Free Abdulhadi Alkhawaja and All Political Prisoners in Bahrain

In a case of reprisal in Manana, Bahrain on April 9 2011, prominent human rights defender and former Middle East & North Africa Director of Frontline Defenders (an international foundation that protects human rights defenders at risk), Abdulhadi Alkhawaja was severely beaten and arrested along with two of his son-in-laws, Wafi Almajid and Hussein Ahmed. Alkhawaja is a very prominent human rights activist not just in Bahrain but internationally. He has reported to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and is the founder and former director of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. Alkhawaja was also mentioned by the Crown Prince of Bahrain in a 2004 Wikileaks Cable.

On April 9th, Bahraini security forces broke the front door to the house wearing masks, dragged Alkhawaja down the stairs, and then beat him so severely that he was left unconscious with blood stains on the staircase. The Bahraini security forces repeatedly threatened Alkhawaja that they would kill him. His daughter, Zainab Alkhawaja told the Bahraini Security Forces that there was no need to beat him because he would go with them peacefully, and upon saying this, she was beaten as well. Additionally the security forces also severely beat Mohammad Almasqati, the President of the Bahrain Youth Society of Human Rights, threw him into a room, told him not to come out, and then closed the door.

This latest raid is part of a series of raids conducted after Saudi Arabian troops moved into Bahrain as part of a regional force from the Gulf Cooperation Council, the first cross-border intervention since a wave of popular uprisings swept through parts of the Arab world. Thousands of pro-democracy protestors took the streets in Bahrain beginning Feb. 14, demanding democratic reforms through free elections from their Sunni monarch.

Bahrain receives U.S military aid and assistance, and is the home of the US Navys Fifth Fleet. In violation of the U.S Arms Export Control Act, the U.S continues to supply Bahrain with military hardware used to repress protestors. As such we demand that the United States state department pressure the Bahraini government to free Abdulhadi Alkawaja and all other arrested and disappeared peoples, and respect the Bahraini peoples universal rights of freedom of association, assembly and expression.