Alwaght- A telecom engineer abducted by security forces a year ago will be among the first Bahraini civilians to face a military court under an April 2017 constitutional amendment, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.
In a statement on Thursday, HRW said that Sayed Alawi's whereabouts remained unknown until an October 22 announcement by Bahrain's official news agency that he, along with three others, was in military custody and facing trial before a military court on terrorism-related charges.
"Bahrain has managed to violate Sayed Alawi's fundamental human rights in multiple ways - forcibly disappearing him, detaining him without charge for a year, and making him face military judges," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
"Bahraini authorities have made clear once again that justice is the last thing that Bahraini citizens can expect, and the Ombudsman has shown again that he is unable to independently monitor abuses," Stork said.
Bahrain’s state-run news agency reported on Sunday that Head of the Military Judiciary, Brigadier Youssef Rashid Fleifel, had charged members of a civilian "terrorist cell," and referred them to the High Military Court to set a date for their trial.
Meanwhile, The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) said that the BCHR President Nabeel Rajab was transferred to Jaw prison on Wednesday.
Rajab reported that Rajab was subjected to ill-treatment, degrading body searches and had his head forcibly shaved by police forces. He was placed in an isolated cell, the same cell where he had served his previous sentence and which caused him psychological harm at the time.
Protest rallies in Bahrain have continued on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising started in the kingdom in 2011. The protesters are demanding that the Western-backed Al Khalifah dynasty relinquish power.
Many have been killed and hundreds of others injured while thousands are languishing in prisons where they are tortured in a harsh crackdown, which is backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The tiny Persian Gulf archipelago is home to a majority Shiite Muslim population and has been ruled and suppressed for more than two centuries by the A Khalifa dynasty.
Bahrain is also home to the US Fifth Fleet and a British military base that is still under construction.
