Swift release of Dr. Ali Al-Ikri completes most of sentence and now must be released

Dr Ali Al-Ikri is a Bahraini consultant surgeon who trained at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and is part of a group of medical professionals who were detained following the events of February 2011 popular uprising.

Dr Al-Ikri along with the detained medical professionals were subjected to well-documented torture practices, and inhuman and degrading treatment. Dr Al-Ikri was subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison after sentencing in a military court under false charges.

Following severe pressure from the international community and highlight by the Bahrain Independent Commission Inquiry, his case was transferred to Bahrain’s civil courts. In October 2012, he was sentenced to a five years imprisonment sentence, and was immediately transferred to prison where he remains there until today.

So far Dr Al-Ikri has completed three quarters of his sentence. According to the legal provisions under Bahrain’s Criminal Procedures of Imprisonment Law (article 349), a prisoner with good character that poses no threat to national security should be released from prison following the elapse of three quarters of the sentence.

SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights confirm that Dr Al-Ikri is an experienced doctor with a long history of national, humanitarian, and medical merits. Noting that the legal provisions that cater for his situation is wholly applicable to his case, and indeed he poses no threat whatsoever to national security. As such, we demand of the Bahraini authorities to expeditiously execute his release.

SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights
10 December 2015