Maryam al-Khawaja
On May 9, 2013, Maryam al-Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and a co-director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, described the current human rights situation in Bahrain as dire, at a meeting sponsored by Scholars at Risk at NYU Law School in New York City.
In order to understand the current human rights situation in the country, asking one simple question is enough, she said, and that is: “Where are the human rights defenders now?” Harassment of human rights defenders, their families and colleagues in Bahrain is severe. The Bahrain Center was banned by the authorities in 2004 and Ms. al-Khawaja’s father, the well-known human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, was arrested. (He is serving a life sentence, together with Dr. Abdul Jalil Al-Singace, on whose behalf CCS has been advocating.)
Nabeel Rajab, who was the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was arrested and is currently serving a jail sentence. Maryam’s sister, Zainab was arrested and is currently in prison. Maryam herself is living in Copenhagen as a safety measure. Although she went back to Bahrain in January on a 2-week visa, the timing of her visit was chosen so as not to get arrested. Her two brothers-in-law who have no political association were also arrested.
Despite losing its legal status, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights is struggling to promote human rights in Bahrain. Maryam has taken on the role of drawing international attention on human rights issues in Bahrain by embarking on the worldwide traveling tour calling attention to the situation.
Bahrain is geopolitically very important and this should tie in with the international response to the human rights situation in Bahrain, including the reaction from the US government.
There are numerous other human rights issues of concern in Bahrain, including the practice of torture during interrogations, discrimination of those, marginalized, obstacles to naturalization, lack of freedom of religion, as well as the issue of the arrest of medical personnel after the 2011 protests (see our coverage on concernedscintists.org). One of the current issues in Bahrain that Ms. al-Khawaja emphasized during the talk was the abuse and exploitation of migrant workers. Among recent events is the death of 13 migrant workers in the fire on January 11th, 2013 attributed to unsafe living conditions. Apart from human rights violations such as passport confiscations, unsafe housing, and working conditions, there is a concern for the growing animosity in the relationship between the migrant workers and the local population.
Bahrain is geopolitically very important and this should tie in with the international response to the human rights situation in Bahrain, including the reaction from the US government. Maryam also says that Bahrain human rights advocates haven’t gotten a lot of international governmental support and attributes this to having to choose between continuing to support allies or advocating democracy. Bahrain hasn’t been held accountable for the human rights violation in the international context. Progress was made when the second Joint Statement on the Human Rights Situation in Bahrain was issued by 44 UN member states, including United States and United Kingdom, at the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2013. The first Joint Statement on Human Rights conditions in Bahrain in 2012 was only signed by 27 states, and the United States and United Kingdom were not among them.
In her approach to international advocacy, Ms. al-Khawaja stressed the importance of providing specific recommendations to international organizations about what they can do about the situation in Bahrain and following up on those recommendations. Thus, every report or statement that the Bahrain Center for Human Rights releases on the local issues ends with specific recommendations for that specific case. Twitter and other social media has become an important tool in recording and documenting the human rights issues in Bahrain.
Unfortunately, Maryam reports that her colleagues are seeing a deterioration of the human rights situation and lack of international accountability. Although, she regrets not being able to see the direct results of her work, building more international awareness around an otherwise isolated Gulf state is still the way to go for her.