MANAMA (Dispatches) – Human rights organizations have warned about the dire conditions of political dissidents and prisoners of conscience in Bahrain’s detention centers, saying the Al Khalifah regime’s authorities continue to brutally torture and terrorize the inmates at the country’s notorious Jau Prison.
The groups said that undercover officers have lately transferred at least a dozen political prisoners from the prison, located south of the capital, Manama, to an unknown location on several occasions.
Informed sources, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the officials have frequently stormed the Fifth Building of Jau Prison this month, and took away seven detainees in the first instance on August 9.
They abducted another one two days later, and moved away three prisoners in the most recent occurrence. Their whereabouts and fate remain unknown to date.
The families of the prisoners have demanded clarification on the fate of their missing loved ones, as well as firm assurances that they have not been subject to torture and harassment.
Lately, dozens of human rights organizations, including the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), have called on Bahraini authorities to release human rights activist Abduljalil al-Singace.
According to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), more than 2,000 political prisoners are still being held in poor conditions behind bars at Bahrain’s prisons.
BCHR, the Persian Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) recently in a joint report entitled “Prison Conditions in Bahrain” shed light on the serious structural deficiencies in Bahrain’s criminal justice system, and lack of fair trials for defendants.
They emphasized that human rights are being violated on a large scale at detention centers across the Persian Gulf kingdom, and inmates are exposed to various forms of torture and ill-treatment.