Amnesty International called on its followers to "express grave concern that Maher Abbas Ahmad's death sentence was upheld and to urge the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, to immediately commute the death sentence imposed on Maher Abbas Ahmad and establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty."

Amnesty International called on its website for an urgent action to “urge the Bahraini authorities to quash the conviction of leader Sheikh Ali Salman, the Secretary General of Bahrain’s main opposition party Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, and to release him immediately and unconditionally,” after the court of cassation reduced the nine-year prison sentence against him to four years.

A new report issued by Amnesty International said that executions in the world fell and that a lower number of states is issuing execution sentences, however, the number of people executed in the world increased in comparison to the previous years.

: Rights group Amnesty International said a court in the United Arab Emirates had sentenced a dissident professor to 10 years in prison for online activism on Wednesday, calling the move a violation of free speech.

Amnesty has urged US President Donald Trump not to approve arms sales to the Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, warning such moves could implicate the United States in possible war crimes in Yemen, reported the Independent.

The Bahraini authorities have once again displayed their ruthless determination to silence activists and crush all signs of dissent by charging prominent political figure Ebrahim Sharif with “inciting hatred against the regime” in a series of tweets, said Amnesty International.

Amnesty International launched a countdown campaign on Twitter for the release of Dr. Ali Al-Ekri who is supposed to be released on 10 March, for serving his 5-year jail term.

Amnesty International said in its 2016 annual report about the human rights situation in Bahrain that the authorities tightened restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and association and continued to curtail the right to peaceful assembly. They detained and charged several human rights defenders and banned others from travelling abroad, dissolved the main opposition group and stripped more than 80 people of their Bahraini citizenship, forcibly expelling four.

Amnesty International said that the Bahraini authorities “must immediately commute the death sentences of two men at imminent risk of execution”. The two death row detainees are Mohammad Ramadan and Hussein Ali Mousa. Amnesty “warned that the harsh response to protests against three executions carried out by firing squad on 15 January risks plunging the country into a human rights crisis.”

Amnesty International said that the appalling human rights records of states in the Gulf must not be swept under the carpet when member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) gather in the Bahraini capital, Manama, this week (6-7 December) for their annual summit.