Bahrain’s minority regime empowers military tribunals to brutalize civilians

Bahrain’s self-styled King Hamad bin Isa Aal-e Khalifah has instructed military tribunals of the repressive minority regime to subject civilians to more brutal measures, initiating yet another wave of crackdown against the popular movement for freedom of the Persian Gulf island state.

According to reports, Hamad on Monday made changes in the constitution to drop a clause limiting trials to members of the armed forces and other security branches, thereby empowering the military tribunals to court-martial all civilians accused of activities against the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has severely denounced these changes, saying, “Bahraini courts – civilian as well as military – have been part of the machinery of repression that makes a mockery of fair trial standards when it comes to political dissent.”

The latest move by the Bahraini regime to further suppress the mass popular movement is in clear violation of Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which maintains that “everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.”

Amnesty International, in a strongly-worded statement, also severely criticized the measure, calling the constitutional change “a disaster for the future of fair trials and justice in Bahrain. It is part of a broader pattern where the government uses the courts to crackdown on all forms of opposition at the expense of human rights,” said Lynn Maalouf, the head of research at the UK-based rights group’s regional office in Beirut.

Maalouf further said: “Instead of moving to correct its shameful history of unfair trials and impunity for violations, authorities in Bahrain have decided to further undermine faith in the independence and fairness of the courts and of the justice system as a whole.”

SS/AS