Today, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) delivered an oral intervention at the 42nd Session of the Human Rights Council under General Debate of item 4. ADHRB drew attention on the personal experience of Moosa Mohammed, a Bahraini activist who has been tortured, denaturalized and almost murdered by the personnel of the Bahrain Embassy in London for his activism.
Click here for the PDF of the submitted statement.
Please find the statement below.
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Greetings,
I would like to convey my personal experience to your esteemed council as a victim of torture and a human rights activist. Since I was 14 years old I have been arrested and tortured for participating in peaceful demonstrations, and my mother and siblings have also been arrested for the same reasons. After the 14 February revolution began in Bahrain in 2011, I was denaturalized and sentenced in absentia to more than 15 years’ imprisonment for my activity in London, the country where I was granted asylum in 2006. I was and still practicing public information and human rights activities.
The dangerous development that was added to the series of targeting which I was subjected to, is an assassination attempt by the Bahrain Embassy personnel in London. On 26 last July, we heard a news that the Khalifah authorities in Bahrain decided to execute two victims of torture, Ahmed al Malali and Ali al-Arab, whom the United Nations demanded their retrial because they were tortured and their trial lacked justice standards. At that time, I took a peaceful, unusual protest step and climbed to the roof of the Bahrain embassy in London demanding a moratorium on executions. Four embassy staff members attacked me, two of them tried to throw me from the top of the 5-story building, while the third was filming and the fourth was watching. Because the police were there and they warned the embassy staff, they pulled me away from the police eyes, started beating me with a thick wooden board, and they told me that they were going to execute two persons and I was going to be the third.
Meanwhile, I was screaming for help, and they were beating me and saying no one would hear you, no one would save you, and then they strangled me.
I felt that I was going to die, if it was not for the British police who broke into the embassy to save me. The Al Khalifa authorities seem to have seen the Khashoggi assassination is encouraging to adopt this technique.
I ask your distinguished council to take serious measures to prevent the usage of embassies as centers of torture and of murder of opponents. I also demand the expulsion of the countries involved in these crimes from the council, such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Thank you.
