{"id":15614,"date":"2013-01-14T15:49:17","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T22:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=15614"},"modified":"2013-01-14T15:49:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T22:49:17","slug":"bahrian-courts-of-injustice-simply-a-tool-of-regimes-repression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=15614","title":{"rendered":"Bahrian Courts of Injustice simply a tool of regime&#8217;s repression"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Activist: Manama Regime Using Bahrain Judiciary as Means of Suppression<\/strong><br \/>\n13 January, 2013 &#8211; ABNA<\/p>\n<p>TEHRAN (FNA)- A prominent human rights activist deplored the Bahraini judiciary system&#8217;s blind obedience to the ruling regime, saying that the country&#8217;s judicial body has become a tool in the hands of the al-Khalifa regime for suppressing the people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The verdicts made by Bahraini courts against revolutionary elements are completely political and have been issued only because these people have expressed their opinions,&#8221; Member of Bahrain Forum for Human Rights Falah Rabi said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The developments in Bahrain demonstrated the regime&#8217;s instrumental use of the judiciary system for suppressing people and shows the system&#8217;s lack of independence because most of the members of the high court are from the ruling family,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>But, the Bahraini nation wants a democratic system in which all the branches of power take their legitimacy from people&#8217;s votes, he stressed.<\/p>\n<p>His remarks came after Bahrain&#8217;s highest court rejected earlier this month the jailed activists&#8217; appeal and upheld their sentences for their roles in anti-regime protests in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>The UN, the EU, Britain, France, and human rights groups have criticized a Bahraini court decision upholding prison terms for 13 pro-democracy activists, including eight life sentences.<\/p>\n<p>UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon &#8220;deeply regrets the decision of Bahrain&#8217;s Court of Cassation on January 7 to uphold the harsh sentences, including life imprisonment&#8221; for the activists, the UN chief&#8217;s spokesman said, Al Manar reported.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He reiterates his firm belief that the only way to promote peace, stability, justice and prosperity in Bahrain is through a national dialogue which addresses the legitimate aspirations of all Bahrainis,&#8221; Martin Nesirky stated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The secretary general also calls on the government of Bahrain to follow through on its recently reiterated commitment to judicial reform,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>The European Union also criticized the court ruling, saying the pro-democracy activists should be given amnesty.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The EU has repeatedly asked the Bahraini authorities to consider an amnesty for all those arrested last year and tried on charges relating to the expression of their political opinion,&#8221; the spokesman of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Michael Mann, said. Mann stated that the EU &#8220;remains concerned about the lack of advancement of national reconciliation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Stork, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch&#8217;s Middle East and North Africa division, said the Bahraini court &#8220;has proven its inability to protect the most basic rights guaranteed in Bahrain&#8217;s constitution and the international treaties it has signed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The mind-boggling verdicts in these cases did not mention a single recognizable criminal offence, instead pointing to speeches the defendants made, meetings they attended, and their calls for peaceful street protests in February and March 2011,&#8221; he said in a statement. <a href=\"http:\/\/english.farsnews.com\/newstext.php?nn=9107135259\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D15614&amp;text=Bahrian+Courts+of+Injustice+simply+a+tool+of+regime%27s+repression&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Activist: Manama Regime Using Bahrain Judiciary as Means of Suppression 13 January, 2013 &#8211; ABNA TEHRAN (FNA)- A prominent human rights activist deplored the Bahraini judiciary system&#8217;s blind obedience to the ruling regime, saying that the country&#8217;s judicial body has become a tool in the hands of the al-Khalifa regime for suppressing the people. &#8220;The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=15614#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3915],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15615,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15614\/revisions\/15615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}