Bahraini activist al-Khawaja in unbelievable condition: Analyst

An analyst tells Press TV that prominent Bahraini political activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is being kept in prison under unbearable and unbelievable conditions while the country claims to be a role model for human rights.

Al-Khawaja has been held in detention since April 2012 after he was arrested on charges of organizing and participating in rallies against the regime. The activist is among the thousands of people arrested since the ruling Al Khalifa family, backed by Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab neighbors, launched a deadly crackdown on peaceful protesters in March 2011.

Press TV has conducted an interview with London-based Hisham al-Hashimi with the Bahrain international mission to further discuss the issue. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Hisham al-Hashimi, we are looking at journalists being blacklisted, the arrest of twitter activists and of course what is going on here with Abdulhadi and his daughter Zainab al-Khawaja? There is no sign from the monarchy that they’re willing to be lenient not to say the least regarding different issues such as this particular topic surrounding these activists Zainab and her father?

al-Hashimi:
Well at the beginning it is the basic right of every single person in this globe is the right to talk, to see his family, to have medical treatment, to have education, I mean all those basic rights for every single person.

Now even those very simple rights Mr. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and Zainab al-Khawaja his daughter are not even getting those basic rights. And they are not allowing them to see their family, not even to see his daughter while they were inside the prison.

I mean even they are stopped from seeing each other. We know especially that Abdulhadi is not a very young person, he is a person in an age that needs medical care, he needs personal care, and he needs to have his rights whether he is right or not.

Those people are even threatening his family. He knows that they are threatening his family away from him and they are putting him in an unbelievable environment, unbearable environment and at the end of the day they send their representative, the human right minister to Geneva distributing a leaflet saying Bahrain is the example of human rights in this globe which people start just laughing at them.

Forty-four countries about two, three weeks ago they have been condemning Bahrain behaving against human rights. Also we are the opposition internally in Bahrain and internationally over everywhere we are demonstrating all over, in France, in UK, in London, in Australia, in Copenhagen, also in Bahrain, in Lebanon, in Cairo, in India as well all over we are also bringing the attention of the people for the activist Mr. Nabeel Rajab whom people have started to forget who Nabeel Rajab is.

I mean I know that Mr. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is the teacher of human rights in Bahrain; he is the teacher of every single human right defender in Bahrain, including Mr. Nabeel Rajab but it’s also a time to bring all those human rights activists who fight for our rights while they do not receive their rights even though they are inside a cell or inside al-Khalifa prison.