MANAMA (Middle East Eye) – Jailed Bahraini human rights defender Abdulhadi al-Khawaja has started a hunger strike after being informed that he has been banned from receiving calls from family, his daughter Zaynab said on Tuesday.
“My father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, has started a hunger strike today. The prison administration informed him that he is not allowed to make any calls. Having had no visitation rights for the past two years, these calls were his only communication with us,” Zaynab al-Khawaja wrote on Twitter.
Khawaja, who turned 60 in April, is a prominent human rights defender and the former president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. He has been in prison for 10 years, serving a life sentence for “organizing and managing a terrorist organization”, among other charges.
His case was one of the first high-profile arrests following the beginning of pro-democracy protests in 2011 that sparked a widespread government crackdown in Bahrain.
Tens of thousands of people poured out onto the streets at the time, calling for democratic reforms, an end to discrimination against the majority Shia Muslim population and, eventually, the end of the 245-year rule of the Khalifa monarchy.
Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, has called for the release of Khawaja on his 60th birthday, but her calls have been unheeded.
“He’s serving a life sentence in prison for peacefully defending the rights of others,” Lawlor said.
“He’s been given an unfair trial and details of his torture have been corroborated by an independent commission of inquiry.”
Earlier this year, Khawaja’s other daughter, Maryam, told Middle East Eye that his family’s access to him had been sporadic.