{"id":6497,"date":"2012-02-28T07:46:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T14:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6497"},"modified":"2012-02-28T07:46:45","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T14:46:45","slug":"bahrain-hundreds-railroaded-in-unjust-trials-politically-motivated-prosecutions-flagrantly-disregard-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6497","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain: Hundreds Railroaded in Unjust Trials – Politically Motivated Prosecutions Flagrantly Disregard Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain: Hundreds Railroaded in Unjust Trials<\/strong>
\n28 February, 2012 – Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n

Grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain\u2019s crackdown on pro-democracy protests. The government should remedy the hundreds of unfair convictions of the past year by dropping the cases against everyone convicted on politically motivated charges and by adopting effective measures to end torture in detention.
\nJoe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n

(Beirut) \u2013 Bahrain has routinely convicted hundreds of opposition activists and others of politically motivated charges in unfair trials, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government should void the convictions in trials before Bahrain\u2019s military and civilian courts that fell far short of international fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch said.<\/p>\n

The 94-page report, \u201cNo Justice in Bahrain: Unfair Trials in Military and Civilian Courts,\u201ddocuments serious due process violations in high-profile trials before Bahrain\u2019s special military courts in 2011 \u2013 including one trial of 21 prominent political activists and another of 20 doctors and other medical personnel \u2013 and in politically motivated trials before ordinary criminal courts since 2010. Serious abuses included denying defendants the right to counsel and to present a defense, and failure to investigate credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment during interrogation.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain\u2019s crackdown on pro-democracy protests,\u201d said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe government should remedy the hundreds of unfair convictions of the past year by dropping the cases against everyone convicted on politically motivated charges and by adopting effective measures to end torture in detention.\u201d<\/p>\n

The egregious violations of fair trial rights in political cases do not just reflect the poor practices of individual prosecutors and judges, but serious, systemic problems with Bahrain\u2019s criminal justice system, Human Rights Watch said.<\/p>\n

In a February 13, 2012 interview, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa told Der Spiegel magazine that: \u201cThere are no political prisoners as such in Bahrain. People are not arrested because they express their views, we only have criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Human Rights Watch report is based on more than 50 interviews with defendants, defense lawyers, and trial observers, and a comprehensive examination of available trial verdicts and other court documents. Human Rights Watch wrote to Bahrain\u2019s attorney general in November 2010 and to the justice minister in December 2011 concerning the trials, but received no response.<\/p>\n

At least five people died as a result of torture while in custody following the government crackdown on mostly peaceful protests that began in mid-March 2011, according to the November reportof the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, a body of five international jurists and human rights experts set up by King Hamad. Human Rights Watch has documentedthe persistent practice of torture and ill-treatment by Bahraini security officers over the past several years. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain: Hundreds Railroaded in Unjust Trials 28 February, 2012 – Human Rights Watch Grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain\u2019s crackdown on pro-democracy protests. The government should remedy the hundreds of unfair convictions of the past year by dropping the cases against everyone convicted on politically motivated charges and 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":[1663],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497"}],"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=6497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6498,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions\/6498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}