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In an open letter, 28 civil society
organisations, including OMCT and FIDH, within the framework of the
Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, call for the
immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace.
King of Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa,
Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa,
3 April 2024
Your Majesties,
We, the undersigned, call your
immediate attention to the deteriorating health of award-winning
academic, blogger, and human rights defender Dr Abduljalil Al-Singace,
who marks 1,000 days on a liquids-only hunger strike on April 3, 2024.
We urge you to take action to immediately release Al-Singace, who is
wrongfully detained, and ensure that he receives the healthcare he
urgently needs.
Al-Singace began his hunger strike
on July 8, 2021, in response to prison authorities’ confiscation of his
manuscript on Bahraini dialects of Arabic that he spent four years
researching and writing. During his hunger strike, he has been
sustaining himself only on multivitamin liquid supplements, tea with
milk and sugar, water, and salts.
Al-Singace, who has a disability,
has been wrongfully detained since his arrest in 2011 solely for
exercising his human rights to freedom of expression and peaceful
assembly. He has reportedly been subject to torture during his time in
detention.
Since July 2021, according to UN experts,
“Mr Al-Singace has been held in a state of isolation likely amounting
to solitary confinement” within his room at Kanoo Medical Centre, where
he has said that he has been prohibited from going outside, having
exposure to direct sunlight, and receiving the adequate physiotherapy
required for his disability. According to his family, he has also been
deprived of necessary examinations and medical information, including
results from MRI scans of his shoulder and head from October 2021. He
has been denied treatment for several medical issues, including inflamed
joints, impaired vision, enlarged prostate, and tremors.
Authorities continue to deny him
medical items that doctors requested, including slippers to prevent
slipping in the bathroom and a hot water bottle to relieve pain in his
joints. Authorities have also limited his access to information by
banning English and Arabic newspapers and restricting accessible TV
channels. On January 21, 2024, Al-Singace’s family told the Bahrain
Institute for Rights and Democracy that they were subjected to harsh
measures during visitations, which Al-Singace believes constituted a
deliberate attempt to pressure him into declining visitations
altogether.
On April 17, 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Gerard Quinn said
that “as a human rights defender with a disability in detention,
Al-Singace faces additional risks. He should be given frequent medical
check-ups, afforded reasonable accommodation for his disability, with
assistive technologies and other specialized care and considerations.
But the Bahraini authorities have not always allowed him this.”
We echo the “concern at the continuation of the violations perpetrated against Al-Singace” raised
by a group of three UN special rapporteurs in September 2023, who also
noted their previous communications regarding Al-Singace’s case, sent on
December 30, 2021
and November 15, 2021.
We follow up on our July 11, 2023 call
for your intervention and urge you to release Al-Singace immediately
and unconditionally. In the meantime, we urge you to ensure that he is
held in conditions that meet international standards, receives his
medication without delay, has access to adequate healthcare in
compliance with medical ethics, and that his arbitrarily confiscated
research is immediately transferred to his family members.
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