Bahrain Mirror:The US Department of State released its annual report for 2016 on Human rights in nearly 200 countries and territories worldwide. In its country report on Bahrain, the state department shed light on the continued societal discrimination against the Shia citizens, who represent the majority of the country's population, and the fact that the government had not fully implemented the BICI report's recommendations, highlighting the most serious human rights problems in the island kingdom.

The annual report noted that the most serious human rights problems included limitations on citizens' ability to choose their government peacefully, including due to the government's ability to close arbitrarily or create registration difficulties for organized political societies; restrictions on free expression, assembly, and association; and lack of due process in the legal system, including arrests without warrants or charges and lengthy pretrial detentions--used especially in cases against opposition members and political or human rights activists.

The report also stressed that beginning in June government, action against the political opposition and civil society worsened these problems, citing significant human rights problems that included lack of judicial accountability for security officers accused by the government and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) of committing human rights violations; defendants' lack of access to attorneys and ability to challenge evidence; prison overcrowding; violations of privacy; and other restrictions on civil liberties, including freedom of press and association.

The State Department in its report also said that societal discrimination continued against the Shia population, as did other forms of discrimination based on gender, religion, and nationality, adding that the government imposed travel bans on political activists to prevent travel to participate in international fora.

The report further read that the government maintained the revocation of citizenship for 103 individuals whose citizenship it revoked in previous years, and it revoked citizenship from others during the year, including prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim, whose citizenship was revoked on June 20, 2016.

It also mentioned that the Bahraini government had not fully implemented the BICI report's recommendations, particularly those involving reconciliation, safeguarding freedom of expression, and accountability for abuses, according to international and local human rights organizations.

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