We write to you with regard to the detention and alleged severe beating of Mr. Ali Sa`id al-Khabaz and Mr. Hassan Yusif Hamid and other abuses allegedly committed by Anti-Riot Police or other security forces on Monday, May 21, in Sanabis.
On Friday, May 25, we wrote privately to Shaikh Rashid, the Minister of Interior, requesting information about the case of Mr. al-Khabaz. For more than a week following his detention, his family had been unable to contact him or even to learn his whereabouts. We have received no response or information from the ministry or any other office of the government.
According to our information, Anti-Riot Police detained Mr. al-Khabaz, 22 years old, in Sanabis, on Monday, May 21, when the police dispersed a gathering of people who were protesting a police action the previous evening. According to his family, Mr. al-Khabaz was not among the protestors, but had been in the vicinity visiting his grandfather, Hasan Abdullah Hubail, whose house is adjacent to the site of the protest.
According to the family, the next day, Tuesday, they attempted without success to locate Mr. al-Khabaz at the military hospital and at the Central Market (Nu`aimi) police station. Military hospital personnel told them that no one by that name had been admitted. Police officials refused to respond to their request for information, and called a unit of the Anti-Riot Police to disperse the family and acquaintances, who then numbered around 20, from the station.
Witnesses told the family and the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) that the riot police severely beat Mr. al-Khabaz at the site of the protest and subsequently. Several days later, a person with access to Mr. al-Khabaz’s place of detention provided the BCHR with a full-face photo of Mr. al-Khabaz indicating severe swelling and bruising of his face and head. It was at this point that we initially wrote to Shaikh Rashid inquiring about Mr. al-Khabaz’s well-being and whereabouts.
On May 29, more than a week after Mr. Khabaz was beaten and detained, Ministry of Interior officials informed his family that he was in the military hospital, and allowed family members to visit him. However, hospital officials refused the family’s request to provide them with a report on the injuries he sustained. On Wednesday, May 30, ministry officials prohibited any further visits to the hospital, and at 12:30 a.m. this morning, May 31, the authorities removed him and Hamid Yusif Ahmad, another man beaten and detained during the May 21 incident, from the hospital. We understand that this evening Mr. Khabaz called his family to inform them that he was at the Manama police station.
According to a May 30 report in the Bahraini daily Al-Wasat, an unnamed Ministry of Interior official “clarified” that during the police action on May 21 “al-Khabaz fell to the ground resulting in injuries to his face.” The official also said that al-Khabaz “resisted arrest” and suffered injuries from stones demonstrators threw at the police. He said that the police had not treated Mr. al-Khabaz inhumanely.
Hamid Yusif Ahmad, 46 years old, also suffered serious injuries as a result of beating he sustained during or subsequent to the May 21 incident in Sanabis, suffering a broken jaw and a broken tooth. Mr. Ahmad, while in the military hospital, told the BCHR that security forces took him and Mr. al-Khabaz first to the Sanabis graveyard and then to the Exhibition Center roundabout, near Sanabis, where the police subjected them to additional beatings. Mr. Ahmad’s account, coupled with the nature of the injuries to him and Mr. al-Khabaz, amount to allegations that the Anti-Riot Police engaged in torture and inhumane treatment.
Such acts, if true, constitute clear violations of international human rights law. The UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials calls upon those who exercise police powers to protect “all persons against illegal acts” and, in performance of their duty, to “respect and protect human dignity and maintain and uphold the human rights of all persons.” According to Article 3 of the Code of Conduct, “law enforcement officials may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty.” The Code of Conduct further states that “no law enforcement official may inflict, instigate or tolerate any act of torture or any other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Your Highness, these allegations of abuse by the Anti-Riot Police are extremely serious and require your immediate attention. We regret that the Ministry of Interior has been unresponsive to our earlier request for information. We respectfully urge you to move without delay to establish an independent counsel or commission to investigate the allegations of severe beatings, possibly amounting to torture, by the Anti-Riot Police and/or other security forces during the events in Sanabis on May 21 that led to the detention of Ali Sa`id Khabaz and Hassan Yusif Hamid. This independent body should:
- Be under the direction of a person independent of the interior ministry or other security-related government agencies, and well-known for integrity and impartiality;
- Be provided with the financial and other resources to accomplish its mandate in a timely manner, including the power to compel the testimony of Ministry of Interior, Anti-Riot Police and other police officials and provision of official documents from those offices.
- Make its findings and recommendations public;
- Make recommendations concerning the discipline or criminal prosecution of any persons believed to be responsible for violations of Bahraini law or international human rights law in connection with the March 21 incidents in Sanabis.
We also request that your government make public any criminal charges or any other legal basis for the initial and continued detention of Mr. al-Khabaz and Mr. Hamid. If they are being held for any recognizable criminal offense, they should be charged before a court of law and have access to legal counsel of their choosing as well as to their immediate family.
We thank you for your urgent attention to this important matter, and welcome your response.
Sincerely,
Sarah Leah Whitson
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa division
cc: Ambassador Naser M.Y. Al Belooshi, Embassy of Bahrain in Washington, DC
