Children in Bahrain: From Playground to
Prison
Watch, Sentinel Human Rights Defenders and Freemuslim
Association Friday 19 June 2015 at
17.00-18.30
Room XXII, Palais des Nations
United Nations Headquarters in Geneva
Since early
2011, the Bahraini government has engaged in an
unprecedented campaign to criminalize freedom of speech and
expression, association and assembly.
In September 2012
the UPR report on Bahrain was welcomed and the International
Community urged the government to implement fully the
accepted recommendations of the Bahrain Independent
Commission of Inquiry (BICI). Nevertheless, the government
has continued the suppression and harassment and there are
now more people in the prison system than ever before,
causing overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and furthering
inhumane treatment.
Of greatest concern are the children
who share the same fate as adults, accused and imprisoned on
trumped up charges, to the extent that they are not dealt
with in a manner that respects the United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in any way. They are
forcibly taken from their homes, schools or while at play,
are physically brutalised and forced to become informants,
and incarcerated in adult prisons as hostages to quell
dissent in the broader family. The number of children
currently detained in Bahraini adult prison facilities, and
without access to medical care or education, has risen to
more than 500.
Elsewhere police dogs are lead around
inside classrooms, and tear gas has been used outside the
schools at home-time which has caused panic and has an
adverse health impact. Children have been shot at with tear
gas canisters and peppered with shotgun pellets (bird shot)
while at play in the street or when accompanying their
parents on market stalls or elsewhere. Each of these abuses
displays total violation of the United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child, ratified by Bahrain in 1992.
In
an effort to encourage positive, productive engagement, and
appealing for international attention and pressure to
address the situation in Bahrain, we aim to discuss
strategies to hold the government of Bahrain accountable for
denying the rights of children, demand to take practical
steps to address the concerns reflected in the UPR debate,
and most urgently to immediately release all children and
youths held in custody under false allegations. Youths
charged of criminal offences should be provided legal and
other appropriate assistance as prescribed by the
UNCRC.
This event lends us the exceptional challenge to
examine the destructive effect of the criminalisation of
children in Bahrain and will tackle crucial matters of
international concern around the Bahraini Governments
attitude towards the children of families whose allegiance
is under suspicion.
Read more: http://shiarightswatch.org/?p=7106#ixzz3deCQxdOh
ENDS