On June 26th, ECDHR and other NGOs delivered an oral intervention at the United Nation Human Rights Council session 56 under item 3 during the interactive debate with SR on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. NGO’s pointed out that death penalty reflects the lack of justice in Bahrain and a policy of impunity.
Mr. President,
Twelve Bahraini political prisoners are at risk of execution based on trials marred by due process abuses. These sentences reflect the lack of justice in Bahrain, a systematic pattern of unfair trials, and a policy of impunity.
Mohamed Ramadan and Husain Ali Moosa were sentenced to death based on confessions extracted under torture. The death sentences were upheld by the Court of Cassation in 2015 but canceled three years later following a medical report confirming Moosa’s torture. However, the Court reinstated the death sentences and confirmed them in 2020, without investigating the claims and based on the same evidence.
Despite a letter sent by experts in July 2020 regarding the arbitrary arrest of Ramadan and Moosa, the confessions under torture, and the denial of fair trial guarantees, and despite the September 2022 report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding Bahraini prisoners including Ramadan and Moosa, the verdict has not changed.
Our question is: How can Bahrain be urged to abolish the death penalty and ensure that it is not applied to political prisoners?