Bahrain: Citizen Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

The Judge Rules on Charges of Leaking Information and The Public Prosecution does Not Investigate the Violations of Human Rights by The National Security Apparatuses

17 September 2009

The undersigned organizations express their concern regarding the High Criminal Court’s ruling, headed by Judge Sheikh Mohammed Ali Al-Khalifa, on 16 September 2009 that charges the Bahraini citizen Hasan Salman with leaking private information on the National Security Apparatuses. The Judge sentenced him to three years in prison, and stated in the reasons of the sentence that, “the Court was satisfied with the validity of the confession of the suspect in front of the Public Prosecution, where he made the confession voluntarily without coercion, and that the suspect published the names in vengeance for the ones that had their names published for their role in arresting Ali Hasan Mushaima and Mohammed Habib Al-Muqdad. The court also found that all elements of the sentence he was charged with were available and this does not change the claim that this information is not confidential as was proven in the documents and from his confession that the information is confidential and he published them in electronic websites in aim of revenging from its respective owners for the role of the National Security Apparatuses in arresting the aforementioned two”.

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Mohammed Al-Maskati, President of BYSHR on Trial Once Again

Charged with working in a society without it being registered

6 months Imprisonment and/or 500 BD should he be Found Guilty

The need to amend Laws related to the work of Societies

2 September 2009

www.byshr.org

The President of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, Mr. Mohammed Al-Maskati, 22 years, is facing up to 6 months in jail and/or a fine of BD 500, should he be found guilty of violating the controversial Bahraini Societies Law which has been found restrictive by numerous international human rights organizations including Amnesty International, the FIDH and Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Al-Maskati’s next court date is scheduled for the 21st of September 2009. The case is ambiguous as it has disappeared then reappeared (disappeared in January after 3 court sessions – followed by a summons with a new warrant (same charges) in June 2008). The case was then postponed repetitively over long periods of time the most recent development taking place before the last trial (July, 2009) when Mr. Al-Maskati’s attorney was informed that the court judge was changed and another postponement was ordered.

The charges are linked to the 1989 Law on Societies articles which are related to working in a society without it being registered or announced in the official Gazette. Worth mentioning, that after the intervention of the FIDH mid-June of this year on behalf of Mr. Al-Maskati, , the Ministry announced to the press that they had refused to register the BYSHR earlier as its founders were below the legal age of 18 and that they were free to register now.

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