|
 NGOs In an urgent appeal to International Community Stop executions in Bahrain The organizations that signed this appeal received very disturbing information from the families of the detainees and those sentenced to death, Ahmed Isa Ahmed al-Mellali and Ali Mohammad Ali Hakim al-Arab. They received a call from the Jaw prison administration on a special and urgent visit at noon today. The families met and held the visit for a period of no more than one and a half hours, and the prisoners sentenced to death were not informed of the execution or not. It is worth reminding that on January 14, 2017, the families of (then) prisoners of conscience, Abbas al-Sami'a, Ali al-Singace and Sami Mushaima received calls in the same manner, without explaining the reason for the visit, and ended their execution at dawn the next day. The signatory organizations have documented that the al-Mellali and al-Arab have been subjected to severe torture in Criminal Investigations Directorate, extracting confessions from them under torture, and receiving threats to liquidate their relatives if the confessions are not signed. Some of the torture measures they faced were enforced disappearance, physical torture in the Criminal Investigation Directorate, the lack of access to a lawyer in the Public Prosecution or the detention Centers, sexual harassment by officers of the Ministry of the Interior and National Security Authority. Ali al-Arab in particular was subjected to the following torture and ill-treatment violations in the criminal investigation building: removal of his toe nails, severe beating on the face and head which led to his partial loss of hearing, humiliation when he was transferred to Dry Dock detention center, and subjected to physical torture on 31 January 2018 just after the arbitrary ruling that sentenced him to death was issued as he was being transferred to Jau Central Prison by prison guards. The human rights organizations signed on this statement express their deep concern and fear of the execution of the victims Ahmed al-Mellali and Ali al-Arab and affirm their strong opposition to the death penalty and call upon the international community, especially Bahrain's international allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, and international human rights organizations to exercise maximum pressure on the King of Bahrain to stop execution and abolition of death sentences. Signatures: SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights Bahrain Forum for Human Rights Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights |