Bahrain: Secret military courts sentence civilians forced to confess under torture
On 25th of December 2017, the Supreme Military Court in Bahrain sentenced 6 citizens to death, 15 years of imprisonment and citizenship revocation. The defendants are: Mubarak Adel Muhanna, Mohamed Abdulhasan AlMutghawi, Murtadha Majeed AlSanadi and Habib Abdullah Hasan AlJamri. Among them is also Sayed Alawi Hussain and Fadhel Abbas, who were forcibly disappeared for over a year.
The military court also sentenced another 7 persons to 7 years of imprisonment and citizenship revocation, where the rest 5 of them were acquitted from any charges.
Asma Darwish, the Head of International Relations in SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights, pointed out that “the right to fair trials is an inherent right of any citizen anywhere and at any time, and no one has the right to violate such rights, incompatible with these inherent rights. Therefore, the decision to try citizens in military courts must be brought to an end because they do not conform to these inherent rights”.
Four Bahraini human rights organizations issued a report under the title of “Death or Confession”, a report that monitors the violations of these secret military courts that tried civilians whose confessions were extracted under torture. These civilian were accused of “attempting to commit crimes against Bahrain Defense Force” as the court said!