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Torture Redux RIGHTS the Revival of Physical Coercion During Interrogations in Bahrain WATCH Bahrain HUMAN Torture Redux RIGHTS The Revival of Physical Coercion during Interrogations in Bahrain WATCH Torture Redux The Revival of Physical Coercion during Interrogations in Bahrain Copyright © 2010 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1-56432-596-2 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA Tel: +1 212 290 4700, Fax: +1 212 736 1300 [email protected] Poststraße 4-5 10178 Berlin, Germany Tel: +49 30 2593 06-10, Fax: +49 30 2593 0629 [email protected] Avenue des Gaulois, 7 1040 Brussels, Belgium Tel: + 32 (2) 732 2009, Fax: + 32 (2) 732 0471 [email protected] 64-66 Rue de Lausanne 1202 Geneva, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 738 0481, Fax: +41 22 738 1791 [email protected] 2-12 Pentonville Road, 2nd Floor London N1 9HF, UK Tel: +44 20 7713 1995, Fax: +44 20 7713 1800 [email protected] 27 Rue de Lisbonne 75008 Paris, France Tel: +33 (1)43 59 55 35, Fax: +33 (1) 43 59 55 22 [email protected] 1630 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA Tel: +1 202 612 4321, Fax: +1 202 612 4333 [email protected] Web Site Address: http://www.hrw.org February 2010 1-56432-596-2 Torture Redux The Revival of Physical Coercion during Interrogations in Bahrain Summary ........................................................................................................................... 1 Key Recommendations ....................................................................................................... 7 I. Methodology ................................................................................................................... 8 II. Background .................................................................................................................. 10 Bahrain’s Security Forces and Law Enforcement Apparatus ........................................... 15 Cases Giving Rise to Torture Complaints ........................................................................ 17 Jidhafs case ............................................................................................................. 18 Karzakan case ......................................................................................................... 18 Al-Hujaira case ........................................................................................................ 19 III. Legal Framework ......................................................................................................... 21 Convention against Torture ............................................................................................ 21 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ...................................................... 22 Arab Charter on Human Rights ...................................................................................... 22 Bahraini Law ................................................................................................................ 23 IV. Allegations of Torture or Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment ................................ 26 Use of Electro-Shock Devices ......................................................................................... 27 Suspension in Painful Positions .................................................................................... 35 Beating of Soles of Feet (Falaka) ................................................................................... 48 Severe Beatings ............................................................................................................ 51 Threats to Rape and Kill ................................................................................................ 56 Threats to Rape ...................................................................................................... 56 Threats to Kill ......................................................................................................... 56 Forced Standing ............................................................................................................ 57 Abuse of a Sexual Nature............................................................................................... 57 V. Bahraini Government Officials’ Denials ......................................................................... 59 VI. Credibility of Witness Accounts ................................................................................... 62 Consistency of Accounts ............................................................................................... 62 Declining to Exaggerate or Embellish Testimony ........................................................... 64 Documentary Evidence, including Medical Reports ....................................................... 65 VII. Detailed Recommendations ........................................................................................ 68 To the Government of Bahrain ...................................................................................... 68 To the Members of the League of Arab States ............................................................... 69 To the Governments of the United States, France, and the United Kingdom .................. 70 To the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ........................................ 70 To the Member States of the United Nations Human Rights Council .............................. 70 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. 71 Appendix.......................................................................................................................... 72 Letters to the Government of Bahrain: October 22, 2009 and December 8, 2009 ........... 72 Summary We’ll go back to the 1990s. —Ministry of Interior officer to detainee Nadr Ali Ahmad al-Salatne By the end of the 1990s, Bahrain appeared to have cast off what had been a well-deserved reputation as a country that routinely tortured detainees. The government had taken significant steps to curtail the use of torture and other ill-treatment by its security officials, and reports of such practices became a rarity. This report concludes, however, that since the end of 2007, officials again have used torture and ill-treatment, particularly during the interrogation of security suspects. Human Rights Watch’s conclusion is based on interviews with former detainees and others, as well as its review of government documents. This reversion to past practices came as political tensions rose in Bahrain. Street demonstrations involving young men from the country’s majority Shia Muslim community protesting alleged discrimination by the Sunni-dominated government deteriorated with increasing regularity into confrontations, sometimes violent, with security forces. Arrests often followed. Security officials appear to have utilized a specific repertoire of techniques against many of those arrested designed to inflict pain and elicit confessions. These techniques included the use of electro-shock devices, suspension in painful positions, beating the soles of the feet (falaka), and beatings of the head, torso, and limbs. Some detainees also reported that security officials had threatened to kill them or to rape them or members of their families. Many detainees were subjected to more than one of these practices. The use of these techniques, separately and in combination, violates Bahrain’s obligations as a state party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) and other international treaties, as well as the prohibition of torture in Bahraini law. * * * For many years, government opponents have chosen December 16—Bahrain’s National Day—and the days leading up to it as an opportune time to mount street protests. December 2007 saw protests in a number of Shia neighborhoods and villages around the capital, Manama. When a young protestor died—opposition activists charge he was asphyxiated by security forces’ excessive use of tear gas, while officials claim he died of natural causes—the 1 Human Rights Watch | February 2010 confrontations intensified. In one village, Jidhafs, protestors torched a security forces vehicle and allegedly stole from it an assault rifle and ammunition. Scores of arrests followed, and in subsequent weeks Bahraini human rights activists reported claims from detainees, relayed by family members and later by defense lawyers, that security forces had subjected those arrested to severe beatings, electro-shock devices, prolonged suspension in painful positions, and other forms of abuse that amounted to torture or otherwise illegal treatment. Officials categorically denied that security forces committed any such acts. The large-scale arrests in response to the December 2007 events led to further cycles of protest and arrest. In March 2008, security forces arrested at least eight young men from around the village of Karzakan, about 20 kilometers south of Manama, following what officials claimed was an arson attack on nearby property belonging to a member of the ruling Al Khalifa family (specifically, a former head of the National Security Agency, or NSA, the security service most directly involved in suppressing the street protests). Security forces arrested some 30 young men in the same area a month later, when clashes between protestors and security forces left an NSA vehicle in flames and a Pakistani NSA officer dead, although the circumstances of
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