Ali Ahmed Fakhrawi and Mohamed Ahmed Fakhrawi are two Bahrain citizens who have been arrested in 2015 and subjected to torture and an unfair trial. Currently, they are detained in Jau Prison. They are both 32 years old and they are twin brothers.
This information in this profile originally appeared on ADHRB’s website, our main sister organisation.
On 18 September 2018, officers in plain clothing arrived at their homes and arrested the two men without a warrant. They have been transported to the Roundabout 17 Police Station, where they have been detained for three months. Meanwhile, officers from the Criminal Investigation Centre (CID) interrogated Ali and Mohamed about an alleged involvement with a terrorist group. During the interrogations they were prevented from visiting their lawyers.
Ali and Mohamed were subject to several tortures made by CID officers during their detention in the police station. Ali was handcuffed for 72 days continuously, he was held in a cold room and deprived of sleep. Officers threatened him of arresting and torturing his family members in case he had not cooperated. Mohamed instead was blindfolded and beaten. Officers forced him to take off his clothes and remain naked while they denigrated his religion and made threats against his family as well.
The officers reserved this treatment to the two brothers because they were seeking to coerce a confession out of them. Their arrest is also connected to their uncle Kareem Fakhrawi, who was a journalist and a known political prisoner who died in Jau Prison in 2011 for alleged violence committed by authorities.
On 6 June 2016, Ali and Mohamed were charged with terrorism-related charges. However, the government denied them a representation from their lawyers and made impossible for the two brothers to prepare for the trial with the proper facilities and the time needed. On 30 October 2017, the court sentenced Ali and Mohamed to life imprisonment. False confessions were used during the trial as evidence against them.
When Ali and Mohamed submitted a complaint for their cases, the Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation upheld their verdict, respectively on 7 March 2018 and 6 May 2019. Now, the two men have exhausted all the possible legal remedies and remain in Jau Prison. The prison authorities have arbitrarily transferred them to isolation rooms. Ali was placed in an isolation room in Section 12 of Jau, where he is the only Arab speaker. Likely, Mohamed is in insolation in Section 2, which hosts detainee on violent and or drug-related charges. Furthermore, prison authorities limited their access to water, goods and mails from their family.
The case of the Fakhrawi brothers violates the International declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Bahrain’s action is against international law, for it violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), which Bahrain is part.
The European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR) strictly condemns Bahrain’s action towards the brothers Ali and Mohamed Fakhrawi. Furthermore, it calls upon the Bahraini government to immediately release the two men.