HRW raps UK for inaction after Bahraini charged over censuring royal’s visit

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned the United Kingdom for not calling on the Bahraini regime to drop charges against a senior opposition figure who had labeled a recent visit by a British royal couple to the tiny Arab kingdom as a means to "whitewash" Bahrain’s grim human rights situation.

In an interview with the Associated Press on November 11, Ibrahim Sharif of the Waad party criticized the Manama regime for hosting Prince Charles and his wife from 8 to 11 of the current month.

He had also suggested that the Al Khalifah regime should agree on a power-sharing system with political parties to counter the worsening financial pressure resulting from low oil prices.

On November 13, however, Bahrain's Public Prosecution charged Sharif with “openly inciting hatred of the political system in Bahrain.” Chief Prosecutor Mohammed Salah added that he had questioned Sharif after the legal body received a notification from the Cyber Crime Directorate that Sharif had allegedly “defamed Bahrain's constitutional system.” The charge against Sharif carries a prison term of up to three years.

HRW said in a Friday statement that the “pomp and ceremony” of a royal visit to the tiny Arab kingdom should not "be followed by the arrest of peaceful critics" of the regime.  

“Given that the British government requested this trip, it’s incumbent on them to call publicly for Sharif’s release,” added Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director at the New York-based rights organization.

Stork further said that Sharif was facing prison for criticizing a British royal visit, “yet London still can’t bring itself to call for the charges to be dropped.”

Sharif, whom authorities released pending trial, has rejected the allegation Manama leveled against him, and in a statement he provided to HRW on Tuesday, he described the Al Khalifah regime’s actions as “fear tactics… commonly used by undemocratic governments to prevent human rights defenders and political activists from defending thousands of voiceless people tortured, imprisoned, forced into exile or banned from travel.”

Back in 2011, Sharif, along with 20 other activists, spent four years and three months in prison after he was found guilty of trying to alter the kingdom’s constitution and monarchical system “by force.” 

The Manama regime has been cracking down on Bahraini people since February 2011, when anti-regime protests erupted in the country.

People have been demanding that the Al Khalifah dynasty relinquish power and a just system representing all Bahrainis be established.

On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to Bahrain to assist the Manama government in its crackdown on the protests.

Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested in the regime crackdown.

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