Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Bahraini imprisoned for reciting a prayer was arbitrarily deprived of liberty

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) published an Opinion on its website formed on 15 July 2022 concerning AbdulNabi AbdulHasan Ebrhaim Khalil, a 50-year-old Bahraini citizen from Hamad Town who recites prayers during religious occasions as a Maddah at Ma’tam AlSammakeen. He was sentenced to a year in prison for reciting Ziyarat[…]

UN WGAD warns that Systemic Deprivation of Liberty in Bahrain may constitute Crimes against Humanity

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) published on its website their Opinion from 20 July 2022 concerning five young Bahraini citizens sentenced in an unfair mass trial known as the Soleimani Cell Case. The Working Group found that the individuals were arbitrarily arrested in violation of international human rights law. These five[…]

UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Opinion: 20 Bahrainis are Arbitrary Detained as part of “Zulfiqar trial”

  The United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) published an opinion concerning the cases of 20 Bahraini citizens convicted by the Bahraini Fourth High Criminal Court on 15 May 2018, following a mass trial involving 138 defendants. These 138 defendants were convicted for their alleged involvement in a terrorist cell, called the[…]

ADHRB Condemns Decision Upholding the Sentence of Members of the Alwadaei Family

25 February 2019 – Today, Bahrain’s Court of Cassation upheld the three-year prison sentence of three family members of Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Director of Advocacy for the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD). With this decision, Alwadaei’s mother-in-law Hajer Mansoor, brother-in-law Sayed Nizar Alwadaei, and cousin Mahmood Marzooq Mansoor have exhausted all legal[…]

UN body finds Saudi Arabia arbitrarily detained Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Abdullah al-Zaher

On 6 February 2017, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) released Opinion No. 61/2016. In the opinion, the WGAD determined that Saudi Arabia’s ongoing treatment of Ali al-Nimr, Dawood Hussein al-Marhoon, and Abdullah Hasan al-Zaher constitutes arbitrary detention and violates a number of international legal principles. Saudi security forces arrested Ali, Dawood,[…]