Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): Four Bahrainis are currently on death row, awaiting the King's ratification of their death sentences, after exhausting all levels of litigation, and after the courts announced their death penalties as final in a number of politically-motivated cases.

The Court of Cassation upheld the death sentences of Mohammed Ramadan and Hussein Mousa in 2015. In January of this year, the Court upheld the death penalty of Maher Al-Khabbaz and of youth Hussein Marzouq at the end of last February. However, United Nations bodies, including the Human Rights Council, as well as international organizations, are still trying to prevent the executions and urge world powers to intervene and put pressure on Bahrain to stop these sentences.

During the Universal Periodic Review of Bahrain's record at the Human Rights Council last year, dozens of countries addressed the issue of death penalties in Bahrain, which intensified especially after the authorities executed for the first time the death penalties of three men: Abbas Al-Samee', Sami Mushaima, and Ali Al-Singace, mid-January 2017.

Although the incident provoked widespread uproar, international criticism and condemnations, the Bahraini authorities did not hold back, issuing last year the largest number of death sentences in the country's history, which reached a total of 30 since 2011, all of which issued against political defendants.

There have been no more than 13 death penalties in the country since 1977, according to statistics.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said that this marks a record in the history of Bahrain, stressing that it showcases "an unprecedented wave of death sentences in Bahrain" and "instrumentalization of the death penalty as a political tool".

This figure gives a shocking indication of how far the country has went as a police force threatening to openly kill any opposition voice that rises against the regime.

United Nations bodies have deemed the trials that led to these sentences in Bahrain unfair, and that proper legal procedures were not followed, especially with regard to the use of confessions as incriminating evidence, despite frequent claims that they were confessions extracted under torture.

At the peak of the February 14 uprising, Bahrain did not carry out any of the death sentences issued against political defendants. Under considerable international pressure, the Court of Cassation overturned the death sentences of Ali Al-Singace, Abdul Aziz Abdul Ridha and Ali Al-Taweel. Meanwhile, the Military Appeals Court had commuted the sentences of Qassem Hassan Matar and Saeed Abdul Jalil.

A large number of death sentences were issued by Bahraini courts against political defendants, over charges linked to the ongoing anti-regime protests. The year 2017 alone witnessed 14 death sentences. Besides the four defendants awaiting their executions, 18 others are awaiting the results of their appeals, either in the second stage of litigation or before the Court of Cassation.

Simultaneously, in the first two months of the new year, a number of death penalties were issued. The Appeals Court upheld the death sentences of two young men, Hussain Mahdi and Sayyid Ahmad Al-Abbar. In the same month, Mousa Abdullah Mousa Jaafar was sentenced to death. In January, two death penalties were issued against the two youths Ali Hakim Al-Arab and Ahmad Al-Mulali.

On death row as well, there are Salman Issa, Mohammed Radhi Abdullah, Mohammad Ibrahim Tawq and Sayed Reda Khalil Jaafar Ibrahim.

Concerning what was known as the Military Commander Marshal Khalifa bin Ahmed assassination plot, the military courts also issued death sentences against one military personnel and five civilians: Soldier Mubarak Adel Mubarak Muhanna, Sayed Fadel Abbas Hassan Radhi, Sayed Alawi Hussein Alawi Hussain, Mohammad Abdul Hassan Ahmad Al-Mtghawi, Sayed Mortada Majeed Ramadan Alawi Al-Sindi and Sheikh Habib Abdullah Hassan Ali Al-Jamri.

In different cases, Sheikh Maitham Amran Al-Jamri, Abdulmohsen Sabah Abdul Mohsen and Hussein Abdullah Rashed were sentenced to death.

For his part, The head of the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights Chairman, Baqer Darwish, said that "there is a strange tendency that the authorities have to speed up the litigation process of cases in which citizens were sentenced to death for reasons related to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, especially after the implementation of the Military Justice Law."

Darwish further stated that international parties have given warning signs that Bahrain was seeking to issue more death sentences in political cases, noting that 17 countries had urged Bahrain to abolish the death penalty in its UPR recommendations, notably France and Germany.

Arabic Version