Bahrain: Arbitrary Arrests Escalate

New Article Submission

Thank you for your interest in Jadaliyya. We welcome all submissions. The most significant requirement is for Jadaliyya submissions to be analytically compelling and offer a perspective or argument that has not been covered at length either on Jadaliyya or elsewhere. Because of the volume of submissions, well-written pieces are prioritized. Length is flexible, 1000 to 2500 words is the average range. However, we will accept longer pieces. Once submitted, several members of the editorial committee will review your piece and one of them will inform you of the decision.
Author Details
Article Details
Select Countries
Select Keywords
Select Topics
Only RTF, Word, and Pages documents accepted.

Recommended image size: 762x800 px

Location of each image should be indicated in the text of the article via a square bracket caption that includes: (1) a description of the image; (2) the photographer/designer and source of the image. Please note we only use images you as the author have the right to use, which usually means those of your own creation or those published under Creative Commons. Alternatively, you need specific permission from the copyright holder.
Please read the Release Form and provide an electronic signature [your full name] below to confirm that you accept its terms
Required
Hyperlink words in your article if they refer to links on the internet. We encourage more, rather than less, links (try to avoid footnotes—embed them as hyperlinks if possible)

Article added successfully.

Pages Menu BETA
May 5, 2011 Bahrain
[Image from unknown archive.] [Image from unknown archive.]

Bahrain: Arbitrary Arrests Escalate

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following report was released by Human Rights Watch on May 4 and 5, 2011, in both English and Arabic, respectively.]

(Washington, DC) - Security forces arrested two former members of parliament from Bahrain`s largest opposition group, Human Rights Watch said today. The arrests were the first targeting elected representatives of the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, which won the popular vote in October 2010 elections, since the large-scale crackdown against protesters and opposition members began in mid-March.

Security forces in civilian clothes and masks arrested Matar Ebrahim Matar and Jawad Fairuz on the evening of May 2, 2011, and took them to unknown locations. The reasons for their arrests are not currently known. Both had won seats in the October 2010 elections in the Majlis al-Nawab (Assembly of Deputies), Bahrain`s lower house. They resigned along with 16 other al-Wefaq members after security forces attacked the Pearl Roundabout protesters during the early morning hours of February 17. Four protesters died as a result. Since their resignation, many al-Wefaq members have spoken out publicly against the government`s handling of the February protests and the security crackdown launched since mid-March.

Authorities have also intensified their campaign against medical professionals in recent days, arresting at least seven more doctors, including the former head of the Bahrain Medical Society.

"It seems that Bahrain`s ruling family intends to punish any and everyone who criticizes the government," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The aim of this vicious full-scale crackdown seems to be to intimidate everyone into silence."

A source close to Fairuz`s family told Human Rights Watch that at around 8 p.m. on May 2, about 30 security officers, some masked and in civilian clothes, surrounded and entered Fairuz`s home with weapons drawn. He was upstairs, but came downstairs and was arrested after they threatened to harm his wife and daughter.

According to Al Jazeera English, the same evening armed men in civilian clothes accosted Matar on the street and forced him into an unmarked car at gunpoint.

These arrests follow several weeks of sustained attacks in state-owned and pro-government media accusing al-Wefaq members of treachery and urging authorities to shut down the party and criminally prosecute individual members. On April 28 state-owned Bahrain TV aired a program with film footage in which a defendant accused of murdering two security officers named Matar as one of the people who directed them to target and kill police officers.

Human Rights Watch spoke with Matar after the program was broadcast. He confirmed that the person who named him on BTV was Ali Isa Ibrahim Saqer, who had died in custody in early April, apparently as a result of torture, and told Human Rights Watch that he believed authorities were planning to arrest him.

"I feel they are preparing something for me," Matar said. "I don`t know when and what."

The BTV program aired after Matar gave several interviews to foreign news outlets in which he spoke out against recent arbitrary arrests of opposition activists and doctors. On April 26 Al Jazeera English aired a program in which Matar condemned a police raid that day against medical professionals at the A`ali and Isa Town health centers in which 14 health professionals, including at least six doctors, had been arrested. The day before his arrest, Matar gave an interview to the BBC in which he called for establishment of a secular democracy in Bahrain.

Human Rights Watch also learned that authorities had arrested two more doctors - Dr. Ahmad Jamal, the head of the Bahrain Medical Society, and Dr. Nedhal Khalifa. Human Rights Watch learned that security forces arrested Jamal on May 3. Late the night before, at around 11p.m., the Interior Ministry`s Criminal Investigation Directorate summoned Khalifa, 42. She went to the directorate`s headquarters at the ministry and never returned home, Human Rights Watch learned. Khalifa is the wife of Dr. Sadiq Abdulla, also 42, who has not been heard from since he was detained on April 14. They are the parents of four children, ages 8 to 15.

On May 3, the justice minister, Shaikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa, and the social development and acting health minister, Dr. Fatima bint Mohammed Al Balooshi, announced criminal charges against 23 doctors and 24 nurses detained since March 17.The state-run Bahrain News Agency reported that the charges against them included "refusal to extend assistance to a person in need, embezzlement of public funds, assault that resulted in death, unauthorized possession of weapons and ammunition ... illegal detention ... attempt to occupy buildings by force, incitement to the forceful overthrow of a political regime, incitement to the hatred of a regime, incitement to the hatred of a segment of society, dissemination of false news and malicious rumors ... and participation in unauthorized rallies and meetings."

Earlier, on April 27, the head of the Information Affairs Authority, Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, announced that authorities had referred 405 detainees to the special military court. Human Rights Watch is concerned that the 47 medical professionals are among those to be tried in Bahrain`s special military courts.

Also on May 3 Human Rights Watch received credible reports that a human rights and opposition activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who was arrested on April 9 and whose whereabouts and well-being were unknown, had been admitted to Bahrain Defense Force hospital for six days for treatment of injuries, including to his jaw and head. One person who saw him said he was unrecognizable as a result of apparent beatings in detention.

The authorities should immediately release information on the whereabouts and well-being of Matar, Fairuz, Khalifa, and Jamal, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, and the hundreds of others arbitrarily detained, and allow them immediate access to medical care, lawyers, and families, Human Rights Watch said.

"The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other governments that have security and military relationships with Bahrain need to declare publicly that these relationships are all suspended until the torture and other horrific abuses by the Bahrain authorities come to an end," Stork said.

Update (by HRW):

At approximately 10 p.m. on May 4, 2011, Bahraini authorities released Dr. Nedhal al-Khalifa and two of her associates from CID headquarters in `Adlyia, where they were being detained. The condition and whereabouts of al-Khalifa`s husband, Dr. Sadiq Abdulla, remain unknown, as well as the reason for his detention.

(واشنطن) - قالت هيومن رايتس ووتش اليوم إن قوات الأمن اعتقلت نائبين سابقين بالبرلمان البحريني، من أكبر كتلة معارضة في البلاد. هذه الاعتقالات تعتبر الأولى من نوعها بحق النواب المنتخبين عن جمعية الوفاق الوطني الإسلامية، الذين نجحوا في انتخابات أكتوبر/تشرين الأول 2010، منذ حملة القمع الموسعة ضد المتظاهرين والمعارضة منذ أواسط مارس/آذ

قامت قوات الأمن في ثياب مدنية وأقنعة تغطي الوجوه بالقبض على مطر إبراهيم مطر وجواد فيروز مساء 2 مايو/أيار 2011، ونقلوهما إلى أماكن مجهولة. أسباب القبض على كل منهما غير معروفة. كان كل منهما قد ربح مقعده في انتخابات مجلس النواب المنعقدة في أكتوبر/تشرين الأول 2010. استقالا مع 16 نائباً آخرين من الوفاق بعد أن هاجمت قوات الأمن متظاهري دوار اللؤلؤة أثناء ساعات الصباح الأولى من 17 فبراير/شباط. مات أربعة متظاهرين في تلك الهجمة. منذ استقالتهم، تحدث العديد من أعضاء الوفاق على الملأ ضد أسلوب تعامل الحكومة مع احتجاجات فبراير/شباط وحملتها القمعية التي شنتها منذ أواسط مارس/آذار

كما كثّفت السلطات من حملتها ضد العاملين بالمجال الطبي على مدار الأيام الأخيرة، فاعتقلت سبعة أطباء آخرين، منهم الرئيس السابق للجمعية الطبية البحرينية

وقال جو ستورك، نائب المدير التنفيذي لقسم الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا في هيومن رايتس ووتش: "يبدو أن الأسرة الحاكمة البحرينية تعتزم معاقبة أي شخص وكل شخص ينتقد الحكومة. الهدف من هذه الحملة القمعية الكاملة والمتوحشة يبدو أنه ترهيب الجميع كي يلتزموا الصمت"

قال مصدر مقرب من عائلة فيروز لـ هيومن رايتس ووتش إن حوالي الثامنة مساء 2 مايو/أيار، قام نحو 30 ضابط أمن، بعضهم ملثمين وفي ثياب مدنية، بحصار واقتحام منزل فيروز وأسلحتهم مشهرة. كان بالطابق العلوي، لكنه نزل وسلم نفسه بعد أن هددوه بأذية زوجته وابنته

بحسب قناة الجزيرة الإنجليزية، ففي المساء نفسه، أمسك رجال مسلحون في ثياب مدنية بمطر وهو في الشارع، وأجبروه على ركوب سيارة لا توجد عليها لوحات أرقام، تحت تهديد السلاح

تأتي هذه الاعتقالات إثر أسابيع من الهجمات المستمرة في وسائل الإعلام المملوكة للحكومة والموالية لها تتهم أعضاء الوفاء بالخيانة وتدعو السلطات إلى حظر الحزب وملاحقة أعضائه جنائياً. في 28 أبريل/نيسان بث تلفزيون البحرين المملوك للدولة حلقة شملت تغطية مصورة اتهم فيها مدعى عليه بقتل ضابطي أمن مطر بأنه أحد الذين أمروهم باستهداف وقتل ضباط الشرطة

تحدثت هيومن رايتس ووتش إلى مطر بعد بث البرنامج. أكد أن الشخص الذي ذكر اسمه على قناة البحرين هو علي عيسى إبراهيم صقر، الذي مات رهن الاحتجاز مطلع أبريل/نيسان، على ما يبدو تحت تأثير التعذيب، وقال لـ هيومن رايتس ووتش إن السلطات تخطط في رأيه للقبض عليه

وقال مطر: "أشعر بأنهم يدبرون لي أمراً ما... لا أعرف متى أو ما هو"

برنامج قناة البحرين تم بثه بعد أن أدلى مطر بعدة مقابلات لمنافذ إعلامية أجنبية، تحدث فيها ضد الاعتقالات التعسفية لنشطاء المعارضة والأطباء في الآونة الأخيرة. في 26 أبريل/نيسان بثت قناة الجزيرة الإنجليزية برنامجاً أدان فيه مطر المداهمة البوليسية ذلك اليوم ضد العاملين بالمجال الطبي في مراكز أعالي وبرج عيسى الطبية، وفيها تم القبض على 14 شخصاً يعملون بالمجال الطبي، منهم ستة أطباء على الأقل. اليوم السابق على اعتقاله، أجرى مطر مقابلة على قناة البي بي سي، وفيها دعى لإنشاء نظام ديمقراطي علماني في البحرين

كما عرفت هيومن رايتس ووتش بأن السلطات قبضت على طبيبين آخرين، هما د. أحمد جمال، رئيس جمعية البحرين الطبية، ود. نضال خليفة. عرفت هيومن رايتس ووتش بقيام قوات الأمن باعتقال جمال يوم 3 مايو/أيار. في وقت لاحق من الليلة نفسها، قبل 11 مساءً، استدعت إدارة المباحث الجنائية بالداخلية خليفة، 42 عاماً. ذهبت للإدارة بوزارة الداخلية ولم تعد لبيتها مطلقاً، حسبما عرفت هيومن رايتس ووتش. خليفة هي زوجة د. صادق عبد الله، 42 عاماً، ولم يُسمع عنه منذ احتجازه في 14 أبريل/نيسان. هنا أبوان لأربعة أطفال، تتراوح أعمارهم من 8 إلى 15 عاماً

في 3 مايو/أيار، أعلن كل من وزير العدل - الشيخ خالد بن علي آل خليفة - ووزير التنمية المحلية والقائم بأعمال وزير الصحة - د. فاطمة بنت محمد آل بلوشي - أعلنا عن اتهامات جنائية بحق 23 طبيباً و24 ممرضاً محتجزين منذ 17 مارس/آذار. وكالة أنباء البحرين التي تديرها الدولة أفادت بأن الاتهامات المنسوبة إليهم تشمل رفض مد يد المساعدة لشخص محتاج للمساعدة، والاختلاس من أموال عامة، والقيام بأعمال عدوان أدت للوفاة، والحيازة للأسلحة والذخائر بدون ترخيص... واحتجاز أفراد تعسفاً... ومحاولة احتلال مباني بالقوة، والتحريض على قلب نظام الحكم، والتحريض على كراهية النظام، والتحريض على كراهية قطاع من المجتمع، ونشر أنباء كاذبة وإشاعات مغرضة... والمشاركة في مسيرات واجتماعات غير مرخص لها

في 27 أبريل/نيسان أعلن رئيس شؤون الإعلام، شيخ فواز بن محمد آل خليفة، أن السلطات أحالت 405 محتجزاً إلى محكمة عسكرية استثنائية. تعرب هيومن رايتس ووتش عن قلقها إزاء احتمال أن العاملين الطبيين الـ 47 المذكورين هم من بين الذين سيحاكمون أمام محاكم الاستثناء العسكرية البحرينية

وفي 3 مايو/أيار أيضاً تلقت هيومن رايتس ووتش تقارير موثوقة بأن ناشط المعارضة وحقوق الإنسان، عبد الهادي الخواجة، المعتقل في 9 أبريل/نيسان ومكانه وحالته غير معروفتين، قد أُدخل مستشفى قوة دفاع البحرين لمدة ستة أيام لعلاجه من إصابات، منها إصابات لحقت بفكه ورأسه. قال شخص رآه إنه لا يمكن التعرف عليه جراء الضرب الذي تعرض له أثناء احتجازه

وقالت هيومن رايتس ووتش إن على السلطات أن تفرج فوراً عن معلومات عن أماكن وأحوال كل من مطر وفيروز وخليفة وجمال وعبد الهادي الخواجة ومئات المحتجزين تعسفاً غيرهم، وأن تسمح لهم بالحصول فوراً على الرعاية الطبية ومقابلة المحامين والأهل

وقال جو ستورك: "على الولايات المتحدة والمملكة المتحدة وفرنسا والحكومات الأخرى التي تربطها علاقات أمنية وعسكرية بالبحرين أن تعلن على الملأ عن أن هذه العلاقات ستُجمد إلى أن تتوقف أعمال التعذيب وغيرها من الانتهاكات المروعة التي تقوم بها السلطات البحرينية"
Tags

  • ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR

    • Long Form Podcast Episode 8: Resigning the State Department Over Gaza With Hala Rharrit

      Long Form Podcast Episode 8: Resigning the State Department Over Gaza With Hala Rharrit

      In this episode of Long Form, Hala Rharrit discusses the factors that led her to resign from the US State Department, the mechanisms by which institutional corruption and ideological commitments of officials and representatives ensure US support for Israel, and how US decision-makers consistently violate international law and US laws/legislation. Rharrit also addresses the Trump administration’s claim that South Africa is perpetrating genocide against the country’s Afrikaaner population, and how this intersects with the US-Israeli campaign of retribution against South Africa for hauling Israel before the ICJ on charges of genocide.

    • Emergency Teach-In — Israel’s Profound Existential Crisis: No Morals or Laws Left to Violate!

      Emergency Teach-In — Israel’s Profound Existential Crisis: No Morals or Laws Left to Violate!

      The entire globe stands behind Israel as it faces its most intractable existential crisis since it started its slow-motion Genocide in 1948. People of conscience the world over are in tears as Israel has completely run out of morals and laws to violate during its current faster-paced Genocide in Gaza. Israelis, state and society, feel helpless, like sitting ducks, as they search and scramble for an inkling of hope that they might find one more human value to desecrate, but, alas, their efforts remain futile. They have covered their grounds impeccably and now have to face the music. This is an emergency call for immediate global solidarity with Israel’s quest far a lot more annihilation. Please lend a helping limb.

    • Long Form Podcast Episode 7: Think Tanks and Manufactuing Consent with Mandy Turner (4 June)

      Long Form Podcast Episode 7: Think Tanks and Manufactuing Consent with Mandy Turner (4 June)

      In this episode, Mandy Turner discusses the vital role think tanks play in the policy process, and in manufacturing consent for government policy. Turner recently published a landmark study of leading Western think tanks and their positions on Israel and Palestine, tracing pronounced pro-Israel bias, where the the key role is primarily the work of senior staff within these institutions, the so-called “gatekeepers.”
Feb 16, 2011 Lebanon
Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412