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UN rights boss-Bahrain must free jailed activists

by Reuters
Thursday, 5 May 2011 15:03 GMT

Reuters

Image Caption and Rights Information

* UN rights chief wants outside probe of reports of torture

* Says number detained in crackdown may top 1,000

* Man jailed for five years over attempted police murder

By Frederik Richter

(Adds UN rights chief, extension of emergency rule)

MANAMA, May 5 (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights chief demanded on Thursday that Bahrain free activists it has seized since crushing anti-government protests and called for for an independent probe into allegations of torture.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay&${esc.hash}39;s remarks were the sharpest international criticism yet of the crackdown in Bahrain, a Sunni-led U.S. ally which has arrested hundreds from its Shi&${esc.hash}39;ite Muslim majority since the protests.

At least four people have died in detention, and rights groups have criticised death sentences handed last week to four men accused of killing policemen in March during protests that began with calls for more political liberties in the kingdom.

"All political detainees must be immediately released and all detainees must have prompt access to legal counsel," Pillay said in a statement.

"My office has also received reports of severe torture against human rights defenders who are currently in detention...There must be independent investigations of these cases of death in detention and allegations of torture."

Shi&${esc.hash}39;ite-led protests had called for a constitutional monarchy, with a few Shi&${esc.hash}39;ite groups demanding the abolition of the monarchy altogether, and an end to sectarian discrimination.

Bahrain&${esc.hash}39;s Shi&${esc.hash}39;ites say they are denied access to state employment, land and housing, and point to the naturalisation of foreigners from largely Sunni countries, some of whom serve in the security forces, as proof of a policy of sectarian rule.

The kingdom, home to the U.S. Navy&${esc.hash}39;s Fifth Fleet, called the protests a conspiracy orchestrated by Shi&${esc.hash}39;ite Iran through its co-religionists, declared martial law in mid-March and called in troops from Gulf Arab neighbours as it crushed protests.

TRIAL "HELD IN SECRECY"

At least 13 protesters and four police died in the unrest, the greatest turmoil in the island kingdom since the 1990s.

Bahrain has said about 400 of those detained will face prosecution, some in a military court that last week handed down the first death sentence to a Bahraini citizen since the mid-1990s, also a period of sectarian-tinged political ferment.

Families of the condemned men and rights groups say the court, which also sentenced three men to life in prison, kept the defendants from meeting lawyers and mounting any defence.

"The application of the death penalty without due process and after a trial held in secrecy is illegal and absolutely unacepptable," Pillay said.

The defendants in that case were accused of running down two policemen with a car in March. The same court on Thursday sentenced one man to at least five years in jail and acquitted another, both of whom state media earlier said were accused of trying to kill security personnel by running them over.

The post-protests campaign of arrests has extended to Shi&${esc.hash}39;ite villages and opposition activists, arresting hundreds, and fired hundreds of workers from state-owned companies.

The government says it targets only those who committed crimes during the unrest. It announced on Monday that it would prosecute dozens of health workers for crimes committed during the protests.

The U.N. statement said more than 1,000 may have been detained, and the whereabouts of 50 of them are unknown.

Bahrain&${esc.hash}39;s largest Shi&${esc.hash}39;ite opposition group, Al Wefaq, said on Tuesday that two former members of parliament, Mattar Ibrahim Mattar and Jawad Fairooz, from its ranks had been detained.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday that it had received credible reports that a detained human rights activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, had been hospitalised following beatings while in custody.

The group called on the United States and Bahrain&${esc.hash}39;s other western allies to warn of cutting ties "until the torture and horrific abuses by the Bahrain authorities come to an end."

Pillay noted parliament had voted this week to extend martial law for three months and said Bahrain was turning a blind eye to human rights abuses.

"We have failed to see any reports of prosecutions of security forces for their violent actions against protestors."

(Writing by Joseph Logan; Editing by David Stamp)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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