Dispatch: Criminalizing “Sympathy” – Free Expression Abuses Find New Catalyst in the GCC Crisis

Any end to the weeks-long Qatar-Gulf crisis was last month made contingent, in part, on the shuttering of Al Jazeera and its affiliate stations, as well as the closure of all news outlets that are—directly or indirectly, partially or wholly—funded by Qatar. Justified by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt as[…]

HRC35 Item 3 Oral Intervention: The Closure of Political Space in Bahrain

On 14 June 2017, Yusuf al-Hoori delivered an intervention on behalf of ADHRB during the Human Rights Council’s 35th session under the Item 3 General Debate. In his intervention, al-Hoori raised the issue of the Bahraini government’s restrictions on political space, noting the closure of al-Wefaq and recent dissolution of Wa’ad. Please continue reading for[…]

Bahrain Upholds Sentence for Fadhel Abbas Amid Attacks on Opposition

On 1 June 2017, activists reported that Bahrain’s Court of Cassation upheld a three-year prison sentence for Fadhel Abbas, the former Secretary-General of the leftist opposition group Al-Wahdawi Political Society (Unitary National Democratic Assemblage). Abbas’s sentence was reduced from five years to three in October 2016 after he was arrested in March 2015 for public[…]

Bahrain Dissolves Wa’ad, Last Major Opposition Society

31 May 2017 – A Bahraini court today approved the dissolution of Wa’ad (also known as the National Democratic Action Society), the country’s largest secular, leftist opposition group. Wa’ad was the last major opposition group officially operating in Bahrain following the July 2016 dissolution of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society. Americans for Democracy & Human Rights[…]

Government Reprisals for Civil Society-UN Human Rights Engagement: Int’l Community Must Hold Bahrain Accountable

On 1 May 2017, the United Nations Human Rights Council conducted Bahrain’s third-cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR). In this most recent iteration of Bahrain’s review, dozens of states issued 217 recommendations to the Government of Bahrain, outlining numerous ways to improve the country’s human rights record. These recommendations covered a wide range of important thematic[…]