Bahrain increasingly torturing Shias

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has expressed grave concern about the country’s growing violence against the detained opposition activists.

The BCHR said on Monday despite the Bahraini authorities’ efforts to keep the world in the dark about the detainees and their conditions, the group is receiving more and more reports about the mistreatment and torture of Shia activists in the custody of the National Security Apparatus.

The prominent rights group also accused the Bahraini authorities of giving poor medical treatment to those detainees who were tortured and sustained serious injuries during interrogations.

According to the BCHR, while AbdulJalil Alsingace — head of the human rights unit of the Shia Haq political party — is in need of an emergency surgery because of sustaining continuous head traumas, the National Security has denied providing him with any medical treatment and still holds him in solitary confinement.

The BCHR urged the international organizations to pursue the rising torture cases against the detained political activists, human rights defenders and religious leaders in the Persian Gulf state.

Bahrain has arrested more than 250 Shia activists since mid-August, ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections, accusing them of having links with terrorists and conspiring to overthrow the Bahraini government.

According to human rights groups, the Shia detainees were ill-treated and tortured during interrogations and were forced to make false declarations and accusations against other human rights defenders.

The fabrications were later broadcasted on the state media as “confessions” made by “terrorists.”

The human rights groups have also criticized Bahraini authorities for their crackdown on the freedom of expression notably through blocking internet websites and opening judicial proceedings against those journalists denouncing human rights violations in the country.

The Shia opposition also refuses to recognize the 2002 Constitution, which curbed the power of the Shia-majority parliament, calling for the boycott of next month’s parliamentary elections.