civil and political rights for all Bahraini citizens.
To the United Kingdom:
The close and long-standing political and military relations between the governments of the United Kingdom and Bahrain give the United Kingdom an important role in bringing about an improvement in Bahrain's human rights record. Officials of the former Conservative Party-led government have told Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations that they regularly raise these issues with the government of Bahrain on a confidential basis. As discussed above with regard to the U.S., this form of intervention can no longer be regarded as adequate or sufficient. Human Rights Watch therefore urges the government of the United Kingdom, as a matter of priority, to:
* Publicly criticize human rights abuses by the government of Bahrain that are recurrent, systematic, and matters of state policy, and discontinue the policy of public silence concerning those abuses.
* Raise the issues discussed in this report with Bahraini officials at the highest levels and urge the government of Bahrain to take specific and measurable steps toward implementing the above recommendations.
* Instruct the U.K. embassy staff in Manama to request permission to attend trials in security courts and to demonstrate concern about court proceedings that fall short of international fair-trial standards.
* Ensure that Bahrain's compliance with international human rights standards is on the agenda of all meetings between high-level U.K. and Bahraini officials, including meetings during visits of Ministry of Defense as well as Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials to Bahrain.
* Instruct the U.K. embassy staff in Manama to request the right to visit Shaikh Abd al-Amir al-Jamri, in order to demonstrate concern about the lengthy detention without charge or trial of persons for whom no evidence has been divulged that they have committed or advocated acts of violence.
* Make clear to the government of Bahrain, both publicly and privately, that persistent and recurrent human rights violations will affect negatively the depth and quality of relations with the United Kingdom, including military and security relations, and that improved respect for human rights will, by contrast, strengthen those relations.
* Urge the government of Bahrain to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture.
* Request the government of Bahrain publicly to respond positively to requests by international human rights organizations for visas to conduct research missions.
3. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Bahrain takes its name, which means "two seas" in Arabic, from the main island of a small archipelago located in the Persian Gulf about midway along the Arabian littoral and some 25 kilometers by causeway from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The country's total area is 694 kilometers, about four times that of the District of Columbia. The main island (89 percent of this total area), along with the smaller islands of Muharraq and Sitra, account for virtually all of the population and economic activity.4
The population in 1996 was around 598,000, of which some 62 percent are Bahraini nationals and the rest workers from South Asia and other Arab countries.5 Eighty-five percent of the people live in the country's two cities, Manama and al-Muharraq, or in main towns such as Jidd Hafs, Sitra, al-Rifaa or Madinat Isa in the northern third of the country, making Bahrain one of the most highly urbanized countries in the world. Manama's expansion over the past thirty-five years has transformed many of the surrounding villages and towns into suburbs of the capital. A similar process has fused the villages of Sitra into one large town.
Bahrain has historically been a center for regional trade, and Bahrain's local population comprises several distinct elements. About 70 percent are Shi`a Muslims; most of these are the original Arab people of the islands, known as Baharna. There is also a small community descendant from Iranian Shi`a migrants.The Sunnis, approximately 30 percent of the total, include the descendants of the tribes that accompanied the Al Khalifa family conquest of the island in 1783, after nearly two centuries of Persian rule. The other components of the Sunni population are the descendants of Arabs who migrated from the Najd region of north central Arabia, also in the late 18th century, and Arabs, Iranians, Indians, and others who migrated (or in some cases returned) to Bahrain and eastern Arabia.6 These communal distinctions, and especially the relative Sunni monopolization of political power and land ownership under the ruling Al Khalifa family, have played a key role in the island's political dynamics to this day.7
Bahrain's 20th century political and socioeconomic history is dominated by two factors. The first is British rule: from 1868 until the country's formal independence in 1971, Bahrain was essentially a British protectorate. The primacy of the Al Khalifa family is one consequence, and hereditary rule by the Al Khalifa amir (prince) is now enshrined in Article 1 of the 1973 Constitution. The present amir, Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, was born in 1933 and became amir in 1961. A British Political Agent resided in Manama beginning around the turn of the century and played an increasing role in local affairs. After World War II, Britain'sPolitical Residency for the Persian Gulf region was moved to Bahrain from Bushehr (Bushire), in Iran, and the Royal Air Force base and Royal Navy facilities on the island assumed greater importance as Britain consolidated its regional forces there. A formal United States military presence in the Persian Gulf also took shape then, with the formation of a three-ship naval task force headquartered at the port of Jufair.8
The second defining element is oil. Bahrain was the site of the first commercial oil discovery in the Arabian Peninsula, in 1932. The concession was won by Caltex, a consortium of Texaco and the Standard Oil Company of California (today's Chevron) which established the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) as the local operator. Production for export began in 1933, and in 1937 BAPCO opened a large state-of-the-art oil refinery. Bahrain's oil production capacities were always quite modest compared with later finds in the region, but it was here that an oil-based political economy first developed. Oil production and refining led to the growth of ancillary industries and services, and oil revenues allowed for the creation of a modern state apparatus, including the expansion of the first secular educational system in the region. Bahrain was for several decades the main port of entry for eastern Saudi Arabia, and so benefitted from the growth of economic activity that accompanied the subsequent development of the oil industry in that country.
The growth of an administrative apparatus and economic activity powered by the presence of Western oil companies led to the recruitment of labor from outside the island. Educated white-collar workers from the Indian subcontinent, as British subjects until 1947, had an initial advantage, while Omanis, Iranians and others from the immediate environs also responded to the demand for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. More generally, the growth of Bahrain's merchant, service, industrial and administrative sectors led to the development, early compared with the rest of the region, of a relatively differentiated class structure that was reflected in political and trade-union activism to a degree not found elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula. Finally, the accrual of oil revenues, especially after the major oil companies introduced "profit-sharing" with the producing states' governments in 1950, gave the amir and his entourage a relatively rapid and great advantage ofwealth, enhancing significantly the ruling family's economic autonomy and social power vis-a-vis leading merchant families and other tribal shaikhs.
The combination of foreign (British) political rule and an expanding modern economy and state apparatus produced a political dynamic that more resembled what was happening in Egypt and Iran than elsewhere on the Arab side of the Gulf. Nationalist and pro-independence activism was accompanied by considerable underground trade union activity in sites like the BAPCO refinery, which experienced its first industrial strike in 1943. Serious episodes of political, social and labor unrest, including a dimension of communal conflict between Shi`a and Sunni, erupted on several occasions, beginning in 1953. Shi`a and Sunni community leaders subsequently banded together as the Committee of National Unity (CNU) in 1954, but secret talks between the CNU and the ruling family broke down over "the principle of elections as the legitimate basis for authority."9 The following several years saw a series of strikes and clashes over a range of local and regional issues and came to a head with the British-French-Israeli Suez invasion in late 1956. The government forcibly suppressed public manifestations of political opposition, and exiled five leaders of the CNU to the island of St. Helena. The government subsequently increased its repressive capabilities by recruiting security personnel from Iraq and elsewhere and setting up a "special branch within the police corps specializing in political affairs," under the command of a seconded British officer.10 While holding the line against structural reform, the authorities took steps to enhance their political base by decreeing improved working conditions and by conceding a dominant role in the private sector to leading merchant families. When a new wave of labor and political unrest broke out in 1965 over, among other things, the right to unionize and an end to police harassment, the authorities moved quickly to arrest the participants and once again to exile forcibly those it regarded as the leaders.11
Britain's announcement in 1968 that it would withdraw militarily from and end its direct political role in the Persian Gulf region was accompanied by efforts to forge a political federation of the small amirates it had ruled. The result was the United Arab Emirates, while Bahrain and Qatar opted for independence instead. Bahrain also had to contend with Iranian claims of sovereignty, based on its occupation of the island in the 17th and 18th centuries. A popular referendum would surely have rejected Iran's pretensions, but neither the British nor the Al Khalifa were prepared to entertain such a simple and direct means of gauging political sentiment. Iran's claims were instead neutralized by a March 1970 UN-sponsored "consultation" with, in the words of Secretary-General U Thant's special representative, "organizations and institutions in Bahrain...providing the best and fullest cross-section of opinion among the people of Bahrain."12 Bahrain became independent on August 16, 1971.
Bahrain's political history, singular in the Gulf, of mass-based movements that cut across class lines and pronounced trade-union activity, required the ruling family to replace the withdrawn colonial power with some form of local legitimacy. Amir Isa, on December 16, 1971, decreed that a national parliament would be formed and announced elections for a Constituent Assembly that would draw up a constitution for the country. The assembly, composed of twenty-two elected and eight appointed members, began its work on December 1, 1972.13 The resultingdocument, promulgated in June 1973, provided for a National Assembly of thirty elected members and up to fourteen cabinet members serving ex officio. The assembly was not authorized to initiate legislation but could question the government about existing or proposed legislation and projects.14 National elections were held on December 7, 1973, and the constitution went into effect with the first meeting of the National Assembly, on December 16, 1973.15
Political parties remained illegal, and candidates ran as independents, but three relatively distinct groupings emerged from the first campaign and functioning of the assembly: a People's Bloc of eight leftist and Arab nationalist candidates with ties to underground and transnational parties such as the Communists (the National Liberation Front) and the Arab Nationalist Movement (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Bahrain); a Religious Bloc of six, mainly teachers and religious court judges based in rural Shi`a constituencies; and an Independent Middle-sixteen in number-not bound to either of the other blocs organizationally or ideologically and representing "a varying combination of wealth, education, family preeminence, government contacts, and the ability to employ or affect the employment of people."16 The fourteen appointed cabinet members had the same rights and privileges as the elected members, which meant that the government could gain majority approval of any motion or legislation with the support of fewer than one-third of the elected members, though in practice it preferred to secure an elected majority.
Bahrain's experiment in quasi-representative political participation lasted less than two years. "Many people felt emboldened," one activist of the period told Human Rights Watch:
Women's groups were circulating petitions demanding their rights, and conservative mullahs were collecting signatures demanding gender segregation in public spaces and government institutions. Clubs were organizing classes on managing strikes and labor negotiations. From the government's perspective, the situation was getting out of hand.17
In October 1974, following a period that also saw numerous strikes at the Aluminum Bahrain (ALBA) plant, the Bahrain drydocks, Gulf Air, and many less prominent establishments, Amir Isa decreed a broadly written State Security Measures Law (generally referred to as the State Security Law) that would allow the government to arrest and imprison for up to three years without trial any person suspected of having "perpetrated acts, delivered statements, exercised activities or [...] been involved in contacts inside or outside the country, which are of a nature considered to be in violation of the internal or external security of the country...."18Many in the National Assembly demanded that it be submitted for approval or modification before implementation. The government, bearing in mind the many formal protests and petitions previously submitted requesting suspension of the 1965 Public Security Law, was unwilling to do this. In the subsequent months of behind-the-scenes bargaining, the government was unable to split the alliance of the People's Bloc, the Religious Bloc, and many of the Independent Middle on this issue. "The longer the issue persisted in public and the longer the debates continued," Khuri writes, "the weaker the government's position became."19 In May 1975, the government unilaterally withdrew from a session scheduled to discuss the measures. In August 1975, when it appeared that the summer recess had not changed the dynamics, the government dissolved the National Assembly.20 When Minister of Information Muhammad Ibrahim al-Mutawa'a was asked in early 1996 why the National Assembly had been disbanded, he replied that it had"hindered the government," and that it would be restored "[o]nce we feel that we need it, when it is suitable for our society and development."21
In March 1976, in the spirit of the State Security Measures Law, the government replaced the penal code of 1955 and separately decreed what has come to be known as the State Security Court to try those accused of violating those articles relating to internal and external security.22 The government also followed its dissolution of the National Assembly with a wave of arrests, detentions without trial, and forced exile that by the end of the decade had crippled the leftist and secular nationalist opposition. This opposition, with its base in the trade union movement, was also undermined in the 1980s by socioeconomic changes that included a shift from manufacturing to services, in particular offshore banking and tourism, and a great increase in the numbers and proportion of foreign workers.23
The 1978-79 revolution in Iran, meanwhile, mobilized a different sort of opposition, one rooted in the majority Shi`a community which expressed itself in religious language and responded enthusiastically to the Ayatollah Khomeini'sidentification of Shi`a populations as among the dispossessed of the earth. The early demands of this opposition to establish an Islamic republic alienated leftist and nationalist opposition elements among the Sunnis and many secularist Shi`a as well. This specifically Shi`a opposition manifested itself in specific organizational forms, notably the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, but also in a more generalized sense of a community with multiple grievances against a government that it perceived as having a strong sectarian animus with regard to their well-being and empowerment. In December 1981, the government arrested some seventy-three persons, mostly Bahrainis but including several Shi`a from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region, on charges of plotting, with assistance from Iran, to overthrow the state.24 Following several months of incommunicado detention and alleged torture, and amendments to key security clauses of the 1976 Penal Code that retroactively permitted the government to try all of the accused before the State Security Court, the defendants went on trial in March 1982; in May three were sentenced to life in prison, fifty-nine received sentences of fifteen years, and ten were sentenced to seven years.25
Over subsequent years the government continued to imprison and exile opposition activists, religious and leftist alike. Many Bahrainis who went abroad to study became engaged in Bahraini and pan-Arab organizations that the government regarded as hostile, and were subsequently refused permission to re-enter the country. The Al Khalifa family continued to monopolize political power; the cabinet or council of ministers selected by Amir Isa in 1971 included seven members of the Al Khalifa family. While there have been occasional resignations of individual ministers over the intervening two decades, June 1995 was the first time since independence in 1971 that the prime minister and the full cabinetresigned. In the new cabinet, however, the premiership and the major portfolios remained in the hands of the same members of the ruling family.
4. ORIGINS OF THE PRESENT CRISIS
In the period immediately after the Gulf War, many Bahrainis discerned an opportunity to press for political liberalization. In discussions with Human Rights Watch, a number of Bahraini reform activists cited as inspiration the broad movement among Kuwaitis to demand political reforms, including elections and the reestablishment of the parliament disbanded there in 1986. Even in Saudi Arabia, petitions to the royal family from liberals and Islamists alike demanded political accountability and an end to corruption. Outside the region, the demise of the Soviet Union removed a longstanding anti-communist rationale for repressive policies. A related external development was the prominence of "democratization" as a policy theme among Western governments, notably the United States, and U.S. pressures on the Kuwaiti ruling family-though decidedly not on their Saudi or Bahraini counterparts-to countenance elections and to halt egregious civil rights abuses. In the words of one reformist lawyer:
[Bahrain's] 1973 constitution represented a compromise, a contract. It legitimizes the Al Khalifa as the ruling family. There were long discussions in the Constituent Assembly. The conservatives wanted any National Assembly to be appointed. The liberals wanted all the members to be elected. What we produced was a reasonable compromise. Ideal, in fact. It placed restrictions on the amir while preserving many of his prerogatives. It fit perfectly the Bahrain mix.26
While hostile to those citizens campaigning for political reforms, the Al Khalifas appreciated the need for gestures that would counter the erosion of legitimacy visited on the Gulf ruling families by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and all that followed. In April 1992, for instance, the government informally sent outword that some 120 Bahrainis living in exile would be allowed to return.27 The next month, on the occasion of Id al-Fitr, a holiday when Muslim rulers customarily issue pardons or reduce sentences, Amir Isa pardoned a number of prisoners, although it is not known if these pardons included persons jailed for political offenses. In May 1992 the government reportedly took steps, despite its own budgetary difficulties, to increase housing and utility subsidies as a move to address the growing complaints of the mostly Shi`a poor.
The Petition Campaign
The government's gestures stopped well short of any endorsement of political reform that would compromise the ruling family's absolute authority. Precisely such reforms and compromises, however, comprised the agendas of the country's political intelligentsia, particularly the issue of how to build momentum toward restoration of the National Assembly and parliamentary elections. Beginning in the early months of 1991, these themes were discussed in regular informal meetings in people's houses, since public gatherings to discuss politics were outlawed. "I was among fifteen or so persons who gathered together to discuss how to reactivate the constitution," one professional told Human Rights Watch. "Some of these meetings were at my home. Many people started to come."28 "Concentric discussion circles" was how another participant characterized the process. "Out of those discussions we set up a committee structure to move things ahead more effectively."29
A formal petition was drawn up by late October 1992. After an initial signing at the home of Ali Rabi`a, a prominent leftist and former elected member of the National Assembly, it was circulated privately and soon secured more than 280 signatures of merchants, lawyers, writers, and other professionals, including several former elected members of parliament. "It was pretty much restricted to theintelligentsia," one of those involved told Human Rights Watch, "but at that level most sectors were engaged." The petition, about two pages long, praised the amir's "pioneering" role in promulgating the 1973 constitution and requested that he "issue orders for election of the National Assembly as outlined by section two of chapter four of the constitution."30 "We paid our full respects to the amir," one participant told Human Rights Watch. "We are not a very aggressive opposition."31
The government's response was ambivalent. Initially the government moved to preempt and coopt those demanding restoration of the National Assembly by appointing a thirty-person Consultative Council, or Shura Council, whose main function would be to "comment" on legislation proposed by the government-appointed cabinet. "The shura proposal was 95 percent made-in-Saudi Arabia," one Bahraini businessman-reformer told Human Rights Watch. "Even those cabinet ministers who were not Al Khalifa were very surprised when it was announced."32 The November 1992 petition concluded by acknowledging the ruler's right to establish such a body, but declared that it "does not replace the national assembly as a constitutional and legislative authority."33
Some of those involved in the petition campaign had considered it imperative to present the petition to the amir before the expected proclamation of the Shura Council, while others counseled a more patient approach in which "acceptable liberals" rather than high-profile long-time critics would take the lead. In the end, those favoring a preemptive approach carried the day. On November 15, 1992, a six-member delegation comprising three Sunni and three Shi`a leaders-conservative Shi`a jurist and community leader Shaikh Abd al-Amir al-Jamri; Abd al-Wahab Hussain Ali, a teacher and leading Shi`a activist; Shaikh Abd al-Latif al-Mahmud, a leading Sunni reformist theologian; Muhammad Jabr al-Sabah, a former member of parliament; Shaikh Isa al-Jawdar, a prominent conservative Sunni personality; and Hamid Sanghur, a prominent Shi`a lawyer-met with Amir Isa. Of these, only Sanghur, a former head of the Bahrain Bar Association and since deceased, was not associated with dissenting politicalforces. Their reception, it seems, was frosty, and the meeting was brief. "The amir told us he was about to initiate the Shura Council and that was all we could expect," one of those involved in the campaign told Human Rights Watch.34 "Despite several calls we made to the Amiri Court over many months, we never got an official response," said another.35 This was one of the only times that the ruler met with a delegation that included both Shi`a and Sunni figures. In subsequent requests by citizens for meetings, the amir has reportedly insisted on meeting separately with Sunni and Shi`a delegations. Critics say that this is one way in which the government exacerbates communal divisions.
On December 16, 1992, Bahrain's national day, Amir Isa announced the appointed Shura Council, which held its first meeting in January 1993. The thirty council members, appointed for a term of four years, were mostly businessmen, but the group included lawyers and judges as well as several ex-members of the dissolved National Assembly. The first chair was Minister of Transport Ibrahim Humaydan. All council meetings are closed to the public and no transcripts are made available. The amir, in a November 1993 interview, characterized the council as a forum for "serious discussion." Its activities, he said, were "distinguished by civilized debate, best reflected in a democratic dialogue...and in mutual understanding between the government and the council."36 Among the dozens of interviews that Human Rights Watch conducted among Bahraini business and professional people, however, not one person considered the Consultative Council to represent a serious or sincere gesture of reform. Most Bahrainis who spoke with Human Rights Watch, including one former cabinet member, said that even the cabinet itself was no longer the site of useful policy discussion, and in recent years assembled only to rubber-stamp the decisions of Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the brother of the amir, and to hear from a small number of other influential officials, most notably Minister of Interior Muhammad bin KhalifaAl Khalifa, a first cousin of the amir. This skeptical Bahraini view of the Shura Council stands in contrast to much more positive assessments, both public and private, by Bahrain's allies, notably the United States government.37
In 1993-1994, as the political crisis continued to simmer, Bahrain's economy remained stagnant. The economic downturn in the region generally, and in Saudi Arabia in particular, reduced overall economic activity and cash transfers to Bahrain from wealthier neighbor governments. In real terms the country's gross domestic product contracted by 1.8 percent in 1994, and another one percent in 1995.38 Official unemployment climbed to 15 percent overall, and was estimated to be twice that rate among young men in Shi`a communities, as the growth in the number of jobs failed to keep pace with the growth of the labor force.39 Growth in employment of non-Bahrainis continued to exceed that of Bahrainis, despite government promises to restrict the number of new work permits.40
Several of those in the reformist camp told Human Rights Watch that they continued to be in contact with high-level government officials during this period. The prime minister, for example, conducted regular Wednesday evening informal gatherings-sometimes inviting bankers and economists, for instance, or on another occasion lawyers and judges-to which government critics were occasionally invited as well.
Demonstrations
In 1994, economic and political discontent moved from the living rooms and offices of the elite to the streets. In mid-January 1994, security forces forcibly dispersed a memorial service at Mu'min mosque, in central Manama, commemorating the fortieth day since the death of Sayyid Mohammed Reza Golpayegani, a leading Iranian Shi`a jurist and at the time one of Shi`ism's five "great ayatollahs."41 One of those scheduled to speak at the service was Shaikh Ali Salman, a young Bahraini cleric who had studied in Qom. Salman told Human Rights Watch that Bahraini authorities typically required official authorization for events of this sort, but that just as typically permission was not sought and that enforcement was erratic. On this occasion, up to a thousand persons gathered on the evening of January 19. According to Salman, no one considered it especially unusual or ominous that security forces had surrounded the mosque.42 What followed, however, was a confrontation unusual for its violence. One young man who had attended told Human Rights Watch that about one hour after the service started, following Salman's remarks, the security forces announced over loudspeakers that everyone had to leave within the next five minutes.
But before the five minutes were up, they shot a tear gas canister into the mosque. Then they threw in a lot of tear gas. People panicked. Shaikh Ali had urged us not to go outside, not to push the government. But because of the gas we had to get out. When we went outside, we threw stones at the police, and they shot tear gas back at us. Cars followed us out of Manama. Maybe two dozen people were arrested.43
According to a brief Reuter account based on interviews after the event with eyewitnesses, "at some stage the security forces fired numerous rounds of tear gas into the open area outside the mosque building," arrested about two dozen people, and subsequently sealed the area and shut the mosque.44
Several persons recalled to Human Rights Watch that 1994 was characterized by "an overbearing sense of stagnation" that was economic as well as political. Ministers spoke of "greater economic opportunities," but unemployment continued to worsen. That summer witnessed several large demonstrations of young men at the Ministry of Labor, in Isa Town. The first, on June 29, ended "amicably" when the 200 or so youths present were told to return on July 2 to register as job-seekers. When 1,500 showed up and tried to organize a sit-in, riot police were called in and tear gas was used to disperse the crowd. The similar sequence occurred on August 31 and September 3.45 Several arrests were made, including Shaikh Ali Salman, who told Human Rights Watch that he had been involved in organizing the demonstrations. He was detained and questioned by security forces for a day and had his passport confiscated.46
Political frustrations were also mounting, as the campaign to restore the parliament encountered continued government intransigence. Some of the organizers of the 1992 petition effort initiated a second, "popular" version. which retained the focus of the first but spoke more critically of the economic crisis and of "laws which were enacted during the absence of the parliament which restrict the freedom of citizens and contradict the Constitution."47 The second petition alsocalled for "the involvement of women in the democratic process." Munira Fakhro, a professor of sociology at the University of Bahrain and one of the country's most prominent women professionals, was among the fourteen original signatories.48 Within a month, the organizers claimed, between 20,000 and 25,000 signatures had been gathered. But whereas the signatories to the first petition were more or less evenly divided between Sunni and Shi`a, the tens of thousands of signatories to the "popular petition" were overwhelmingly Shi`a, reflecting the strong sense of oppression and alienation felt by many Bahraini Shi`a and the active role of young Shi`a clerics, including Ali Salman, in promoting the campaign in sermons and in meetings in various ma'tams.49 Many of those associated with the first petition also endorsed the second, although some considered it a strategic error to take the campaign for political reform to the street, thereby allowing the regime to portray it as a sectarian movement pitting Shi`a against Sunni, and to invoke in the process a "foreign threat"-i.e., Iranian support for opposition activity by Bahrain's Shi`a majority.
On November 25, 1994, a confrontation occurred around a marathon relay race involving Bahrainis and Western expatriates alike that was a vehicle for raising funds for charities. On this occasion, the route of the race ran through several Shi`a villages in the vicinity of the capital.50 A group of Shi`a young menorganized a protest, reportedly citing the participation of some Western women in running attire, which they considered to be an affront to local mores. The demonstrators held up protest signs, shouted slogans, and reportedly threw stones at the runners. According to Shaikh Ali Salman, whom the government later accused of fomenting the confrontation:
About a hundred youths went out for an hour to protest. They took banners to protest the race. They were dispersed about 1:30 p.m. The government says the youths threw stones. Maybe, but not enough to keep the marathon from proceeding to the Diplomat Hotel back in Manama, where it ended around 5 p.m.51
According to Salman, some twenty young men were arrested that night; about ten were released about two weeks later, but nine were still in detention in mid-1996, nearly a year and a half later.52 Salman was himself arrested on December 5, l994, at his home in Bilad al-Qadim, allegedly for inciting the marathon incident and then organizing protests against the arrests that followed.
The arrest and detention of Ali Salman sparked fierce protests and street clashes throughout the heavily-populated environs of Manama and Sitra in December 1994 and January 1995. According to the Ministry of Interior, which generally played down the extent of the disturbances in the period leading up to the mid-December Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) ministerial conference, demonstrations occurred practically on a daily basis.53 As clashes escalated, some demonstrations involved attacks with crude petrol bombs on police stations, banks and commercial properties. On December 12, security forces sealed off the neighborhoods of Bilad al-Qadim and al-Mukharga. Security forces employedrubber bullets as well as tear gas canisters fired at street level and from helicopters.54 In Sanabis, use of live ammunition by security forces was apparently responsible for the deaths of Hani Abbas Khamis and Hani Ahmad al-Wasti. During December another civilian and one policeman were also killed. The U.S. Embassy estimated that by the end of December the authorities had detained between 500 and 600 persons, and several hundred more in January.55 In addition to those rounded up in the street, scores more were seized by security forces in raids on homes in Diraz, Sitra, Sanabis, Jidd Hafs, Da`ir and elsewhere.
In a December 1994 meeting with a group of four Shi`a community leaders seeking Salman's release, the minister of interior asserted that the government had confessions and incriminating documents that confirmed Salman's instigatory role in the political turbulence. According to one participant, the minister of interior told the group that the government would not free Salman but would put him on trial and prove the charges.56 On January 15, 1995, however, the government announced it had that day forcibly exiled a group of "infiltrators whowere inciting sabotage."57 These were Salman and two other young clerics, Shaikh Hamza al-Dairi and Shaikh Haidar al-Sitri, who had been arrested in late December. Shaikh Adil al-Shu'la, age twenty-eight, was arrested on January 7, 1995, and forcibly exiled to Syria on January 18. According to Amnesty International, Shaikh Muhammad Kojestah and two other persons were also forcibly exiled in January 1995.
The Government's Response
December 1994 saw the outbreak of protracted social unrest that, with some lapses, is now in its third year. In the months following December 1994 there were continued street protests, further arrests, and several government announcements of prisoner releases. In late February 1995, the prime minister stated that 300 persons remained in detention in connection with the unrest, while Reuter cited local resident estimates of around 2,000.58 In March and April the number of incidents and arrests climbed again, and there were additional fatalities. While some of those arrested were picked up for specific offenses involving violence or vandalism, and some for nonviolent activities such as distributing leaflets, writing graffiti or publicly urging the government to negotiate with the opposition, many arrests were indiscriminate and many of those detained were never formally charged.
Among those held without charges were the most politically prominent detainees, such as Shaikh Abd al-Amir al-Jamri, an elected member of the dissolved National Assembly and the informal head of the most broadly based opposition grouping, the Bahrain Islamic Freedom Movement.59 He was detained on April 1, 1995, along with several other Shi`a community leaders, including Abd al-Wahab Hussain, Hasan Mushaima, and Shaikh Khalil Sultan. "We were notsurprised when they took us," Shaikh Khalil told Human Rights Watch. "We knew they were recording our sermons."60 At no point in the ensuing five months of captivity were any of the detained community leaders charged with a crime.61
Very soon, though, the authorities engaged them in jailhouse negotiations. "The negotiations started sometime in May," Shaikh Khalil told Human Rights Watch, "and later that month they agreed to put us together in the same mukhabarat [intelligence services] prison." According to Shaikh Khalil, between May and August there were about twenty meetings of an hour or two each with Ian Henderson, director of the government's security and investigative directorates, or one of his deputies, Adil Flaifil, and several meetings with the minister of interior.62 "They were very inconsistent," Shaikh Khalil told Human Rights Watch. "First they'd assert that our arrest had calmed things down, then they'd say we would have to promise to calm things down in order to get out. They kept insisting we were `nobodies,' and so they were reluctant to acknowledge that we could calm things down." In mid-August, according to Shaikh Khalil and other opposition sources, an understanding seemed to have been reached whereby the opposition would cease street protests, and the government would take steps toward satisfying the demands to reinstate the constitution and restore the national assembly, release political prisoners, and allow exiles to return. At the government's insistence, though, according to Shaikh Khalil, nothing was committed to paper, andindependent opposition figures subsequently told Human Rights Watch that the government in fact did not go beyond promising to "look into" these demands. Shaikh Khalil and Hasan Mushaima were released then on the understanding that they would travel to Damascus and London to persuade exiled regime opponents to end their activities. Abd al-Wahab Hussain was released on September 9, and Shaikh al-Jamri on September 26. There were also releases of persons rounded up in arrest sweeps at various points over the previous nine months.63
Street protests diminished for a time, but the regime's opponents soon charged that the government was not acting in good faith. The government denied that there had been any understanding, and the situation quickly deteriorated. By December, after the High Court of Appeal upheld the death sentence against a man convicted of killing a security officer, street protests and widespread arrests resumed.64 Shaikh al-Jamri and other Shi`a leaders, in their sermons, resumed criticism of the government for "provocative moves" and renewed calls for elections and release of prisoners, and mosques again were the sites of frequent clashes with security forces.A percussion bomb explosion in a shopping mall on December 31 and an explosion caused by a small bomb in a restroom of the Meridian Hotel on January 17, 1996, during a conference of oil industry executives, triggered more arrests and clashes.65 Shaikh al-Jamri and others were summoned to the Ministry of Interior regarding their speeches and public remarks. On January 23 the Ministry confirmed that al-Jamri, Abd al-Wahab Hussain, and others were under arrest.66 A government official asserted, "There is proof,evidence, and documents supported by pictures which prove the group's involvement in the incidents and would be submitted to the legal authorities."67
As of May 1997, some sixteen months later, no charges had been filed against al-Jamri and his colleagues, and they have reportedly been allowed three brief visits by family members. In January 1996, there were signs that the government might declare martial law and employ the 8,000-man regular army-the Bahrain Defense Force, or BDF-alongside the roughly 11,000-strong Public Security Force.68 To date, however, combating the internal unrest haslargely remained the task of the foreign-staffed security forces working under the Ministry of Interior and Director of Public Security Henderson.69
In the months that followed there were further bombings involving small, home-made devices, including a February 11 blast at the Diplomat Hotel that injured three people, a bombing of the car of the chief editor of Al-Ayam, a pro-government daily, in which no one was injured, and a blast at a branch of the National Bank that injured two persons and killed one, allegedly the perpetrator of the attack. In early March, a restaurant in Sitra frequented by Bangladeshi workers was firebombed and seven workers killed, bringing the number of fatalities since the unrest began in December 1994 to twenty-four, including three police and several confirmed cases of deaths in detention, reportedly as a result of torture and severe beatings.70
The government had been making liberal use of the security court to try hundreds of persons arrested in connection with the unrest. In the case of Isa Qambar, however, a twenty-nine-year-old accused of killing a policeman in March 1995, lawyers successfully petitioned the High Court of Appeal to rule, in May1995, that, as the security court, it did not have jurisdiction, and that the case should be tried in a criminal court. Qambar was convicted in criminal court, and his death sentence was subsequently upheld on appeal.71 The government, however, was evidently concerned that this might set an unwelcome precedent and compel it to prosecute other destruction of property and bodily harm cases in the criminal court, with its higher standards of evidence and more substantial adversarial procedure.72 On March 19, 1996, the government by decree transferred jurisdiction over some fourteen additional articles of the penal code from the criminal courts to the State Security Court.73 The additional offenses that can now be prosecuted in the security court include arson and use of fires or explosives (Articles 277 -281), and assaults or threats "against a civil servant or officer entrusted with a public service" (Article 220), or "against another in any manner, even though without having the intent of killing the victim, if the assault leads to death of the victim" (Article 336). Also in early 1996 the government quietly expanded the security court from one chamber to three chambers in order to cope with the increased number of arrests (see below). Over the following ten months, more than 180 persons were convicted under the state security process, compared with one estimate of fewer than fifty in 1995.74 This period also saw increased detention of women and children.75
In June 1995, the government announced changes in some cabinet positions. Key portfolios-prime minister, deputy prime minister, foreign affairs, defense, interior, justice and Islamic Affairs- remained unchanged in Al Khalifa hands. The appointment of Abd al-Nabi Shu`ala, a Shi`a businessman, as minister of labor and social affairs was hailed by some Western diplomats as a sign that the government was intent on addressing the unemployment and social welfare issues that were contributing to the unrest.76 Bahraini critics, on the other hand, pointed to the replacement of Ali Fakhro, a reformist technocrat, as minister of education by General Abd al-Aziz al-Fadhil, formerly in charge of training for the BDF, as indicating that increased repression rather than liberal reform was behind the changes. Al-Fadhil quickly replaced Dr. Ibrahim al-Hashimi as president of the university with Colonel Muhammad Jasim al-Ghatam, a former BDF officer. Faculty members and respected Bahraini Shi`a professionals interviewed by Human Rights Watch have confirmed charges by opposition groups of increased discrimination against Shi`a applicants to the university and the dismissal of many Shi`a from senior positions.77
The problem of discrimination against Shi`a appears to be worsening. One Bahraini Shi`a told Human Rights Watch that he and a coworker had been dismissed from their jobs at an airlines sales office, located at the main airport, after their airport access passes were confiscated in August 1995. When the office manager contacted the authorities to look into the problem, he was reportedly told that "we don't want these kind of people working at the airport."78 Human Rights Watch has also received numerous unconfirmed reports of new hiring and firing policies designed to reduce the number of Shi`a in ministries and state companies formerly considered to be Shi`a employment redoubts, such as the Ministry of Electricity and Public Works and BATELCO, the state telecommunications company.79
In early June 1996, the government announced that it had uncovered an Iranian-sponsored network which it called the "military wing of Hizb AllahBahrain" and which it held responsible for the unrest since December 1994.80 On June 5, 1996, the authorities broadcast live on television the confessions of several of the alleged ringleaders.81 The government claimed to have secured confessions from twenty-nine persons detained earlier, and within several days announced that the number detained in connection with the alleged plot had risen to fifty-six. The government also claimed that the confessions implicated Shaikh Abd al-Amir as sanctioning the plan, and named several prominent exile opposition activists as co-conspirators, including Mansur al-Jamri and Sa`id al-Shihabi, with the Bahrain Freedom Movement in London, and Shaikh Khalil Sultan in Beirut. On March 1, 1997, security court hearings began for fifty-nine of the accused in custody and for twenty-two in absentia.82 On March 26, 1997, in the first rulings in the case, a security court sentenced Ali al-Mutqawi to fifteen years, Jasim al-Khayyat totwelve years, and fourteen others to terms ranging from three to eight years. Eleven defendants were acquitted. Al-Mutqawi and al-Khayyat also were ordered to pay fines of more than $18,000 and $13,000, respectively. On March 29, twenty additional persons received sentences of up to seven years, and twelve were acquitted.83
In late 1996, the government announced that it had reached an agreement with the International Committee of the Red Cross allowing the ICRC access to Bahraini prisons and prisoners. An ICRC representative was in the country in late 1996 and early 1997, but, in keeping with ICRC policy, no findings have been announced or released.
5. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
In terms of the number of persons affected, the human rights situation in Bahrain has deteriorated since the early 1990s, and particularly with the escalation of social and political unrest since late 1994. The pattern of violations and the categories of abuse, however, are consistent with policies and practices that extend back at least to the 1975 decision of the ruling family to abrogate those portions of the constitution relating to the National Assembly and elections. Many of these practices, furthermore, derive from the policies used by Great Britain prior to Bahrain's independence in 1971.
Human rights abuses in Bahrain can be divided into two basic categories. The first relates broadly to law enforcement and administration of justice issues. These encompass the behavior of police and security forces in arrest and detention; legal and institutional protections against arbitrary detention and against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; access to legal counsel and to family visits; right to a swift and impartial trial; and the meaningful right to appeal a conviction to a higher judicial authority.84 While any apprehended persons-citizen or foreign worker, Sunni or Shi`a-can be subjected to these abuses, the most serious and far-reaching violations affect persons accused of political and security-related offenses. In the decade after the abrogation of the constitution, and earlier under British rule, such abuses were mainly directed against persons connected with organized leftist and nationalist opposition groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Bahrain (PF) and the National Liberation Front (NLF). Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, and especially in the period since 1994, the victims have been mainly Shi`a Bahrainis, whether part of an organization such as the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain (IFLB) or as part of a larger, more diffuse politically disaffected community.
The second area of human rights violations relates to the broad denial of such civil and political rights as freedom of expression, freedom of association and assembly, and the right to participate in the conduct of public affairs, directly orthrough freely chosen representatives.85 All Bahrainis, Sunni and Shi`a alike, risk search and seizure, incarceration without charge or trial, and in some cases forced expulsion for speaking out publicly in a manner that the government regards as hostile or critical. Radio and television media is controlled by the state, and the print media exercises stringent self-censorship. Distribution or possession of unauthorized publications or leaflets constitutes grounds for detention. Bahrainis have been fired from their jobs and blacklisted from other employment for signing public petitions. Political parties and organizations, and independent trade unions, are forbidden. Public meetings and gatherings must be authorized by the authorities, and in practice they are not. Religious gatherings which, in the view of the government, raise political demands are routinely disrupted or prevented from occurring. Public advocacy of restoring Bahrain's partially elected National Assembly, in accordance with the constitution of 1973, is considered by the government to be a hostile act and grounds for detention without charge or trial under the State Security Measures Law of 1974 (see above). It is the government's systematic violation of these fundamental freedoms and political rights that has contributed to the conditions of confrontation in Bahrain today.
Violations of Due Process Rights
Bahrain's Courts and Legal System
Bahrain's legal system draws on a combination of customary tribal law (urf), three distinct schools of Islamic law (shari`a), and modern law, which was developed through 1971 largely by British colonial administrators and legal advisers and since then with the assistance of Egyptian advisers.86 Shari`a courts have jurisdiction primarily over matters of personal status, such as marriage and inheritance. The civil court system, which is the concern of this report, comprises courts of first instance, with separate civil and criminal sections, and the High Court of Appeal.87 The High Court of Appeal, in addition, sits as the special court established by decree pursuant to Article 185 of the 1976 Penal Code, with jurisdiction over persons prosecuted under the internal and external securityprovisions of the code.88 The High Court of Appeal separately also sits as the venue for hearing complaints by persons detained without charge under the 1974 State Security Measures Law.89
Bahrain's constitution of 1973 characterizes the judiciary as a separate branch of the government. In practice, however, this independence is nominal. Abdallah bin Khalid Al Khalifa, the minister of justice and Islamic affairs, is responsible to the prime minister and brother of the amir, and is himself a member of the ruling family. The High Court of Appeal, which also sits as the State Security Court, includes two members of the ruling family, one of whom, Shaikh Abd al-Rahman bin Jabir Al Khalifa, is president of the court.90 The office of public prosecutor, moreover, is attached to the Ministry of Interior, under Muhammad bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, a first cousin of the amir, and is thus institutionally linked to the state's security and intelligence services rather than to its judiciary. The Ministry of Interior is integrally involved in virtually every aspect of the judicial system and legal proceedings: as noted below, for example, sessions with the investigating judge take place in the Interior Ministry complex, and on those occasions when a medical specialist is assigned to review allegations of torture, that person is selected by the Interior Ministry and is generally the forensic medical officer of the Criminal Investigations Directorate.
The constitution endorses a wide range of civil and political rights and procedural guarantees.91 Some of these, such as guarantees against torture and forcible exile, are stated categorically, and actions of the authorities which violate these protections clearly violate Bahrain's constitution as well as international standards. Other guarantees, such as freedom of speech, are qualified by formulations such as "in accordance with the conditions and procedures specified by the law." Article 19 (b), for instance, states, "No person shall be arrested, detained, imprisoned [or] searched...except in accordance with the law and under the supervision of the judicial authorities." According to Article 20 (c), "An accused person shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a legal trial in which the necessary guarantees for the exercise of his right of defense in all stages of investigation and trial are ensured in accordance with the law."92
Most state constitutions have provisions that entrust to "the law" the regulation or expansion of basic constitutional protections. Laws that fail to do this are in violation of the constitution. Bahraini law, as embodied in the Penal Code of 1976 and other decrees discussed below, in many instances itself permits official behavior that contravenes the constitution and international standards. In Bahrain, moreover, the government has failed to comply with Article 103 of the constitution, which provides for a judicial body with the authority to review the constitutionality of laws and decrees.93
Among these laws are the State Security Measures Law of 1974, the state security court decree of 1976, and subsequent expansions and enlargements of the jurisdiction of these measures and this court. Consider, for instance, the State Security Measures Law, the decree which prompted the confrontation that led the ruling family in 1975 to dissolve the National Assembly and abrogate those articlesof the constitution pertaining to national elections (see above). This is a broadly written statute that authorizes search, seizure and up to three years of detention without charge or trial of any person against whom there is "serious evidence"-with no elaboration of what might comprise "serious evidence"-of "activities," "statements," or "contacts inside or outside the country,"
which are of a nature considered to be in violation of the internal or external security of the country, the religious or national interests of the State, its social or economic system; or considered to be an act of sedition that affects or can possibly affect the existing relations between the people and Government, between the various institutions of the State, between the classes of people....
The government of Bahrain denies that its policies and practices are in violation of international human rights standards. An April 1995 official response to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights dismissed the Bahrain Human Rights Organization as "Hizbolla" and asserted:
it is routine for such organizations to falsely allege torture, mistreatment, arbitrary arrest etc at the hands of the legitimate authorities whom they seek to discredit and to disseminate such falsehoods into the Human Rights Movement as a means of seeking international legitimacy for their patently unlawful cause...
...Human Rights are the cornerstone of Government Policies. Accordingly the Government has made every effort over the years to ensure that those policies are implemented throughout the Community and this is reflected in Bahrain's cultural traditions, strong constitution and extensive body of sophisticated Laws in which the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual are codified and protected in accordance with the universally recognized Human Rights principles of the United Nations.
....In the face of any threat to those fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms the Government of Bahrain will in application ofthe principles of Article 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and within the meaning of Article 5(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights unhesitatingly act by whatever lawful means are at its disposal to protect the Bahrain Community, defend the Constitution, uphold the Rule of Law and ensure universal respect for Human Rights.94
Violations by Security Forces in the Process of Arrest
In response to the protracted unrest since December 1994, the government has detained thousands of persons and sentenced hundreds to jail terms and substantial fines. Some portion of those detained were rounded up during street confrontations with security forces, particularly in the early months of the uprising. More typically, however, security forces entered villages and neighborhoods, often in the aftermath of street clashes, seeking to arrest persons by name or en masse.95
These arrests generally took the form of house raids around or just after midnight. Hussain, a nineteen year old from Shahraqan, a town of about 200 families west of Manama, had been a student in Qom, Iran, and returned to Bahrainat the beginning of 1995. "I had been home about six months," he told Human Rights Watch.
I was asleep at home. It was about 2:30 in the morning. We're not in the habit of locking our doors. I was wakened with a gun barrel in my back and pulled out of bed by my hair. There were about seven men in the room, and they punched and kicked me for about fifteen minutes. Two of them, including the officer, were Bahrainis. The soldiers were Pakistani. They ransacked the house. The Bahrainis were shouting that they came to find the paint for making graffiti and if they didn't find what they were looking for they would fuck my sisters. "We will break your Shi`a heads," they said. They sat me on the floor. Three of them had guns pointed at me, and they kicked me. Then I was handcuffed and brought downstairs, where there were about four vans and more soldiers. They hit me with gun butts as they took me to a car, and some were firing rubber bullets at the windows of houses close to ours. I asked if they had a warrant. "You're not worth a warrant," they said. I was taken to Qal'a [the Fort, referring to the central jail in Manama, attached to the Ministry of Interior], blindfolded, on the floor of the car, their feet on me..96
Akil, a seventeen year old from Barbar, told Human Rights Watch that the first time the security forces came to his house, in December 1994, he was not there:
So I went to the police station myself. They had rounded up about forty people, looking for people responsible for killing a policeman. They only kept me one day.
The second time was in March 1995. We were leaving Shaikh Abd al-Aziz school, which is near the interrogation headquarters. I was released the morning of the second day. The headmaster phoned twelve of us at home and told us not to come back to school.
The next month, on April 6 [1995], the security forces broke into my house about midnight and took me and about ten others from the village. They beat me inside the house and threw me in a jeep and took me to al-Khamis station. They left us standing all night, and would come by every now and then to hit us. They pulled our T-shirts up over our heads to serve as blindfolds. Someone had been arrested that afternoon in Barbar and they found a can of petrol. That seems to be what prompted our roundup.97
Akil was arrested again in early January 1996 during a demonstration (see below), and was subsequently picked up a fifth time in a dragnet. He fled Bahrain in early March 1996.
The pattern of breaking into a suspect's home in the middle of the night to make an arrest extends to cases of detained community leaders and persons accused of instigating the unrest. In the case of Shaikh Ali Salman, for instance:
They came around 2 a.m. that Thursday morning, from the Special Branch. Ten of them came in and searched my room, and took books and cassettes. They found an early draft of the petition. In the prison the next morning they handcuffed me to a chair, blindfolded, facing a wall. They questioned me about the petition and they accused me of instigating the marathon incident.98
Shaikh Khalil Sultan told Human Rights Watch that the authorities came for him around midnight, in early April 1995:
Three cars of soldiers and one with mukhabarat came for me. They searched the house for half an hour, then took me in the mukhabarat car, blindfolded, my hands tied tightly behind me with plastic rope that cut the skin badly, to the Ministry of Interior complex at Qal'a. They untied my hands and put me in a room. After half an hour, Adil Flaifil came in, very angry, and tells me they have arrested Shaikh Jamri and the others as well. He has a small gun in his hand, and he hit me with it several times on the head and in my face. That's all. I was kept in a waiting room there for a week, with many others, but we weren't allowed to talk with one another. Then they moved us to a part of the ASRY [Arab Ship Repair Yard], at the tip of Muharraq island, where the Ministry of Interior has some prison space, and brought us back to Qal'a regularly for interrogation about some vague and fantastic plots to "hit" the airport and other installations.99
One activist in the petition campaign was seized in April 1996 on suspicion of having arranged meetings for a BBC reporter with other critics of the government. "They came to my house about 11:30 at night," he told Human Rights Watch:
My wife woke me up. There were Colonel al-Wazzan and Colonel al-Uraifi standing in front of me. They'd surrounded [my town] and there were about twelve jeeps in front of my house. They searched the house. They took me with them back to my office and searched there too. They had closed off all the roads around the office.
It was similar when they arrested me in 1990. They attacked my home at about 4:30 in the morning. They took me to my office, a different one then, and searched that, too. I asked if they had a warrant. "You can see it in al-Qal'a," they said. I never did see one.100
Human Rights Watch also spoke with a number of Bahraini lawyers active in defending political prisoners, who without exception confirmed this pattern of post-midnight searches and seizures. "The law on this point is fine," one lawyer told Human Rights Watch. "The Criminal Procedure Code of 1966 says warrants are needed for search and seizure, and police must be accompanied by two witnesses. But almost all the cases I see involve warrantless home raids in the very early hours of the morning."101 According to another defense lawyer:
Virtually all those who are arrested for political reasons-those who end up in the state security court or administrative detention or exile, whether it's for giving a sermon or distributing leaflets or throwing a Molotov or burning tires-the pattern is the same: they are taken in the early hours of the morning; their home is invaded by a large number of security people; the house is ransacked in the name of a "search"; often there is no chance to dress; and one cannot object or question or ask for a warrant or authorization without risking physical abuse.102
Torture and Abuse of Detainees, Denial of Access to Counsel, and Uncorroborated Confessions
Systematic beating as well as other forms of physical and psychological abuse of detainees are pervasive in Bahrain. According to Bahraini lawyers, virtually anyone caught up in Bahrain's police and security institutions is liable to mistreatment. Beatings are "common practice" and anyone "in the system" is vulnerable, one Bahraini lawyer told Human Rights Watch,
whether you've been arrested for shoplifting or embezzlement or distributing [anti-government] leaflets or throwing a Molotov. Even court witnesses get beaten. Beatings are used to secure confessions, or information about other suspects. But there is also a sense that anyone in custody for whatever reason must deserve punishment, which ordinary police and security officials feel entitled to administer. The exception, of course, is if youcome from an important family with wasta [influence]. There is an element of protection by virtue of social rank.103
The accounts of physical abuse provided by detainees to Human Rights Watch were consistent with each other, with the patterns described by defense lawyers, and with the findings of Amnesty International.104 Seventeen-year-old Akil told Human Rights Watch what happened after he was brought, with ten others, to al-Khamis police station in April 1995 (see above):
In the morning they took us individually to question us. They accused us of incitement, of raising money for detainees' families, of buying petrol. They took our fingerprints and photos. After that, for many days, they'd take us out of the cell in the middle of the night, around 2 a.m., to harass us. Some signed confessions but they still didn't get out. I wrote a paper saying I did not do anything but they kept me too. Then they sent us to the prison in Jaw. The police beat us with hoses there. We were there for six months, and during that time they took us back to Qal'a four times for interrogation. The interrogators were Khalid al-Wazzan, the one they called al-Sa'ati, and one called Adil. Four English police came one day to Jaw. They asked us how long we'd been there, and why. This was when the negotiations [with Shaikh al-Jamri] were going on, so we were released after that.
After my next arrest, in January `96 in a demonstration, I was held at al-Na`im station for sixteen days, and we were beaten regularly. Those who beat us were Yusuf al-Arab, one they called Khalifa al-Shar, a Muhammad Mahmud, and a LieutenantAbd al-Razzaq. I could read their names from under my blindfold.105
Hussain, a nineteen year old from Shahraqan, told Human Rights Watch what happened after he after he was brought to Qal'a early one morning:
They took me upstairs to an office, I don't know whose. There they told me to stand on one leg and bray like a donkey. "What am I accused of?" I asked. "Get some manners," the officer said, and he hit me and left. Then someone came in wearing a dishdasha [traditional white shoulder-to-ankle garment worn by men in the Gulf]. I recognized him from photos I had seen: It was Adil Flaifil. He asked me if I was Hussain Shahraqani and I said yes. He had a piece of paper marked "confidential" on top, otherwise blank. He told me to sign it. I refused. They took me to a different room and trussed me up with a pole under my knees. There were four men, two in uniform. They kicked me and took turns hitting me with a hose. After half an hour of this they took me back to Adil Flaifil, who told me again to sign. I refused again. I went back and forth several times between the hanging and beating and the questioning. At one point he [Flaifil] asked for my hand. Two people held my hand, and he burned the back of my hand with his cigarette [displays light scars].
Hussain asserted that his tormentors on this occasion also used electricity to inflict pain. Adil Flaifil, he said, "attached some wires to a piece of metal he was holding against my hand. The shock knocked me to the floor."
"Then they took me into a corridor and put my cuffed hands over the top of a door," Hussain continued:
so I was hanging with my toes just touching the ground. I fell down when they finally let me off the door, and they beat me with a hose again for what seemed like a long time. They saidthey would charge me with bombings and planning attacks with bombs. Later they said I would only have to confess to incitement. I still refused. Finally they said I had to sign a statement that I would not do these things. That I did sign. They gave me one more beating, till my mouth bled, and then they let me go. I fled Bahrain the next week and stayed away for several months. I then went back to my family but I heard they were getting people in the village to say I was inciting people, so I left again.106
Hussain's testimony describing torture is consistent with testimony from prisoners who had been arrested prior to the current unrest in the country.107 Hashim al-Musawi, who was arrested in 1988, he said, for non-violent anti-regime activity, told Human Rights Watch he had been tortured on six different occasions lasting several days each over a six-month period. The techniques he described included: being kept standing for days without access to a toilet; being dunked head first in a barrel of polluted water; having pins inserted underneath his fingernails and toenails which were then heated by a cigarette lighter; and being injected with substances that gave him chills and shakes and caused diarrhea.108
These testimonies are also consistent with those secured by Amnesty International, which in September 1995 reported that it had interviewed Bahraini torture victims inside and outside the country, and that the methods described wereconsistent with information the organization had received in earlier years.109 In recent years the U.S. Department of State's annual Country Reports chapters on Bahrain have acknowledged that reports of torture were "credible," and have noted cases of deaths in detention attributable to torture and severe beating.110 Several Bahraini lawyers told Human Rights Watch that, in their experience, mistreatment amounting to torture is commonplace. According to one lawyer, the severity of beatings and torture generally depends on the cooperativeness of the detainee in the process of securing a confession and follows a predictable sequence.111 Once the authorities have gotten a confession, another lawyer told Human Rights Watch:
the accused is left in his cell for several days. If he doesn't look too bad he is taken directly to the investigating judge, who looks at the statement-which the authorities have prepared and forced the defendant to sign-and asks, "Did you do X, Y, Z?" Or, "Did A,B,C happen like this?"112 The defendant has already been instructed to answer yes, under threat of further abuse. Some complain of torture, and may even show the signs of tortureclearly, but the investigating judge dismisses or ignores such claims. If the defendant disagrees with the statement, however, or starts to qualify it, the investigating judge says, "Your man is not done yet." In other words, either amend the statement or get him to confess "accurately." This is when the torture gets severe, and moves from beatings to combinations of sleep, food and toilet facilities deprivation, being forced to lie face down while security forces walk over you with heavy boots, or being beaten while hung up by a pole behind the knees. Very few endure more than several hours of this. The last phase, for those who do hold out longer, is electric shock or pulling out toenails.113
Torture is categorically prohibited by Bahrain's constitution and penal code.114 The government of Bahrain, in its response to Human Rights Watch, asserts that allegations of torture "are simply not true, and propagandist in nature," and that "there are internal procedures for the investigation of complaints against the police."115 There are no known instances, however, where Bahraini authorities have conducted an investigation as a result of allegations of torture, or where anyone in a position of responsibility has been punished for inflicting torture.116The government further claims that "anyone so aggrieved has the right [of] recourse to the courts under the law. However, no-one has done so and no formal complaints have been made."117 Bahraini defense lawyers told Human Rights Watch that they habitually raise the issue of physical abuse before the courts, and point out that the medical personnel who examine the defendants themselves work directly for the Ministry of Interior, as does the public prosecutor who would, in theory, file and prosecute complaints.118
Human Rights Watch also spoke with detainees who had not been subjected to torture or systematic beatings. Those caught up in street arrests, it seems, sometimes avoided this fate. "Haphazard arrests are more haphazardly mistreated," was how one lawyer put it.119 Human Rights Watch also found that more prominent opponents of the government were less harshly treated. Ahmad al-Shamlan, a prominent lawyer and activist in the petition campaign who was arrested in February 1996, told Human Rights Watch that during one interrogation session Adil Flaifil shouted, "I have orders not to touch you, but I'll keep you herethree years," referring to the maximum period for detention without charge under the State Security Measures Law of 1974.120
Shaikh Ali Salman told Human Rights Watch that at one point his interrogators hit him with their fists and made him stand for prolonged periods. Otherwise he was not physically abused, he said, but the abuse of others was used to secure his confession:
They brought two young men into the room, Muhammad and Ali. They were not in good shape, hardly able to stand. They asked them if I had told them to protest the marathon. They said no. They took them out and an hour later they brought Muhammad back, in much worse shape. This time he said, yes, I did instigate him. In the night they brought another man, Abd al-Ghani. First he refused to say I had told him to protest, and four hours later when they brought him back he said, yes, I had.
They kept me in detention room number one. That night I could hear screams. I decided I should accept responsibility. At 11 the next morning I was taken to the investigating judge. They warned me not to change my mind in front of the judge.121
On the question of torture, Human Rights Watch also spoke with five practicing defense attorneys, whose testimony was consistent. "The biggest problem," one widely respected lawyer said:
is the absence of transparency and accountability. Bahrain's judicial system is, on the whole, not bad, but not when the justices are sitting as the state security court. One-step litigation is inherently dangerous. Mistakes occur and go unchecked. There are no checks on the police. The public prosecutor, in the Ministry of Interior, decides who will be tried in the regularcourt, who in the state security court, and who will simply be detained without any charge at all.
In so-called security cases there is no access to legal counsel. Nor are lawyers permitted at the next stage, when defendants are brought before the investigating judge, who takes their statements.
Nominally the investigating judge is a functionary of the Ministry of Justice, but the "examination" takes place in the Interior Ministry complex, which is also the main prison and interrogation center. The strange thing is that nearly all the security cases are heard by one man, Sa`ad al-Shamlan. And as time went on the confessions all started to read the same, exactly the same, as if they were using some kind of form-confession.122
Once a confession is finalized, another lawyer told Human Rights Watch:
the statement goes to a committee comprising Adil Flaifil, Khalid al-Wazzan, and Abd al-Aziz Atiyatallah. This is not a formal procedure, just what usually happens. They decide whether the case will go to state security court or to the criminal court after all, or whether to hold the persons without charge under administrative detention [under provisions of the 1974 State Security Measures Law]. The papers then go to the public prosecutor who gathers the needed statements or documents-from the fire department, for instance, in cases of arson-and assembles the file to present to court. This frequently takes another five or six months, and sometimes as long as a year. Then it goes to the Ministry of Justice to schedule a court date. That's when the Ministry of Interior calls the family, tells them to get a lawyer. This is usually the first official notificationof the exact charges against the defendant, though families usually manage to find out informally.123
Amiri Decree 7/1976 declared the High Court of Appeal, sitting as the so-called State Security Court, to be "the court competent to look into crimes provided for in Articles 112 to 184 of the Penal Code of 1976 as per Article 185 of the said Code." The decree stipulates that an accused person be represented by lawyer, and that the prosecutor should make available a case brief to the court and the defense "well in time, before the sitting of the court." The question of whether or not the trial should be open or in camera is left to the court's discretion, depending on "the supreme interest of the peace and security of the State." In practice, according to Bahraini lawyers, sessions of the security court are almost always closed to the public, including members of the defendant's family.124 Uncorroborated confessions, secured in the absence of legal counsel, are sufficient for conviction in the cases it hears. The decree states in Article 3, paragraph 5:
The confession of the accused, whether made against himself or against other co-accused, shall be weighed with care by the court and whether the said confession was made to the investigating judge or in court during trial or was made only in the course of the investigation by the public prosecutor or in the statement to the public prosecutor or the police.
The court may act on this confession for its judgment.
However, the provisions contained in this paragraph shall not apply to crimes punishable with death and the confession of the accused alone shall not avail [i.e., serve as the basis forconviction] against such crimes unless it has been made in court or before the investigating judge.125
Lastly, the court's verdict "shall be final and shall not, in any manner, be challenged" (Article 7).126 The Interior Ministry, in a document dated November 1992, explained the denial of a right to appeal conviction before the security court, in contravention of international fair trial standards, in the following terms:
Bringing such cases (from the investigatory/remand level) direct to the High Court of Appeal [sitting as the State Security Court] therefore serves the higher public interest by enabling matters concerning National Security to be dealt with promptly and authoritatively without raising public concern and wasting time by going through the sterile formalities of hearings in the intermediatory [sic] Courts.127
The initial State Security Court hearing is the first point at which the accused gets to meet with a lawyer. The lawyer first sees the client's file a few days in advance. "You meet your client in the large hall where the State Security Court hearings take place in the old coast guard headquarters in Muharraq.," one lawyer told Human Rights Watch:
So you have maybe ten prisoners all talking to their lawyers in the same space in the twenty minutes before the hearing begins. The lawyer always advises the defendant to plead innocent, as a precautionary step to get a postponement of a week or so for asecond hearing, to have time to prepare a case, seek witnesses, arrange for documents. And usually you are representing more than one defendant at any given hearing. There is no formal rule that prevents you from meeting with your client between hearings, but in practice the security services never quite manage to allow it to happen.128
The structure and procedure of the state security court, in particular the admissibility and sufficiency for conviction of confessions secured in the absence of legal counsel and in the course of extended detention, effectively sanctions torture and abuse. Because the first court hearing may be as long as a year or more after the time of arrest, moreover, and never less than five or six months afterwards, physical marks of abuse have often disappeared. "We don't see our clients for a year, on average," one defense lawyer told Human Rights Watch. "By that time, when we go to the judge, there may be no evidence of abuse."129 In entering pleas of innocence, lawyers do regularly contend that the confession had been secured under duress, in violation of the constitution. Lawyers told Human Rights Watch that in some cases the justices do order a medical examination; as noted above, this is generally the forensic medical officer of the Criminal Investigations Directorate, an employee of the Ministry of Interior. Even in cases where a defendant still shows unmistakable signs of torture, lawyers say, the justices proceed with conviction and sentencing. One lawyer familiar with the case of the young men charged and convicted in the firebomb attack that killed seven Bangladeshi workers (see above) told Human Rights Watch that one of the defendants had been tortured by having his toenails pulled out. "I saw the toenails myself," this lawyer said:
and his lawyer tried to present them to the judge but he found it all too disgusting and refused to look. He finally did order a medical exam. The Ministry of Interior arranged for a doctor, supposedly independent, from the Ministry of Health to do the exam. The doctor's statement concluded that there were "no signs" of torture, although it contained several discrepancies.130
A defense lawyer familiar with the Sitra case told Human Rights Watch that in this incident more than one group of detainees had confessed. "They have submitted to trial the group where they think they have the best evidence," he said, "but they do have more than one set of confessions."131
In response to the government's denial that torture and abuse occur on any scale, Bahraini defense lawyers point to the great number of identical accounts by detainees and the refusal of authorities to allow lawyers to be present during interrogation. "In my twenty years of experience, " one lawyer said, "torture is quite routine."132 In the view of another lawyer:
the refusal of the authorities to allow us to be present at the investigation stage, or even at the recording or examination stage, suggests that it is a serious problem. One of my clients, when I asked why he confessed and was now denying the charges, told me, "Even one of these judges could be forced to say he was Hizb Allah, the things they do to you."133
Arbitrary Detention
Bahraini authorities can detain persons for extended periods without charge or trial in two different ways. As discussed above, under the terms of the State Security Measures Law of 1974, the minister of interior may detain someone for up to three years, with a right to appeal the detention order after three months and at six-month intervals thereafter. Under Article 8 of that law, moreover, Article 79 of the criminal procedure code of 1966 was amended to allow an investigating judge to detain a suspect for an unlimited period, with the right of appeal after one month and on a monthly basis thereafter. The government does not provide information regarding the number of persons who have been or are being detained without charge under these distinct provisions of the State Security Measures Law. The decision to detain a person without charge under the terms of this law, as noted in the previous section, rests with the public prosecutor, under the Ministry of the Interior. Bahraini defense lawyers told Human Rights Watch that these provisions are used extensively by the government to incarcerate persons detained by thesecurity forces.134 While such detentions can be appealed, these appeal proceedings must be held in secret and do not follow criminal court procedures.135
One indication of the extent of arbitrary detention is the apparent discrepancy between the large number of persons detained in 1996, the number of convictions, and the number remaining in detention.136 The number of those detained without charge includes some of Bahrain's most prominent political prisoners. Shaikh Abd al-Amir al-Jamri, an elected member of the National Assembly and a prominent shari`a court jurist, and Abd al-Wahab Hussain, a teacher and leading community activist, together with half-a-dozen other Shi`a religious and community leaders, were held without charge for six months in 1995, from late March until late September. Al-Jamri, Hussain and six others were detained again on January 22, 1996. The next day, a Ministry of Interior official, referring to renewed demonstrations and attacks on property, told Reuter that "[t]here is proof , evidence and documents supported by pictures which prove the group's involvement in the incidents and would be submitted to the legal authorities" and that the eight had "incited crimes of fires and sabotage, broadcast statements, news and incorrect rumors inside and outside...which disturbs security and damages national interests using mosques and sermons and holding illegal gatherings."137 As of May 1997, some sixteen months later, none have been formally charged with any offense, or been permitted access to legal counsel, and no evidence as to their responsibility for violent acts or the incitement of others to commit violent acts has been forthcoming. According to m