Secretary Clinton – Does your new Human Rights plan include Human Rights for Children in Bahrain?

Children in Bahrain: Victims of physical & sexual abuse, abduction, arbitrary detention and unfair trial
November 20, 2010 – BCHR

76 children between the prisoners in the latest security crackdown, making them 21% of the total detainees, whose numbers swelled to 355

“A child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child”
Article I of the International Convention for the Rights of the Child

Names of children and minors detained, the charges against them, and their ages

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights is following with grave concern the serious deterioration of security that comes within the framework of the ongoing crackdown launched by the authority against political activists and human rights defenders as well as all the Shiite villages and areas. The Center is also concerned about its impact and reflection on the human rights situation in the country, particularly in relevance to children. Children were part of the victims of this campaign which included the widespread waves of arbitrary arrests, continuous kidnappings, enforced disappearances, torture which is physical, psychological and sexual. It is believed that the National Security Apparatus is responsible for most of these cases, as well as the continuous physical assaults on the children of Bahraini villages by the Special Forces that are made up of foreign mercenaries. There are 76 children among the detainees from the latest security crackdown, which puts them at 21% of the total detainees, whose numbers swelled to 355. This raises concerns about the fate and future of these children who as a result of these conditions are deprived of their education, and an uncertain future which awaits them just like the hundreds of children, who were deprived from schooling and university education during the period of events prompted the dissolving of parliament in the nineties of the last century.

While Bahraini law prohibits those who are less than twenty-one years of the right to participate in the election on grounds of how young they are, which limits their ability to make sound and correct decisions. At the same time, the authorities hold children, who have reached the age of fifteen, full criminal responsibility and like adults they take full responsibility.
Children are the victims of arbitrary attacks on villages and the policy of collective punishment:

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has received many complaints from families of victims of the attacks and the policy of collective punishment of the villages of Bahrain during the latest security campaign. The Special Forces attack random people, especially children, many of were seriously injured due to excessive use of force, rubber bullets and tear gas,. The latest report of these cases was the abuse by those forces in the November 3, 2010 on the child, Ali Abbas Radhi (14 years) from the AlDaih village[1]. The father of the child informed the Bahrain Center for Human Rights that he had sent his son to buy some necessities, only to be surprised when he returned after minutes; his pale face stained with blood, his clothes dusty, and a wound in his head. He also had fractures in his leg and injuries in different parts of his body. The child victim, Ali Abbas, told the center that “the riot police asked me to stop so I obeyed their orders, but a group of them pointed their weapons towards me which made me panic and try to flee in fear of getting killed. The riot police chased me until they caught me, and they assaulted by beating me and kicking me with their boots or with the butts of their guns to my head and all over my body as well as cursing and insulting the members of my family dirty words.” There were no confrontations or security disturbances at time of the attack which required the presence of these forces in that area. It is believed that this attack is one of the many random attacks carried out by these forces to spread panic and fear among the villages of Bahrain and especially among children and youth in order to intimidate them from participating in any acts of protest. …more