Bahrain

Discussion Friday morning with Moosa Abd-ali , Ali Mushaima and Abbas Alamran, on the steeply deteriorating situation in Bahrain.

After the meeting I spoke to the Bar Human Rights Committee and emailed them as follows:

We spoke about the detention of Mr Hassan Mushaima, 61, Leader of the Haq movement, who has been a regular speaker at Parliamentary Human Rights Group (PHRG) seminars I chair in the Moses Room of the House of Lords. This morning his son Ali Mushaima, a refugee in UK, came to give me details of his father's arrest. He was taken from his home at 03.15 on the morning of Monday January 26, but his interrogation only began at 21.00 that evening. It continued until 03.00 March 27, by which time he was so exhausted he had to be treated in hospital. Mr Mushaima is diabetic and has high blood pressure.
Mr Mushaima's lawyers Ms Jalila al-Sayed and Hassan Radi attended the interrogation but were not allowed to speak. The charges against him are as follows:
1. Ilegally organizing and managing a group of people to disrupt the provisions of the Constitution, laws or prevent any of the State enterprises or public authorities from exercising their duty, as stated in Article 6 of Terrorism law no. 58 of 2006, the punishment of which is life imprisonment.
2. Promoting the overthrow of the regime and political system, using force and illegal means, the punishable by five years imprisonment, as per Article 160 of the Penal Code of 1976.
3. Instigating hatred against the regime and undermining it and is punishable with imprisonment of up to three years as per Article 165 of the Penal Code
Since then some family visits have been allowed. Mr Mushaima toldhis relativesthat during the interrogation he had protested about the misrecording of his answers by Nawaz Hamza, the interrogator, but corrections were not made accordingly.
Mr Mushaima has been denied access to newspapers, radio or TV since his arrest.
The Bahrain authorities have published son Ali's name and picture, and a statement that they have requested the British to revoke his refugee status and return him to Bahrain.
Abdul-Jalil Alsingace, arrested at the same time, has also been a regular speaker at PHRG seminars on Bahrain.
Recent reports from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (www.bahrainrights.org/en) are attached, together with a copy of a letter to Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch from one of the detainees, Abdul-Jalil Alsingace.