United Nations Special Procedures Complaint Program

Background Information In October 2013, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) began a program to help raise awareness for cases of individuals who have been victims of human rights abuses in Bahrain or the broader Gulf region. Through this program, ADHRB is able to complain on behalf of the individual victims to[…]

Profiles in Persecution: Husain Ebrahim Ahmed

Husain Ebrahim Ahmed is a 28-year-old Bahraini who was arrested in 2015. Since then Husain has been forcibly disappeared, subjected to an unfair trial and brutal torture, and denied healthcare by Bahraini authorities. On 29 August 2015, officers in plain clothing, officers from the Special Security Force Command (SSFC), and officers from the Ministry of[…]

Former UN Human Rights Commissioner’s Lack of Concern Over Disappeared Dubai Princess Has Implications for Enforced Disappearances

On 24 February 2018, 32-year-old Emirati princess Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum fled her residence for India in an effort to escape abuse at the hands of her father, Dubai ruler and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Despite planning her escape for seven years, she was captured and deported[…]

UN Experts: Mass Trial in Bahrain Violated Human Rights – Torture, Enforced Disappearances, and Unfair Trials

On 5 November 2018, five UN rights experts published an allegation letter concerning the unfair mass trial of 138 Bahraini citizens for their alleged involvement in a terror cell, named the Zulfiqar Brigades by the government. In the letter, the experts, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges[…]

Profiles in Persecution: Osama Nezar AlSagheer

Osama Nezar AlSagheer is a 20-year-old Bahraini student who was most recently arrested in 2017 during the suppression of peaceful protests in Duraz, which concerned the denaturalization of Shia religious figure Sheikh Isa Qassim. The sit-in around Sheikh Isa Qassim’s home in Duraz began on 20 June 2016, and the Bahraini authorities’ violent dispersion of[…]