Press freedom and human rights organisations have signed a letter addressed to the king of Bahrain calling for the release of Bahraini photojournalist Ahmed Humeidan (aka Humaidan).

He has been in prison for 19 months since his arrest on 29 December 2012 for allegedly participating in an attack on a police station.

Humeidan, 26, an award-winning photographer was, sentenced to a 10-year jail term on 26 March this year. Since then, according to Reporters Without Borders (RWB), he has been subjected to death threats and psychological torture.

Both the Paris-based RWB and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) believe Humeidan to be innocent and that the charge and prison sentence is a form of intimidation and repression against journalists.

The letter tells the king, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, that the charge and sentence “directly conflict with Bahrain’s international commitments to the international covenant on civil and political rights (ICCPR)”. It continues:

“We call on your government to immediately and unconditionally release and dismiss all charges against Ahmed Humaidan and to fulfil Bahrain’s commitments to uphold international standards of press freedom.”

And it concludes by calling on the Bahraini government “to recommit to upholding press freedom and freedom of expression in Bahrain, and to take immediate steps to end all intimidation, arrest, abuse, prosecution and detention of journalists and media professionals on charges relating to their work.”

Other signatories include: Americans for Democracy Human Rights in Bahrain, Bahrain Press Association; Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy; Canadian Journalists for free expression; and the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.

The plea came ahead of Humeidan’s appeal. But Bahrain’s supreme court of appeal upheld his 10-year sentence.

Sources: CPJ/RWB: (1) and (2)/BBC