[The following report was originally published by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights on 7 March 2013.]
International Women`s Day: Bahraini Women Imprisoned, Tortured, Killed, Stripped from Nationality...and Impunity for Abusers
On International Women`s Day, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses its grave concern and condemnation over the continued violations of women`s rights in Bahrain. Due to Bahraini women`s important role in the Bahraini uprising, calling for democracy and political reform, they have been violently targeted by the authorities. At least thirteen women were victims of extra-juridical killing. Many were detained, tortured, and sentenced to years in prison. Today, there are several women in prison on politicized and false charges for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, illegal gathering, and helping injured.
It is important to note that the cases presented in this report are just a sample of hundreds of other cases in regards to arrests, harassment, sackings, beatings, and torture of women in Bahrain.
Extra-Judicial Killings
At least thirteen women died as a result of authorities’ use of excessive force, tear gas and intimidations since 14 February 2011. No one has been held accountable for any of these deaths. Teargas is the number one cause of death among women: seventeen percent died due to authorities’ excessive use of teargas on a daily basis and the targeting of homes of citizens.
In the last year, eight deaths were recorded, including:
- Khadija Mohammed from Maameer died on 5 April 2012 after spending three months in the Intensive Care Unit .
- Sakeena Marhoon, in her seventies, suffered from side effects of repeated inhalation of tea rgas thrown inside her house several times. She was hospitalized several times before her death on 6 March 2012.
- Zahraa Al Hawaj, sixty-nine years old, from Noaim, was exposed to tear gas multiple times. Her health deteriorated and she was admitted to the hospital`s Intensive Care Unit. She suffered inflammation of the lungs. She died on 1 February 2012.
- Salma Mohsen, eighty-one years old, died 15 January 2012 from suffocation of tear gas after it was shot into her home.
- Fakhriya Al Sakran, fifty-one years old, lived in a residential area that is regularly attacked with tear gas. She was taken to the hospital and admitted at the Intensive Care Unit. Doctors told the family that she died (3 January 2012) of shortness of breath. They couldn’t save her life .
Two years after the death of Bahia Al Aradi, a fifty-one year-old nurse, who was the first female killed by the authorities, no one has been held accountable for killing her. She was driving on Budaiya road when she went missing on 16 March 2011. Her family contacted all hospitals but were unable to find her. They received a call from the authorities informing them that she was at the Bahrain Defense Force hospital on life support. Only her brother was allowed a few minutes to visit. On 20 March 2011, Bahiya passed away. The authorities stated in the death certificate that she died of brain injury. The BICI report confirmed that the death was caused by a gunshot from behind from fifty to seventy-five meters away. However, her case was not even brought to court to hold those responsible accountable.
Arrests, detention and trials
Dozens of women have been arrested and detained in Bahrain. Today, several women remain in prison over charges related to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
Many of them were brutally arrested and attacked during peaceful protests, including Zahra AlShaikh who has been in detention for over forty-five days pending trial after she was arrested from a protest in Manama.
In the last year, the renowned Bahraini activist, Zainab Al Khawaja, was arrested several times for participating in peaceful protests and recently she was arrested on 27 February 2013 after she staged a one person protest in front of Hamad bin Salman’s palace and threw six eggs at the palace gate, holding a sign saying "You`ve arrested our fathers & children, even our bodies. Let your palaces hear, we don`t fear your prisons." Zainab was protesting against the culture of impunity and the lack of accountability in the security forces. Zainab was charged with obstructing traffic, damaging property, inciting hatred against the regime, and prejudice to authority. Earlier, the court upheld the sentence of one month imprisonment (eight days already served) against her for entering a restricted area (the Pearl roundabout area) and three months on the charge of damaging MOI property (tearing a photo of Hamad bin Salman Al-Khalifa). In the case of insulting a public officer which Zainab was acquitted of all charges, was overturned and she was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment . The court has been impartial in the cases against Zainab, her lawyer was not given the chance to present his defense in one of the cases and in another case witnesses and official documents were overlooked by the court. Zainab has already spent around four months in prison for other cases and she has another four cases active in court against her. Now she is serving three months and 22 days according to her lawyer.
Halima Al Sabagh is a dental assistant who was arrested from her workplace in Salmaniya Hospital in 2012 for allegedly taking first-aid medicine to treat injured protesters whose injuries were caused by security forces` use of excessive force. She was detained for three weeks pending investigation on the charge of exploitation of her job. On 18 September 2012, she was sentenced to one year imprisonment and a BD100 fine. She was arrested on 15 October 2012, while attending her appeal to serve her sentence. She has been imprisoned for more than five months on trumped up charges.
Siddiqa AlBasri, a twenty-five year-old mother of two was arrested from court on the 28 January 2013 and is currently serving a six-month prison sentence for allegedly insulting a police officer and disobeying orders, on background of an earlier arrest from a checkpoint during the national safety status in April 2011 when she tried to leave her car and walk away from the checkpoint. The officers pursued her, assaulted her, and finally arrested her on the charge of disobeying their orders and insulting the security forces for reportedly saying: “I’m from Sitra and I fear only God.” Al-Basri was never presented with the opportunity to defend herself at any stage of the trial and appeal process.
On 16 January 2013, Zainab Abduali Taraif (twenty), an honors university student, was arrested briefly after she stood silently near the financial harbor, holding a banner with her academic results and honor certificates, to protest against her second expulsion from the University of Bahrain.
The nightly house raids and arrests of women are not over. Munira Sayed Habib - twenty-seven years old - was arrested in a violent way in the early morning hours – 3:00 AM - on Wednesday, 28 November 2012, when her house was raided in Al-Ghuraifa by groups of special security forces backed with armed and masked civilians. She was held until 1 December 2012 for no clear reason before being released without charges.
Five women were sentenced to six months in detention on 17 January 2013 on the charge of illegal gathering. Being subjected to harassment and fearing dawn house raids, they turned themselves in to serve the unjust prison sentence. The five women are:
- Fatima Al-Naino, seventeen years old, is a high school student. She fell behind a year in her studies because of the harassment to which she has been subject.
- Khadija Hubail, sixteen years old, is in her last year of high school. She plans to study medicine; however, her study was greatly affected and she has fallen a year behind. She fears it will be further affected when it is time to apply for university and she will probably be denied a good conduct certificate, which is required by all universities.
- Zainab Duhaim, 21 years old, is engaged to be married and was studying at the university until she was forced to withdraw due to the harassment.
- Fatima Al Jishi, 22 years old, is a university graduate; she was unable to seek employment or enroll in further education fearing violent arrest at any time.
- Aqeela Al-Muqabi, 25 years old, is a university graduate who was seeking employment and feared violent arrest everywhere that she went.
Harassment, dismissal and stripping from nationality
Jalila Al Salman, the vice president of the Bahrain’s Teachers’ Association (BTA), was arrested three times, tortured, and detained for six months. Recently, she received a letter from the Ministry of Education, where she works, stating that she has been fired, despite the fact that her case was still at the court of cassation. In addition, she has been targeted by the pro-government media with smear campaigns calling for putting her on trial again on background of her activism at the UN Human Rights Council. Jalila Al Salman was previously sentenced by a military court to three years in prison in 2011 which was later reduced on 22 Oct 2012 to six months’ imprisonment, on charges of, among other things, inciting hatred against the regime, calling for a teachers strike, and participating and calling for illegal gatherings. The BCHR believes that these are politically motivated charges, linked closely to the role the Teachers Association has played since the beginning of the popular uprising in Bahrain.
Hundreds of women were subjected to sackings in Bahrain due to their participation in pro-democracy protests. On 1 March 2013, Ramla Abdulhameed, a journalist, political activist and Al Wefaq political society shura member, was denied entry to Egypt. Her passport was taken and she was held at Cairo International airport for three hours. It is believed that the Bahraini authorities are sending a black list of Bahraini activists and journalists to be denied entry.
Also, Reem Khalifa, the Associated Press office manager in Bahrain, was denied entry to Dubai when she was visiting with her husband. The same incident happened to other human rights activists like Dr. Nada Dhaif, head of BRAVO, who was denied entry to Kuwait, and Maryam Al Khawaja, the acting president of the BCHR, who was denied entry to Egypt.
One woman, Mariam Sayed Ibrahim Hussein Redha, is among thirty-one Bahrainis who were stripped from their nationality in November 2012 without any prior notice and without judicial process, in contrary to customary international law.
Impunity for the abusers
On 22 October 2012, a Bahraini court acquitted a female police officer from torturing France 24 Correspondent Ms. Nazeeha Saeed after a series of adjournment that lasted for more than a year. Having reported on pro-democracy demonstrations held at Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout in the spring of 2011, Ms. Saeed was called into a Bahraini police station for questioning in May 2011. There she was blindfolded, kicked, punched, and slapped. Her hair was pulled, and she was whipped with plastic tubing, had a shoe forced into her mouth, and her head dunked into a toilet. An unknown, caustic liquid said to be urine was poured onto her face, she was repeatedly insulted and mentally abused and asked to make a false confession. Three independent medical reports, two of which were from Bahraini government doctors, corroborate Ms Saeed’s account of the torture she suffered while in custody.
Another example is the case of Dr. Fatima Haji, a thirty-four year-old mother of two boys, a four year-old and a four month-old, who is an Internal Medicine Rheumatology specialist. Dr. Fatima was arrested from her home around midnight on the 17th of April 2011. During her detention, which lasted twenty-one days, three of them in solitary confinement, Dr Fatima was subjected to different types of torture: slapping on the face, severe beatings, beatings with a rubber hose on the feet, electrocution to the head, sleep deprivation, standing for long hours without food or drinks, prevention from use of toilet, hanging from wrists, threats of execution and rape, threats to kill her child.
Dr. Fatima was then sentenced to five years imprisonment by a military court on trumped up charges. She was later found innocent, but the Ministry of Health refuses to reinstate her, as she is suspended from work; and she is prohibited from private work. Noura Al-Khalifa, a member of the ruling family, took part in Dr. Fatima`s arrest and torture. A case was filed against Noura, then dropped after the first hearing.
It is important to note that Dr. Fatima Haji is only one of a large number of female medics subjected to arrests, torture, sackings, and/or harassment.
Women in Bahrain have been victims of countless human rights violations by the authorities. They have been arrested, detained, tortured and harassed. On International Women’s Day, the BCHR appeals to the international community and women rights’ groups to immediately demand:
- Hold those responsible in the security forces and government positions accountable for the killings and torture of women ;
- Release all female political prisoner and drop all charges against them ;
- Investigate torture cases against women ;
- Putt an end to the harassment/targeting and defamation campaigns carried out against female activists ;
- Abide by international human rights laws to eliminate violence against women.