{"id":6522,"date":"2012-02-28T17:58:49","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T00:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6522"},"modified":"2012-02-28T17:58:49","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T00:58:49","slug":"king-hamad-release-the-hostages-for-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6522","title":{"rendered":"King Hamad, Release the Hostages for Democracy!"},"content":{"rendered":"

HRW demands Bahrain release activists<\/strong>
\nSkyNews.au – 29 February, 2012<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for the release of hundreds of Bahraini pro-democracy activists arrested after last year’s uprising and for all charges against them to be dropped.<\/p>\n

‘Grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests,’ HRW said. Cases ‘against everyone convicted on politically motivated charges’ should be dropped.<\/p>\n

The New York-based group also called for the release of at least four Shi’ite protest leaders who remain in prison for expressing anti-government sentiments and demanding political reform.<\/p>\n

According to HRW, hundreds of Bahraini activists have been tried in special military courts set up after King Hamad declared a quasi state of emergency last March as his security forces crushed a month-long uprising in Manama.<\/p>\n

The rights group said that by October, all the special military court cases had been transferred to civilian courts.<\/p>\n

But ‘egregious violations of fair trial rights in political cases’ continued in Bahrain’s criminal justice system ‘with serious systemic problems,’ despite government pledges to reform, HRW said.<\/p>\n

‘Serious abuses included denying defendants the right to counsel and to present a defence, and failure to investigate credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment,’ it said, citing a 94-page report on judicial violations.<\/p>\n

The report is based on 50 interviews with defendants, lawyers and observers as well as examination of court documents.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Amnesty International said Bahrain’s government had failed to implement human rights reforms demanded by an independent commission which investigated the crackdown.<\/p>\n

They said the government was still ‘far from delivering the human rights changes’ recommended by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI).<\/p>\n

The BICI report was commissioned by the king last June after the violence left 35 people dead and triggered international pressure on the ruling Sunni dynasty.<\/p>\n

Near daily protests have continued in Shi’ite neighbourhoods of the kingdom, with the main opposition formation, Al-Wefaq, charging that ‘violations’ by the authorities have been on the rise.
\n…more<\/a><\/p>\n

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HRW demands Bahrain release activists SkyNews.au – 29 February, 2012 Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for the release of hundreds of Bahraini pro-democracy activists arrested after last year’s uprising and for all charges against them to be dropped. ‘Grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy 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":[2009],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6522"}],"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=6522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6523,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6522\/revisions\/6523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}