{"id":3301,"date":"2011-09-28T17:08:07","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T00:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3301"},"modified":"2011-09-28T17:09:09","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T00:09:09","slug":"al-khalifa-regime-upholds-convictions-in-bogus-military-court-masquerades-justice-in-echos-of-what-us-department-of-state-wants-to-hear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3301","title":{"rendered":"al Khalifa regime upholds convictions in bogus military court masquerades justice in echos of what US Department of State wants to hear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain protester convictions upheld at sham military trial<\/strong>
\n28 September, 2011 – Amnesty International <\/p>\n

The decision today by a Bahrain military court to uphold the guilty verdicts against a group of prominent opposition activists exposes yet again the inherent unfairness of the trial process, Amnesty International said today.<\/p>\n

In proceedings that lasted less than five minutes, the military-run National Safety Court of Appeal in Manama confirmed life sentences for seven of the defendants and shorter jail sentences for 14 others \u2013 seven of whom were tried in absentia.<\/p>\n

The defendants were appealing the verdict and prison sentences handed down by the National Safety Court of First Instance, also a military court, in June on charges they wanted to change the political system and incited violence during peaceful pro-reform protests earlier this year. They all deny the charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy upholding this verdict, Bahrain\u2019s military justice system has once again shown it has no intention of meeting international fair trial standards for anyone the authorities perceive as a political foe,\u201d said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International\u2019s Middle East and North Africa Programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese men should never have been brought before a military court.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to an observer present in the court room, the defendants were brought before the judge in civilian clothing, raising hopes that they might be released.<\/p>\n

Officials prevented the defendants from speaking to relatives who were in the court room, possibly to punish them for launching a hunger-strike last Saturday over the Bahraini security forces\u2019 detention of 45 women and girls during protests the day before.<\/p>\n

After the ruling, the defendants were allowed to meet privately with their defence lawyers, who plan to lodge an appeal before Bahrain\u2019s Court of Cassation, in the civilian justice system. However, the Court of Cassation will only examine procedural matters and will not look into the substance of the charges, the evidence presented, or allegations of torture by some of the defendants.<\/p>\n

The Bahraini authorities have not initiated any independent and impartial investigation into allegations of torture made by some of the defendants in this case, including \u2018Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a prominent human right activist.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter today\u2019s all-too-predictable outcome, it is high time for Bahrain\u2019s King, Shaikh Hamad bin \u2018Issa Al Khalifa, to end this travesty once and for all by ordering the immediate release of the defendants or, failing that, their fair re-trial before a properly constituted civilian court,\u201d said Malcolm Smart. ...source<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain protester convictions upheld at sham military trial 28 September, 2011 – Amnesty International The decision today by a Bahrain military court to uphold the guilty verdicts against a group of prominent opposition activists exposes yet again the inherent unfairness of the trial process, Amnesty International said today. In proceedings that lasted less than five more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1824],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301"}],"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=3301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3302,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301\/revisions\/3302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}