UN committee blasts Bahrain's ‘racist treatment’ of Shia community
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Anti-regime Shia protesters hold posters of Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim in Budaiya, west of the capital Manama, Bahrain.
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has expressed concern about the Bahraini regime’s racist treatment of the Shia community, who has been long subjected to systematic crackdown by the ruling Al Khalifah regime.
According to Press TV, in its 2022 review of the Kingdom of Bahrain, the CERD criticized Bahrain’s shortcomings on key human rights issues, particularly with regard to de facto and de jure discrimination.
The committee deplored Manama’s human rights record on issues related to civil society space and human rights defenders, human trafficking and migrant workers, nationality laws, and the rights of the Baharna and Ajam communities.
The committee acknowledged the plight of the local population of Baharna and Ajam – indigenous locals who had been established in the country long before the arrival of the ruling family – and said it was concerned about reports of structural discrimination in law against these residents.
It called on the Al Khalifah regime to urgently study the matter and allow them to enjoy their rights in line with the requirements of the Convention.
Bahrain acceded to the CERD in March 1990. Since then, the committee has held five reviews of Bahrain, each time showing that the kingdom still has a long way to go before it can claim to have implemented the Convention and complied with its international human rights obligations.
Regarding human rights defenders and civil society organizations, the UN committee’s recommendation was extremely critical of Bahrain’s closure of civil society space since its last review and, therefore, recommended that Manama amend its legislation to decriminalize human rights advocacy-related activities, “with a view to facilitating the work of human rights defenders.”
The CERD joined other UN committees, including the Committee against Torture (CAT) and the Human Rights Committee, in calling for increased space for human rights defenders and amending laws necessary to allow for a healthy civil society in the Arab country.
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