President/ John Kufuor

President of Ghana and the African Union

The African Union

Addis Ababa – Ethiopia

August 2nd, 2007

Kindly accept our best regards,

Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR), located in Bahrain, and The Arab Program for Human Rights Activists (APHRA), located in Egypt, would like to praise your hard work to establish justice, democracy, and human rights principles all over Africa.

Dear President,

We – BYSHR and APHRA – write to you regarding the British security officer, Ian Henderson, who resides now in South Africa, a member country of the African Union. Mr. Henderson was the Head of General Intelligence Bureau in Bahrain during the period from 1966 to 2000.

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(If you put campaign banners on your site or blog, sent us the name of your blog or site to solidarity@byshr.org )

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Bahrain: Launching a multi-language campaign, in all world languages, against Henderson with the help of websites and blogs

Manama, 25 July 2007

Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) launched a campaign, today, to call for “trying the butcher of Bahrain, the British Officer, Ian Henderson.” The campaign started on 23 July 2007; i.e. one day after Henderson’s arrival to Bahrain. BYSHR attributed a special section on the website (www.byshr.org) for monitoring Henderson’s case.

BYSHR clarified that the next step of the campaign shall focus on spreading the word in almost all universal languages: (Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Persian, Russian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Urdu, Turkish, Chinese).

BYSHR asserted that this step will be implemented through designing some banners in different languages. These banners will be distributed via international, regional, and local online forums and blogs. The moderators of targeted blogs and online forums will be asked to post the banners on prominent places on their websites. Bloggers and online forums moderators will be allowed to select their preferred language.

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See Sample letter to International officials

Please, send your letters, emails, and/or faxes to the following list:

Ban ki-Moon
UN Secretary-General
UN Headquarters
UN Plaza
New York NY 10017, United States
E-mail: ecu@un.org, coi@un.org

H.E. Hans-Gert Pöttering
President of European Parliament
E-mails: pcox@europarl.eu.int; foreign-press@europarl.eu.int

Irene Khan
amnesty Secretary-General
Fax number : +44 20 7033 1503
E-mails: prigaud@amnesty.org

Sarah Leah Whitson
Human Rights Watch
E-mails: whitsos@hrw.org

Note: Do not forget to tell us what you did in support of the Victims

Henderson, get out of Bahrain … You have been torturing citizens

“Officer Ian Henderson, British, Head of Bahraini Security and Intelligence Bureau (1966-2000) tortured citizens horribly. He also exiled dissidents and human rights activists out of country for long years. He caused the detention of many young people for merely opposing state polices during his era. He also killed dozens of young activists during clashes between security forces and citizens calling for human rights,” Bahraini victim of torture said.

Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) learned from many citizens that Officer Ian Henderson is still living in Bahrain despite his shameful record of human rights violations represented in suppressing activists, arresting thousands of citizens, exiling dozens of dissidents, and killing hundreds of young people by bullets or torture.

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“Ian Henderson is a British citizen known for his alleged use of torture to put down the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya, and later the 1990s Uprising in Bahrain as an employee of the Bahrain government. Some journalists have referred to Mr Henderson as the “Butcher of Bahrain” due to the allegations of torture”.

History

Ian Henderson was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, but lived most of his life as a Colonial Police Officer overseas. He grew up on a coffee plantation and had one sister, Joy. He married Marie in his twenties and had two children. Today, he is a grandfather of nine children. Henderson currently resides in Bahrain as a guest of the Al Khalifa royal family. He owns a £250,000 home named “Stoke Shallows” in Holne, Devon in the United Kingdom.
Ian Henderson was employed as the head of state of security in Bahrain for some 30 years. He retired from his position in February 1998. Despite some unproven allegations of abuse throughout his job, both Mr Henderson and the Bahraini Government has always denied his, and its own, involvement in such torture.

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