MANAMA (Al Jazeera) –
Bahrain must drop all charges against three men who have been arrested amid ongoing violations of the “rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association” in the Persian Gulf country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.
The appeal on Tuesday by the rights group comes after three independent United Nations experts expressed concern over the “arbitrary detention and subsequent arrests” of four people – including three minors – following protests in the town of A’ali in 2021 against Bahrain’s normalization of ties with the Zionist regime.
HRW said Jalal al-Qassab, Redha Rajab and Mohamed Rajab were set to go on trial on Tuesday after being charged under a law that criminalizes “expression that ‘ridicules’ any of Bahrain’s ‘recognized religious texts’”.
All three defendants are members of the Al-Tajdeed Society, according to HRW, which accused the government of targeting the men for “merely exercising their right to free expression and belief”.
“No one should ever be on trial merely for peacefully expressing their own views about religion,” Niku Jafarnia, Bahrain and Yemen researcher for HRW, said in a statement.
She noted the trial is set to begin shortly before Bahrain hosts the Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly, a global organization of national parliaments “committed to promoting democracy, equality, human rights, development and peace”.
HRW further charged “the trials are taking place against the backdrop of the Bahraini government’s attempts to whitewash its human rights abuses and display an image of reform and tolerance internationally”.
Bahrain has been accused of widespread crackdowns following pro-democracy protests in 2011.
In 2021, a decade after the protests began, Amnesty International said the kingdom had failed to recognize key recommendations of an independent commission established by King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa following the unrest.
HRW said a “number of activists, bloggers, and human rights defenders continue to be imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression” in the wake of the 2011 protests, including rights advocate Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and academic Abduljalil al-Singace.
In December, three UN rapporteurs sent a letter to Bahrain’s government expressing concerns over the arrests of human rights activist Yusuf Ahmed Hasan Kadhem, 17-year-old Ali Mustafa Majid Maki and two unidentified 16-year-olds following their participation in the anti-Zionist normalization protests in October 2021.