Update: Two protesters sentenced to death and five given life imprisonment | Bahrain Center for Human Rights

Update: Two protesters sentenced to death and five given life imprisonment

Bahrain resorting to martial law against protesters

On the left: A banner placed on the road calling the government to apply the maximum punishment and no forgiveness.
On the Right: The Military Court

Update 15 June 2011
Two men sentenced to death in Bahrain, ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Hassan al-Sankis and ‘Abdulaziz ‘Abdulridha Ibrahim Hussain, will now wait over three months before hearing whether they will be subjected to capital punishment. If their death sentences are upheld and ratified, the two men will be executed.

Update 22 May 2011

In the appeal of the death sentence against four young men, the sentence was lifted from two of the four. The two detainees, Qassim Hassan Mattar and Saeed AbdulJalil Saeed received a life imprisonment sentence, annulling the death penalty. On the other hand, the court confirmed the death sentence on Ali AlSingace and AbdulAziz AbdulRedha. This was despite the fact that the lawyers had presented evidence that Ali AlSingace had a broken leg during the time of his alleged crime [Document1, Document2, Document3, Document4], and the judge gave no reasons for why the sentence was changed for two and not the others.

May 2, 2011

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights condemns any acts of violence against any human being, and calls for holding anyone responsible for these acts of violence. The Center also stresses the importance of giving any and every person charged with any crime access to a fully independent and fair trial according to international standards in civilian courts.

In a case made against 7 protesters charged with killing Kashef Ahmed Mandhoor and Mohammed Farooq Abdulsamad, Bahraini Authorities announced today after a closed military trial that four were sentenced to death while three were given life imprisonment. They were accused of running the deceased over with GMC’s last month; however, the only evidence against them made public were confessions[1] allegedly extracted through the use of torture:
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Ali Hassan AlSingace, 19 years old; Qasim Hasan Matar, 20; Saeed Abduljalil Saeed, 19; Abdul Aziz AbdulRidha, 24; were sentenced to death after being put on military trial charged with the killing of two police officers. Isa Abdulla Kadhem, 19 years old; Sayed Sadiq Ali, 19; Hussain Jaffar, 19; were sentenced to life in prison charged with the same crime. At the trial, as the verdict was announced, journalists from the local media, representatives from Bahraini human rights organizations, relatives of the defendants, lawyers and 5 of the 7 defendants were present[2] according to the statement put out by the Bahrain News Agency. The representatives from the human rights organizations are essentially from the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society, a society know for being a Government Organized Non Governmental Organization (GONGO). For more information please refer to: http://bahrainrights.hopto.org/en/node/3698

The seven detainees on trial were legally represented by lawyer Mohammed AlTajer who was arrested[3] on April 15th, and the trial started on the 17th. AlTajer had previously represented four out of the seven defendants in a previous similar case[4] in which they were accused with participating in an illegal gathering, committing crimes targeting people and public property and attempting to kill a police officer by torching his patrol vehicle. After one year of detention they were sentenced in Nov 2010 to 5-3 years in jail and later they were amongst around 100 political prisoners freed in Feb 2011 due to mounting pressures by the oppositions and the protesters at the pearl square[5] . "AbdulAziz AbdulRidha, who has been accused to be the mastermind of the attacks in both of cases (the 2009 case and this one) has been a political activists associated with the HAQ Movement for Liberty and Democracy, and his confessions didn't appear on the tv program.". The Lawyer AlTajer who knew the details of their previous case and background remains in detention today. The trial of the seven defendants lasted for 12 days in which the military public prosecutor had called for the death sentence for the defendants. Despite the authorities claiming that the defendants had “confessed” to the murders, they plead not guilty during the hearing [6]. There have been several allegations that the aforementioned defendants were tortured prior to these aired confessions, and one of the individuals in the confession video, Ali Saqer, was killed in detention and his body held obvious marks of torture as reported by numerous international human rights organizations.

Despite airing him as part of the confessions, Saqer’s name was not mentioned in the verdict, and in later broadcasts his “confession” was removed from the video. Due to the torture marks on Saqer’s body, the centre fears that the allegations of torture against the other detainees may very well be true.

In the video aired by the authorities, which allegedly provides evidence against the seven detainees, many discrepancies have been noted. The footage shown is only partial. For example, a segment in which a woman in a car runs over two protesters has been cut out, and there are parts where government thugs are portrayed as protesters attacking civilians, whereas in the full video, these attackers are seen standing with the security forces. A separate report on the discrepancies of the video will be released at a later time.

Background on current situation:

Hundreds of thousands of Bahrainis have stood in protest demanding reforms and rights from the monarchy under King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, 31 have died since the first day of protests on February 14. More than 800 people have been arrested since a "State of National Safety" was announced on March 16, which established a special military court to try those accused of crimes. Those who have since been detained have been kept in unknown locations and completely inaccessible to their families and the outside world [7].

Bahrain’s history with death sentences and coerced confessions:

According to Bahrain News Agency (BNA) four executions have been carried out since 1977. Issa Ahmed Qambar, 29, was convicted in July for the March 1995 slaying of a senior police officer, Ibrahim al-Saidi, 34. His execution followed three court rulings upholding the sentence, the last one by Bahrain's highest appeals court on March 17. Mr. Qambar was executed by firing squad in March 1996.

Forced confessions are not new to Bahrain. In December 2008, 13 people from Sanabis and neighboring Shiite villages were arrested and were then tortured, according to medical reports, until they gave "confessions" which were recorded and broadcasted on television approximately two weeks after their arrests [8]. Among the detainees, 6 "confessed" to participating in a “terrorism plot” and receiving military training in 2006 in Damascus during a 40-minute televised program. They were said to have been planning to carry out violent attacks and sabotage against the government. The names and photographs of the 13 accused, together with their alleged confessions, were published in several Bahraini newspapers after the televised confessions. Ten were sentenced to one to seven year long imprisonments and four were acquitted. Four of those charged were known activists possibly targeted for their roles in their respective committees. [9]

In 2009, the general attorney requested to apply death penalty on 19 individuals from the village of Karzakan who were arrested for more than 17 months and accused of attacking a security patrol with stones and Molotov cocktails, and which resulted in the death of one the patrol men and the injury of the others. However, the High Criminal Court issued its ruling of acquitting all the defendants of killing the security man for multiple reasons including the fact that the forensic report proved that the confessions made by the 19 defendants were extracted under torture and harsh detention conditions. Following the acquittal, Human Rights Watch issued a report about torture in Bahrain "Torture Redux"[10] , which summarized the results of an accurate investigation in the torture allegations in Bahrain, and which concluded that torture in the Bahraini prisons is a systematic practice. The ruling was later appealed by the Public Prosecution and the 19 defendants were sentenced to 3 years in jail, which is believed to be aimed to remove all suspicions from the officials involved in the torture, or any possibility of prosecuting them locally or internationally [11] .

This ruling, , also alludes to the Ma'ameer case, where the General Attorney has also request to apply death penalty on the defendant but High Criminal Court issued its ruling of life sentences for seven activists in response to the death of a Pakistani national, Sheikh Mohammed Riyad. The High Criminal Court issued a ruling on July 5, 2010 which convicted seven individuals [among them a 17 years old child] from the village of Ma'ameer, and sentenced them to life imprisonment on the charge of causing the death of Riyad, 58 years old, on March 7, 2009, and who died two weeks after a Molotov cocktail caused a fire in his car during security confrontations in the village of Ma'ameer. It is believed that Riyad was a victim of the security clashes [12], and the increased suspicion and hatred against foreigners - especially of the Pakistani nationality - who are used widely in the Special Security Forces in charge of besieging and suppressing activity in Shiite villages [13].

According to the report of the Trial [14] Monitor at the Ma'ameer case, the seven were told prior to their trial that they'd be transferred to a prison after the hearing, meaning that they were guaranteed a guilty verdict regardless of defense efforts. This trial was based on the internationally condemned anti-terrorism law and relied on confessions taken under torture to reach a verdict. The trial disregarded all the pleas raised by the defendants, their lawyers, and the human rights organizations arguing that the defendants' confessions were extracted through torture and abuse [15].

It’s worth noting that most of the individuals who faced the possibility of death penalty in the last few years as shown in the above cases were actually social or political activist in the community. BCHR believes that such made up charges and harsh sentences are meant to push the people to refrain from becoming active in their villages, or participating in the protests or even defending the political prisoners to void being targeted by the authority.

Based on the above, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights:

1. Condemns putting civilians on military trials, and the use of the death sentence against civilians, especially in the absence of a fair and independent trial.
2. Calls on the Bahraini authorities to annul the sentences, and for the unconditional release of all political prisoners.
3. Calls for the dissolution of the infamous National Security Apparatus and an end to the use of all forms of torture in detention centers.
4. Calls on the Bahraini authorities to hold accountable anyone responsible for any type of torture carried out in Bahraini detention centers, whether they gave the order, supervised, knew of or directly conducted the torture abuses.
5. Calls on the Bahraini government to uphold their commitment to the CAT convention.
6. Calls on the international community to put pressure on the Bahraini authorities to suspend any use of torture, and to hold accountable those responsible for it.

[1]http://www.bna.bh/portal/en/news/454568
[2]http://www.alayam.com/Articles.aspx?aid=78786
[3]http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/04/16/bahrain-defense-lawyer-detained-after-night-raid
[4]http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/ArchiveNewsDetails.aspx?date=11/09/2010&storyid=291240
[5]http://articles.boston.com/2011-02-24/news/29342659_1_political-prisoners-saudis-nabeel-rajab
[6]http://www.bna.bh/portal/en/news/454031
[7]http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/3959
[8]http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/2641
[9]http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/2354
[10]http://www.hrw.org/en/node/88200/section/1
[11]http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/3111
[12]http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/2827
[13]http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/3774
[14]Report of the Trial Monitor in the Ma'ameer and Adary Park Cases, Bahrain, 2010
[15]http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/3175

via bahrainrights.org