Human Rights in Bahrain - Human Rights NGOs

Human Rights NGOs

There are several generic human rights NGOs in Bahrain, and other NGOs working in related fields such as women's rights, child rights and migrant labour. The two most prominent organisations have been the Bahrain Human Rights Society and the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, which have frequently been highly critical of one another, the Center accusing the Society of having been unduly close to government. Other NGOs active around 2008-10 included the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, the Women’s Petition Committee, the Committee for Martyrs and Victims of Torture, the Human Rights Office of the Haq Movement for Liberty and Democracy, the Committee for Citizenship-less and the Coordinating Committee for the Defence of Political Detainees.

As of 2011, several human rights NGOs, including at least the first three named above, had been closed or ordered to close, as was the Bahrain Migrant Workers' Protection Society.

In the wake of the 2011 uprising, Physicians for Human Rights has become internationally recognized for its work exposing human rights violations in Bahrain, particularly regarding medical neutrality. The organization released a report titled Do No Harm: A Call for Bahrain to End Systematic Attacks on Doctors and Patients, in April 2011 which detailed the government's persecution of medical professionals.