Your Excellency,

We urge your delegation to promote and support the adoption of a resolution expressing concern over and calling for improvements in the human rights situation in Bahrain by the Human Rights Council.

It is now over a year since Switzerland delivered the fourth and most recent joint statement on the situation of human rights in Bahrain on behalf of 47 UN member states at the 26th session of the Council.

We are deeply concerned that during this period the Government of Bahrain has made no significant progress towards genuine cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms. To the contrary, the Government of Bahrain has intensified its repression of dissenting voices, including through the arbitrary detentions of high-profile opposition activists and human rights defenders, trials that fail to adhere to international fair trial standards, ill-treatment of detainees, excessive use of force, and restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly that go far beyond those permitted under international law.

We urge your delegation to resume efforts to address the human rights situation in Bahrain at the upcoming 30th session of the Council and to promote and support a resolution that calls on the Government of Bahrain to:

1. Implement promptly and fully the recommendations of the Bahrain International Commission of Inquiry (BICI) and the recommendations agreed by the Bahrain Government in the context of the 2nd cycle of the Universal Periodic Review, in particular:

• Release protesters, activists and human rights defenders detained or convicted solely for having exercised their rights to peaceful assembly, association or expression;

• Ensure independent, thorough, and impartial investigations into all allegations of torture and ill-treatment;

• Demonstrate the effectiveness, impartiality and independence of newly established human rights institutions, including the National Human Rights Institution, the Ombudsman, the Special Investigations Unit and the Prisoners and Detainees Rights Commission;

• Revise or repeal laws that unduly restrict freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly and association;

• Engage in comprehensive reform of the legal system to ensure effective independence of the judiciary; and

• Ensure accountability for the serious human rights violations that took place during and after the 2011 protests, including but not limited to those documented in the BICI report

2. Cooperate with Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, including by swiftly providing access to Special Rapporteurs who have outstanding requests for visits to Bahrain, such as the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, and

3. Authorise the opening of a country-office of the OHCHR with a full mandate to oversee implementation of the afore-mentioned recommendations and monitor the human rights situation on the ground, with periodic reporting to the Human Rights Council.

In light of the continued deterioration in human rights conditions in Bahrain, we urge your delegation to build upon the three earlier joint statements delivered at the Human Rights Council on this issue, and to send a strong message to the Government of Bahrain that it should take urgent, concrete and effective steps to improve the human rights situation in the country. The Government of Bahrain should also allow regular access to Bahrain by independent human rights NGOs to assist in monitoring the human rights situation on the ground.

We look forward to continued collaboration on these issues and we remain available to provide further information as required.

Sincerely,

FIDH and co-signatories [1]