Bahraini court upholds charges against prominent activist Khawaja

A Bahraini court has upheld charges against Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a prominent rights defender already serving a life sentence, after denying him access to an appeal hearing.

Khawaja faced new charges in November 2022 over his protests from prison, including the alleged breaking of a plastic chair a year ago when he was denied the right to call his daughters from prison.

On November 28, he was convicted and fined the equivalent of $418 as his family condemned the charges as “bogus,” saying he was denied legal representation.

On Thursday, the High Criminal Second Court of Appeal upheld the charge of allegedly breaking the chair while the family and rights campaigners say the court had denied him access to an appeal hearing. “The court decided to accept the appeal in its general form but rejected its subject matter and upheld the [appeal] ruling,” the Free Al-Khawaja campaign said in a statement.

The rights defender had asked his legal defense to withdraw from the proceedings if Bahraini authorities fail to give him access to the court and his lawyers before the hearing. He also wrote a letter to the judge before withdrawing from the courtroom.

In the letter, the detainee regretted that there is a “complex network of laws and procedures” in place in Bahrain which works to “violate the rights, especially those who oppose the regime, rather than protecting those rights.”

The 61-year-old activist was initially arrested and put on trial in 2011 after leading peaceful protests that called for fundamental freedoms in the Persian Gulf country.

MG