Three human rights organizations: Two Bahraini opposition leaders, including a former parliamentarian, announce an open-ended hunger strike

Three Bahraini human rights organizations, Bahrain Forum for Human Rights (BFHR), Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (GIDHR), and 

Salam for Democracy and Human Rights (SALAM DHR), said that two opposition leaders, the former MP of the Al-Wefaq parliamentary bloc, Sheikh Hassan Issa, and Sheikh Abdulhadi Al-Mukhawdar, who are arbitrarily detained in Jaw Central Prison, have announced an open-ended hunger strike.

The human rights organizations added that the former parliamentarian, Sheikh Hassan Issa, entered the hunger strike because of not receiving appropriate and necessary treatment and medical negligence, while Sheikh Abdulhadi Al-Mukhawdhar was prevented from receiving religious books.

The human rights organizations added that the continued deterioration of prison conditions and their transformation into a fertile environment for torture and ill-treatment sends a clear message to the participants in the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) conference that the Bahraini authorities continue to consolidate all forms of political repression, calling on the participants in the conference to denounce the deterioration of human rights conditions in Bahrain and to work on visiting the opposition leaders in prison as well as demanding the authorities to release them along with the rest of the prisoners of conscience.