Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights launched its annual report for year 2018, entitled "Torture, the Master of Evidence" at a press conference held today in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Head of the Forum, Mr. Baqir Darwish, highlighted how Bahrain is witnessing a special situation concerning this issue, as the security personnel welcome their victims by saying: "Welcome to Bahrain, I'm called the executioner and my hobby is torture".

"The crime of torture is one of the cornerstones of the repression of freedoms and violations in Bahrain and has become a basis of the security system's doctrine in Bahrain. Torture has become a routine practice of the security services. The Bahraini authorities today have a special reputation in the practice of torture by electric shocks, and have been working since 2011 to develop 21 forms of abuse and torture in Bahraini prisons," said Darwish, pointing out that 791 cases of torture and ill-treatment have been recorded in Bahrain.

Darwish also mentioned the system devised by the Bahraini authorities to protect those involved in these cases, "by perpetuating the policy of impunity, whether through unfair trials or through some legislation, in addition to some security measures or special coverage enjoyed by some figures."

For her part, Amnesty International's Reina Wehbi, Regional Research & Campaigning Assistant, stressed that as long as opposition leaders from the Shiite majority have been disproportionately targeted, there hasn't been any opposition political leader who has not been arrested, jailed or stripped of Bahraini citizenship.

She said Bahrain's allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, should pay attention to the consequences of repression and pressure the Bahraini authorities to reverse their pattern of silencing peaceful critics.

Speaking at the conference, Vanessa Basil, President of Media Association for Peace (MAP), emphasized the need to respect human rights and individual and collective freedoms in all Arab countries, especially the right to disagree, the right to assembly, freedom of opinion and expression.

On behalf of MAP, she noted that it is not possible to build genuine social peace without guaranteeing the rights of minorities and ethnicities, stressing the need to guarantee the right to freedom and expression. She added that there is no peace without human rights and there are no human rights without fair, responsible and democratic authorities that would establish equality among citizens and protect their freedoms.

Arabic Version