Three United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs have published on their website the allegation letter sent to the Government of Bahrain on 12 August 2024, addressing deteriorating conditions faced by political prisoners in Bahrain’s Jau Prison. This communication highlighted the prisoners’ deprivations of water, electricity, medical care, restricted movement, solitary confinement, isolation, and denial of family contact. Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) served as the source of information on these cases, through its UN Complaint Program.
The allegation letter, signed by the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; the Special Rapporteur on the right to food; and the Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, detailed the severe violations taking place in Jau Prison. Based on information provided by ADHRB, gathered from the families of 20 Bahraini political prisoners in Buildings 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10, the letter detailed inhumane treatment.
Prisoners named:
- Building 10: Ali Mohamed Jaafar Mohamed Baqer AlShowaikh, Mohamed Jameel Abdulnabi Mansor AlToblani, Salman Abdulla Maki Abdulla Maki, Mohamed Abdulla Maki Abdulla Maki, Sayed Osama Ali Husain Abbas Husain, Mahmood Saeed Ahmed Isa Abdulla, and Ali Abdulla Ali AbdulAziz.
- Building 9: Ali Radhi Hasan Salman, Mohamed Ali Mohsen Abdulla Baddaw, and Mohamed Abduljalil Mahdi Jasim Abdulla.
- Building 8: Mohsen Ali Mohsen Abdulla Baddaw, Rajaie Ali Mohsen Abdulla Baddaw, Mohamed Abdulameer Jabbar Jaafar AlMeshaimea, Abdulla Habib Abdulla Mohamed Swar, and Ebrahim Yusuf Ali Ebrahim AlSamahiji.
- Building 7: Mohamed Ali Redha Hasan Abdulla Hubail, Jasim Ahmed Habib Ebrahim Husain Dharab, and one prisoner whose family withheld his name.
- Building 5: Husain Ali Hasan Radhi.
- Building 3: One prisoner whose family withheld his name.
This allegation letter raised grave concerns over the reported violations faced by prisoners, describing conditions that fall “below international standards” and fail to meet the requirements for humane and dignified treatment, potentially becoming life-threatening. UN experts listed the relevant international human rights laws allegedly violated, and requested that the Government of Bahrain take immediate measures. Their recommendations included ending retaliatory measures, ensuring humane and dignified detention conditions, halting these violations, and restoring access to adequate food, hygiene, sanitation, ventilation, air conditioning, showers, and clean drinking water—especially given the extreme heat at the time—and providing appropriate accommodation. Recommendations also insisted on providing adequate medical care, including, if necessary, treatment in civil hospitals outside prison. They also called for accountability for the perpetrators of these violations.
In this letter, the UN Special Procedure Offices addressed incidents at Jau Prison between 26 March 2024 and 29 July 2024, highlighting severe mistreatment and retaliation against protesting prisoners. These events followed an open sit-in in buildings 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, where detainees demanded the release of those held on political charges and immediate medical care for those in need. The protest began after the death of political prisoner Husain Khalil Ebrahim on 25 March 2024, attributed to years of medical neglect. The prison administration retaliated against the protesting political prisoners with inhumane measures, including cutting off electricity, water, and food supplies, imposing strict movement restrictions for legal and medical appointments, isolating those who leave for a medical or court appointment by putting them with foreign criminal inmates, suspending weekly phone calls, and denying access to basic necessities such as hygiene items, clothing, and essential supplies from the prison canteen. These retaliatory measures severely deteriorated detention conditions for those participating in the sit-in, particularly for political detainees and those requiring medical attention in the affected buildings.
In detail, on 8 May 2024, around 500 prisoners reportedly refused lunch in protest of the small and inadequate food portions. A further escalation took place on 8 June 2024, when the Jau Prison administration allegedly withheld meals from prisoners in Building 3.
The situation continued to worsen in subsequent months, with reports on 1 July 2024 indicating that meals were not provided in multiple buildings, with food being thrown in the trash, without it being removed, creating unhygienic conditions. Water supply was also cut off in Building 9.
On 10 July 2024, the administration reportedly cut off electricity and water for over 12 hours a day in protest-prone buildings, leading to extreme conditions during hot summer days, with temperatures exceeding 50°C. This situation placed detainees, particularly those suffering from asthma, kidney, or heart conditions, at even greater risk. Amidst these dire conditions, a hunger strike was reportedly initiated by prisoners in Building 10.
In addition to the severe deprivation of food and water, the prison administration entirely cut off drinking water in Building 9, forcing prisoners to drink contaminated domestic use water from toilets and bathrooms. Further complicating matters, communication between prisoners and their families was completely cut off beginning 24 July 2024, compounding the suffering of detainees.
The UN Special Rapporteurs further mentioned that the families of the prisoners, particularly mothers, sought intervention from government oversight bodies, including the National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR), the Prison Detainees Rights Commission, and the Ombudsman. However, their efforts were largely ignored or met with unfulfilled promises of improvement. Furthermore, some government bodies attempted to distort the situation by blaming prisoners for the water and electricity cuts, portraying them as perpetrators rather than victims. For example, on 18 July 2024, the mothers of some prisoners visited Jau Prison to report these issues. In response, prison representatives claimed that all services were functioning, accused the prisoners of causing the cuts as they were the ones allegedly cutting electricity wires, and threatened to involve security forces to expel the mothers and pursue legal action against them.
In the letter, the UN Special Procedures offices expressed their deepest concerns regarding: “Serious and increasingly imminent threats to prisoners’ life and health, thus placing them—particularly those suffering from health conditions and in need of adequate medical care—at risk of extremely dangerous, irreversible harm, and even fatal consequences.”
The UN experts recalled that “persons deprived of liberty must always be treated in a humane manner and with respect for their inherent dignity. They must always have access, inter alia, to effective legal representation, adequate medical care, prompt judicial review of their initial and continuing deprivation of liberty, remedies for any violations, and the possibility to communicate with a lawyer of their choice, their relatives, and to be visited by independent human rights monitoring bodies. Furthermore, safeguards should be in place to ensure that prisoners can make requests or complaints safely, and they must not be exposed to any risk of retaliation, intimidation, or other negative consequences as a result of submitting a request or complaint”.
The UN Special Rapporteurs stated that the reported allegations, if substantiated, may amount to violations of, inter alia, the right to life, as protected by Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bahrain acceded in 2006. Additionally, the allegations may involve violations of the prohibition against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, protected by article 5 of the UDHR, articles 7 and 10 of the ICCPR, and articles 1, 2, and 16 of the Convention against Torture (CAT), to which Bahrain acceded in 1998.
Furthermore, UN Special Rapporteurs considered that these allegations may implicate Bahrain’s obligations regarding the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as recognized by Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which Bahrain acceded in 2007. The experts considered the right to health as extending to both timely and appropriate health care and the underlying determinants of health, including access to safe drinking water and nutrition.
The UN experts also reminded Bahrain of its obligations under Article 25 of the UDHR and Article 11(1) of the ICESCR, which safeguard the right to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing, and housing. Moreover, they drew the attention of the Bahraini government to General Comment No. 12 of the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR), which emphasizes that a violation of the right to food occurs “when the state fails to provide the minimum essential level necessary to be free from hunger.” They also referred the government to General Comment No. 15 of the CESCR, which stipulates that states must ensure sufficient and safe water for prisoners and detainees.
In addition, the Special Procedures referred the government to the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, with specific reference to Rules 18, 22, 42, and 43. These rules affirm that all detainees, regardless of charges, have the right to adequate food, water, and sanitation in sufficient quantity and quality. They underscored Rule 22, which mandates the provision of nutritionally adequate food and the continuous availability of drinking water.
Moreover, the UN Rapporteurs reminded Bahrain of its heightened duty to protect the rights of individuals in custody, stressing that the obligation to safeguard the right to life includes addressing foreseeable threats and life-threatening conditions that could lead to loss of life. They reiterated to the Bahraini government that this medical neglect constitutes torture, whose prohibition is absolute and non-derogable, as stipulated in Article 4(2) of the ICCPR and Articles 2(2) and 2(3) of the CAT.
ADHRB welcomes the commentary of the Special Procedures offices and echoes their concerns about the alarming, inhumane, and life-threatening ill-treatment of prisoners in Jau Prison, which falls far below international standards. This mistreatment includes deprivations of water, electricity, food, medical negligence, and denial of family contact.
In light of these unlawful and unjust practices, ADHRB urges Bahraini authorities to comply with the aforementioned standards, ensure immediate redress for detained individuals, and end the mistreatment of prisoners in Jau Prison. This includes promptly restoring water, electricity, adequate food supplies, family visits, and phone calls. ADHRB also calls on the Jau Prison administration to provide detainees in need with adequate medical care without delay. Additionally, ADHRB demands transparent and impartial investigations into these retaliatory measures, accountability for those responsible, and decisive action to address the entrenched culture of impunity in Bahrain.
