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Since the report, which the King accepted to much international acclaim, the Bahrain government has emphasised its commitment to reforms. Yet implementation of the recommendations has been frequently documented as inadequate. Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) found that only two of the report’s 26 recommendations had been fully implemented, and eight had not even begun. Many of these reforms centred around creating mechanisms to ensure an end to torture and an increase of state accountability. Even Professor Cherif Bassiouni, the head of the BICI team, wrote in June last year that most of the reforms had not been fully implemented.
But things are actually getting worse. Amid the token reforms, the January executions show that Bahrain is regressing with regards to political development and human rights. The country’s only remotely critical newspaper, Al Wasat, which was shut down in 2011, has now been ordered by the government to close its online paper, too. The official reason given was that it was “jeapordising national unity and disrupting public peace”. In fact, it had been slighty critical of the executions.
Earlier this year, the government of Bahrain announced that it was reversing one of the BICI reforms which stipulated that Bahrain’s National Security Agency (NSA) have its powers of arrest removed. The power separation was considered important in controlling torture. Other laws enacted which have clamped down on freedom of expression, alongside the arrest of activists, have prompted accusations not of reform, but of de-democratisation. The fact that these are the first official executions to have occurred since 2010 suggest Bahrain is becoming more, not less authoritarian. Full story...
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Since the report, which the King accepted to much international acclaim, the Bahrain government has emphasised its commitment to reforms. Yet implementation of the recommendations has been frequently documented as inadequate. Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) found that only two of the report’s 26 recommendations had been fully implemented, and eight had not even begun. Many of these reforms centred around creating mechanisms to ensure an end to torture and an increase of state accountability. Even Professor Cherif Bassiouni, the head of the BICI team, wrote in June last year that most of the reforms had not been fully implemented.
But things are actually getting worse. Amid the token reforms, the January executions show that Bahrain is regressing with regards to political development and human rights. The country’s only remotely critical newspaper, Al Wasat, which was shut down in 2011, has now been ordered by the government to close its online paper, too. The official reason given was that it was “jeapordising national unity and disrupting public peace”. In fact, it had been slighty critical of the executions.
Earlier this year, the government of Bahrain announced that it was reversing one of the BICI reforms which stipulated that Bahrain’s National Security Agency (NSA) have its powers of arrest removed. The power separation was considered important in controlling torture. Other laws enacted which have clamped down on freedom of expression, alongside the arrest of activists, have prompted accusations not of reform, but of de-democratisation. The fact that these are the first official executions to have occurred since 2010 suggest Bahrain is becoming more, not less authoritarian. Full story...
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