MENA Rights Group, alongside 26 civil society organizations, calls on UN Human Rights Council member and observer states to urge Bahrain to release arbitrarily detained activists and death row inmates ahead of Eid al-Adha.
Re: Upcoming 59th Session of the Human Rights Council and Eid al-Adha
12 May 2025
Ahead of the 59th session of the Human Rights Council (16 June – 11 July 2025), we are writing to you and your delegation regarding the continued detention of leading human rights defenders, bloggers, journalists, opposition and religious activists, and death row inmates who are at imminent risk of execution in Bahrain.
As Eid al-Adha approaches on 6 June 2025, when Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is expected to issue further royal pardons, we strongly believe that your engagement will be critical in securing the release of those who remain arbitrarily detained in Bahrain.
The latest royal pardons were issued by Bahrain’s King for a total of 1,526 inmates on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr (marking the end of Ramadan) on 27 March 2025 and to mark Bahrain National Day on 15 December 2024. However, no political prisoners or human rights defenders were released through these pardons and were instead offered only conditional releases through the open prisons program, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD).
We have previously raised concerns about human rights defenders and leading opposition and political activists serving unjust life imprisonment sentences in Bahrain, including:
- Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, 64, is an award-winning human rights defender, prisoner of conscience and Bahraini-Danish national who has been arbitrarily detained since 2011. On 9 April 2025, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor stated that “he has been tortured, he has been stigmatised, and he has been cut off from his family” and urged the Danish Prime Minister to call for Al-Khawaja’s release with her Bahraini counterpart directly.
- Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace, 63, is an award-winning human rights defender, blogger, and respected academic, arbitrarily detained since 2011. He is now approaching four years since he began a solid-food hunger strike after authorities confiscated his research manuscripts, sustaining himself only on multivitamin liquid supplements, tea with milk and sugar, water, and salts.
- Hassan Mushaima, 77, is a Bahraini opposition leader and Bahrain’s oldest political prisoner, arbitrarily detained since 2011. He and Dr. Al-Singace have been held in prolonged solitary confinement since 2021 at a medical centre in Bahrain, where they continue to be denied adequate medical care, sunlight and ventilation.
- Sheikh Mohamed Habib Al-Muqdad, 62, is a dual Swedish-Bahraini national and a religious figure and social activist in Bahrain. Similar to Al-Khawaja, Al-Singace and Mushaima, he was arbitrarily and violently arrested, forcibly disappeared and subjected to severe physical, sexual, and psychological torture for his prominent role in the 2011 uprising.
- Sheikh Ali Salman, 60, is the leader of the now-dissolved opposition political party, Al-Wefaq, arbitrarily detained since 2014 and convicted based on speeches he delivered against parliamentary elections that his party boycotted. In 2018, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on politically motivated charges related to espionage, which Amnesty International called “a travesty of justice.”
Additionally, twenty-six individuals in Bahrain remain on death row at risk of imminent execution, eleven of whom were convicted following manifestly unfair trials that relied solely or primarily on confessions allegedly extracted under torture. This includes Mohammed Ramadan and Hussain Moosa, who have been arbitrarily detained for over a decade.
On 12 August 2024, three UN human rights experts highlighted concerns about the conditions of detention in Jau Prison and Bahrain’s lack of adherence to standards of humane and dignified treatment.
The death of a political prisoner in custody on 5 December 2024, which marked the second death in 2024 under similar circumstances, led to renewed concerns about Bahrain’s failure to provide emergency care and first aid in Jau Prison. Authorities then reportedly used excessive force and collective punishment against hundreds of political prisoners to violently suppress a strike that had been ongoing for nearly eight months, according to BIRD. There are currently an estimated 322 political prisoners still imprisoned in Bahrain, with an additional 40 prisoners part of the open prisons, according to BIRD.
We are alarmed by the continued harassment of Bahraini human rights defenders — including former political prisoners Naji Fateel and Ali AlHajee — and echo the UN Special Rapporteur’s concerns regarding ongoing reprisals against Fateel on 17 February 2025 and AlHajee’s brief detention on 3 March 2025.
In light of the above, we respectfully urge you and your delegation to:
- Ahead of Eid al-Adha (6 June 2025), directly engage with Bahrain’s leadership and mission in Geneva in your national capacity and jointly, and urge them to include human rights defenders, leading opposition activists, and all those detained solely for exercising their human rights or for their political beliefs in the upcoming royal pardons.
- Issue a statement at the upcoming United Nations Human Rights Council session publicly calling on Bahrain to immediately and unconditionally release Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, Hassan Mushaima, Sheikh Mohamed Habib Al-Muqdad and Sheikh Ali Salman and cease persecuting activists and critics. We also urge you to call on Bahrain to release death row inmates Mohamed Ramadan and Hussain Moosa, commute all outstanding death sentences, and establish an official moratorium on executions.
- Address these concerns with the special rapporteurs and independent expert for freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, summary executions, health, and independence of judges and lawyers.
With assurances of our highest consideration.
Sincerely,
- Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
- ALQST for Human Rights
- Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
- Amnesty International
- Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR)
- CIVICUS
- Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
- DAWN
- FairSquare
- Front Line Defenders
- Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
- Human Rights First
- Human Rights Watch (HRW)
- HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement
- IFEX
- Index on Censorship
- International Federation For Human Rights (FIDH) within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
- International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
- MENA Rights Group (MRG)
- PEN America
- Rafto Foundation for Human Rights
- REDRESS
- Rights Realization Centre
- Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
- Scholars at Risk
- The FreeAlKhawaja Campaign
- World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders