Bahrain

Bahrain’s human rights situation continues to be dire. Courts convict and imprison prominent human rights defenders and opposition leaders for their peaceful activism. Security forces ill-treat, threaten, and coerce alleged suspects into signing confessions. Authorities have resumed executions, many after unfair trials marred by torture allegations, and fail to hold officials accountable for torture. Courts have stripped the citizenship of hundreds, leaving many stateless, and deported dozens of dissidents, journalists, and lawyers as punishments for offenses that include peaceful criticism of the government. Authorities in 2017 shut down the only independent newspaper in the country as well as opposition parties. Members of dissolved opposition parties were banned from running in parliamentary elections in November 2018.