HRW criticizes Bahrain govt.’s protest-related trials

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticized the Bahraini regime’s trial of anti-government demonstrators, protest leaders, and the medical doctors, who treated the injuries caused by government crackdown on the protesters.

In a 94-page report issued on Tuesday, the HRW lambasted the state-orchestrated trials as unfair and politically motivated.

“Grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW, said in the report, titled No Justice in Bahrain: Unfair Trials in Military and Civilian Courts.

“The government should remedy the hundreds of unfair convictions of the past year by dropping the cases against everyone convicted on politically motivated charges and by adopting effective measures to end torture in detention,” he noted.

The report called on Bahrain’s Saudi-backed Al Khalifa regime to release detained protesters.

The group also urged Western countries to suspend all military and security-related sales to the regime until the government fully addresses the violations.

“These violations reflect serious, systematic problems with Bahrain’s criminal justice system and the role of the military and intelligence services in state oppression,” the report pointed out.

The regime’s crackdown has so far failed to end the popular revolution in the country, which has persisted unabated since last February.

Bahraini revolutionaries hold King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa responsible for the deaths of scores of people during the uprising.