April, 08 2011, 09:12am EDT
Bahrain: State of Fear Prevails With Arbitrary Detentions, Pre-Dawn Raids
Medical Doctors Among Those Held Incommunicado
MANAMA, Bahrain
Arbitrary detention appears rampant under Bahrain's state of emergency, with numerous cases in which authorities have abused people they detained or stopped, Human Rights Watch said today. Bahrain should account for everyone who has been detained and free those arbitrarily arrested following recent public protests, Human Rights Watch said.
The government has issued no registry of detainees since anti-government demonstrations erupted on February 14, 2011. Over the past six weeks, and especially since the main protests were crushed on March16, relatives and friends of the missing have reported to the Wifaq National Islamic Society, an opposition political society, the names of 430 people they say are held by police and military authorities. Wifaq depends on victims, relatives, or witnesses to inform it of detentions.
A dozen members of families of the missing told Human Rights Watch that contact with their relatives had been limited to one extremely brief phone call to request fresh clothing. Authorities have not permitted families to visit their detained relatives. Freed detainees told Human Rights Watch of beatings and physical abuse.
"Emergency law does not provide authorities a free hand to trample basic human rights," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Bahrain has created a state of fear, not a state of safety."
Bahraini authorities should immediately publish a list of detainees and specify why they are being held, Human Rights Watch said. Anyone suspected of a crime should be permitted to communicate with lawyers and family, and brought before an independent judge. All members of the security forces responsible for abusing detainees should be held accountable.
"The government should permit independent inspections of detention centers and thoroughly investigate incidents of abuse," Stork said.
On March 16 police and soldiers used force to clear the Pearl Roundabout, the epicenter of demonstrations that began a month earlier. The government subsequently employed masked security officers and troops to suppress protests in Shia neighborhoods outside of the capital, leaving at least 18 civilians killed by security forces since the protests began. Police have routinely carried out nighttime raids on villages, invading households looking for people suspected of participating in or otherwise supporting anti-government protests.
Bahrain's police and military have operated under martial law, termed a "state of national safety," since March 15. On April 4 the government published a list of powers given the Bahrain Defense Force and other security forces. They are permitted to censor television, newspapers, and the internet; restrict nongovernmental groups, political societies, and unions; curb movement and seal off parts of the country; and make arrests of anyone suspected of threatening "the safety of citizens."
Detentions and arrest raids have escalated even as demonstrations have virtually ceased. Many of the people who spoke with Human Rights Watch asked the organization not to publish their names out of concern for their safety.
Cases of Detention
Relatives of Jalila al-Aali, an endocrinologist at Salmaniya Hospital, dropped her off at the Adliya Criminal Investigation Directorate, part of the Ministry of Interior, on April 4 after officials called her in for questioning. Police kept her there overnight, and relatives phoned the next day at 9 a.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m., and 5:30 p.m. to ask about her well-being and whereabouts. During the 5:30 p.m. phone call, an officer who said his name was Nabil told the family she was not there, but declined to say where she was.
On April 4 police detained Nahad al-Shirawi, a physician in Salmaniya's intensive care unit, taking her from the hospital to the Adliya CID station, her father, Nabil al-Shirawi, told Human Rights Watch. The next day, a police officer called the family to request clothing for her. Her sister and brother delivered the items, but officers at Adliya station did not permit them to see or speak with her, Nabil al-Shirawi said. He said he suspected that police detained al-Shirawi because she had been photographed weeping over a dead victim of a police crackdown on a demonstration.
At about 2 a.m. on March 28 police raided the home of Hassan Jassim Mohammed Maki, a 39-year old laborer, in the village of Karzakan. Masked men, some in blue police uniforms and some in civilian clothes, broke down the front door and asked for "Hussein," relatives told Human Rights Watch.
When told that nobody by that name lived there, police asked everyone's name. When they discovered Hassan, they handcuffed and slapped him and took him away. The family heard nothing about his fate until April 3, when they received a mid-morning call to bring his passport to Salmaniya Hospital. There, they were told that Maki had died of heart failure and that his death must have been a complication of sickle cell anemia. His body was brought in from another location, the relatives said. According to the death certificate, Maki died in Jaw Prison.
"We only were able to find out about Hassan after he died," a relative said. "Otherwise, we never have heard anything about him."
Human Rights Watch viewed photographs taken during the cleansing of Maki's body for burial, which showed bruises on the back and front of his body as well as his ankles and small wounds on the back of the head. His family did not ask hospital officials to perform an autopsy.
A relative of Afrah Mansour al-Asfour, an Arabic language teacher, said police took her from her home in the Magaba neighborhood, on March 29, following a 3 a.m. police raid. Al-Asfour had received a call from education ministry officials a week before inquiring whether she had been involved in organizing demonstrations at her school. On April 2 officials from the Interior Ministry's Criminal Investigation Directorate called her husband to ask to have someone bring al-Asfour fresh clothing. Her husband took clothing to the Adliya CID station but was not permitted to visit with her, the relative said. No one would tell him why his wife was under arrest, and he left an hour later.
Maki Hater, the father of 17-year old Ahmed Maki Hater, told Human Rights Watch that Ahmed was wounded at a demonstration in the town of Sitra on March 14 when police fired pellet guns at close range. An ambulance took him to a nearby clinic and then to Salmaniya Hospital. He spent three hours in intensive care and then was transferred to a ward on the fourth floor.
At about 10 p.m. police in black uniforms, which Bahrainis associate with a SWAT-type unit, entered the ward and checked patients for wounds, said Hater's father, who was there. Seeing pellet-gun wounds, they pulled Hater from his wheelchair and took him away in a car. Police told his parents that they would call them from Nuaimi police station to let them know when they could visit Hater. His mother went to the police station on March 18, but was not permitted to see him. She brought clothing the next day, which officers accepted.
On March 21, the family called the station to ask about Hater's whereabouts and was told he was not there. When they asked where Hater was, the person on the other end of the phone simply repeated that he was not at the station.
"Until now, that's all we know," Maki Hater told Human Rights Watch.
Mahmoud Hassan, 45, a worker at the ruling Al Khalifa family's stables, disappeared sometime on February 14. Family members searched Salmaniya hospital and local police stations. On March 29 Hassan called from Riffa police station and asked relatives to bring a change of clothes. They dropped the clothing off, but authorities there did not permit them to see him. After midnight on April 3, while his wife and their three young children were staying elsewhere, about two dozen police raided their empty house and overturned furniture and belongings, neighbors said. A laptop computer, antique cameras, pet birds, and a cat were missing, relatives said.
Abuse of Medical Patients
Released detainees described being beaten when they sought medical treatment. Abdallah Abbas told Human Rights Watch that he entered Ibn Nafis Hospital on March 16 for treatment of pellet-gun wounds to his arms and back. Shortly afterward, three policemen arrived and took him to Salmaniya Hospital. Over the following three nights, they slapped and kicked him numerous times.
On March 21, he said, police made a video of him and other wounded patients in a fourth-floor ward, instructing them to say they belonged to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia party and militia, and that he had been trained in Iraq. When he refused, they inflicted more beatings. After midnight on March 22, he said, police blindfolded him and took him to Nuaimi police station. There they kept him with other prisoners beneath a staircase where officers occasionally kicked them. A few hours later, the prisoners were released. Abbas said he still has some pellets in his arm, but is afraid to go to a clinic or hospital for treatment.
Harassment, Beatings at Checkpoints
Shiite citizens also risk harassment, beatings, and arrest at the plethora of checkpoints throughout Bahrain. A 17-year-old high school student told Human Rights Watch that police in blue uniforms detained him and two other youths at 9 a.m. on March 18 at a checkpoint near Manama, the capital. The police found a text message on his mobile phone giving a time of a past demonstration.
They bound him with plastic handcuffs, blindfolded him, and took him to Nuaimi station. There, he and other detainees were kept standing from 2:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. When they were allowed to sleep, they received occasional kicks and were told to say they "loved" the prime minister, Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. The youths were released at 5 a.m.
A 22-year-old teacher told Human Rights Watch that police stopped her as she drove to work on April 2 at Roundabout Seven. Police in blue uniforms and helmets dragged her from her car, put a gun to her head, forced her to the ground, stripped her of her black headscarf, and demanded she use it to clean their shoes. As she complied, someone from behind kicked her in the back and left her sprawling on the pavement.
A uniformed army officer finally stopped at the scene and ordered police to end the abuse. The police pushed her back into her car, tossed in her scarf, and let her go.
"I haven't tried to go to work since," she told Human Rights Watch. "I am too afraid."
State of Emergency Law
"This reprehensible behavior goes beyond any measures permitted under a state of emergency," Stork said.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Bahrain ratified in 2006, permits some restrictions on rights during an officially-proclaimed public emergency that "threatens the life of the nation."
According to the Human Rights Committee, the international body of experts that monitors state compliance with the treaty, derogation of rights during a public emergency must be of an exceptional and temporary nature and must be "limited to the extent required by the exigencies of the situation." Fundamental rights, such as the right to life and the right to be secure from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, must be respected.
People held as administrative detainees under a lawful state of emergency should be brought before a judicial authority promptly, be informed of the reasons for detention, and have access to legal counsel and family members. Detainees should also be allowed to challenge the lawfulness of their detention before an independent judicial authority and to seek remedy for mistreatment and arbitrary arrest.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
"FERC has again failed to protect the public interest, instead favoring a profit-making corporation," Sligh added.
Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Seismic Win for Workers': FTC Bans Noncompete Clauses
Advocates praised the FTC "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was still heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
"They didn't know that it would affect their wages and livelihood," Reyes stressed. "Most workers cannot negotiate their way out of a noncompete clause because noncompetes are buried in the fine print of employment contracts. A full third of noncompete clauses are presented after a worker has accepted a job."
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
Apr 23, 2024
Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
However, Mitchell Brown, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, said that "Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to reengage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular