(ANSAmed) – ROME, AUGUST 19 – Bahraini authorities continue
to violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
including by sentencing minors to life in imprison, according to
the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR).
The BCHR is led by activist Nabeel Rajab and Maryam
Al-Khawaja, daughter of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, a Bahraini
activist serving a life sentence and who staged a
much-publicized hunger strike during the 2012 Formula One races
in the small Gulf-region island.

A statement released by the center reports that a criminal
court sentenced 14 youth to life imprisonment on August 13 under
a counter-terrorism law for the murder of a policeman in Sitra,
including two under age 18: one is 16 years old and the other
was 17 at the time of the arrest.
The BCHR noted that last week three minors were arrested,
including one that had been hit by a police vehicle. The
youngest of those arrested is 13 years old.
The center said that about 30 people had been subjected to
arbitrary arrest over the past week, and that about 3,000 people
were in arbitrary detention in the country.
Security forces in Bahrain – whose Shia-majority population
is ruled by a Sunni monarchy – continue to make excessive use of
force, tear gas and firearms, according to the organization.

(ANSAmed).