Bahrain Continues Arbitrary Imprisonment of Taiba Darwish Despite Reduced Sentence

**Update: Bahraini political prisoner Taiba Darwish completed her reduced three-year sentence and was released from Isa Town Women’s Prison on Monday, 14 May 2018. On 18 April 2018, a Bahraini appeals court reduced the sentence against political prisoner Taiba Darwish from five to three years in prison. Darwish was arbitrarily imprisoned in 2016 in reprisal[…]

Profiles in Persecution: Fawzeya Mashaalla Mohamed Haji

Fawzeya is a 56-year-old Bahraini woman who is currently being detained in the women’s prison in Isa Town. She has suffered ill treatment in prison, including denial of medical care by Bahraini prison authorities. On 15 December 2017, a group of masked officers in plain clothing arrived in approximately thirty cars and raided Fawzeya’s home.[…]

Bahrain’s NIHR Ignores Government Violations, Endorses Abuses in 2017 Report

19 April 2018 – In its new annual report for 2017, Bahrain’s National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR) actively endorsed some of the government’s most severe abuses, including the imprisonment of leading human rights defender Nabeel Rajab. Although 2017 was one of the worst years for Bahrain’s human rights situation since 2011, the NIHR “lauded” the[…]

Analysis of the Fifth Annual Report of the Bahraini National Institution for Human Rights

Introduction and Summary Click here for the full analysis. On 28 March 2018, Bahrain’s National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR; also referred to as the B-NIHR and BNIHR) submitted its 2017 annual report “on the Progress Achieved in the Human Rights Situation” to the king. It is the NIHR’s fifth annual report since its establishment[…]

Bahrain denies Danish MP and Human Rights Activist Entry to Celebrate Abdulhadi al-Khawaja’s 57th Birthday

On 3 April, Danish MP Lars Aslan Rasmussen and the Director of the Human Rights Defender program for Human Rights First (HRF) and advisor at Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), Brian Dooley, attempted to visit Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a prominent jailed Bahraini human rights activist, to celebrate al-Khawaja’s 57th birthday on 5 April. The pair[…]