On 19 March, ADHRB has delivered an oral intervention at the United Nation Human Rights Council session 46 during interactive debate under item 8.
According to the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action; All peoples have the right to self-determination, and denying this right is a serious violation of human rights.
We would like to express our concern for Bahrain’s Al-Khalifa dictatorship, which systematically denies Bahraini citizens their right to political self-determination.
Since February, 2011 the unelected Bahraini government has arrested leaders of the political opposition and human rights defenders who called and advocated for self-determination. The executive has designed and passed vague counterterrorism laws that target the political opponents of the government, and used these laws to effectively crush the movement for self- determination in Bahrain.
Mr. Hasan Mushaima, Mr. Abdulwahab Husain, and Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace are political leaders and human rights defenders who were sentenced to life imprisonment for leading and advocating for the right to self-determination of the Bahraini peoples.
We are deeply concerned about the prison conditions for these individuals, especially the denial of essential medical care provided to those involved in the self-determination movement. This medical care is denied by the Al-Khalifa regime in retaliation for their activism.
Despite Bahrain’s atrocious human rights record, Bahrain is a member of this Council. We call on the Council to adopt human rights standards as part of its membership criteria, so that countries with as appalling records as Bahrain are deemed ineligible for membership until they implement lasting change.
