Torture in Bahrain - The State Security Act Era

The State Security Act Era

Torture was particularly endemic in Bahrain between 1974 and 1999, when the State Security Act 1974 was in force prior to the accession of King Hamad. The State Security Act, formally scrapped in 2001, contained measures permitting the government to arrest and imprison individuals without trial for up to three years for crimes relating to state security. Other measures associated with the 1974 Act such as the establishment of State Security Courts) added to the conditions conducive to the practice of torture.

Torture appears to have been most prevalent during the 1990s Uprising, between 1994 and 1997 when demands for the return of the liberal Constitution of 1973 and Parliamentary were made in two public petitions to the Emir. Individuals associated with the petitions were deemed to be acting against the regime and detained under the State Security Laws, subjected to torture and in some cases forced into exile. See also: History of Bahrain.

Bahrain’s track record of gross violations of human rights and torture in particular has been raised on numerous occasions in various UN fora. Bahrain was one of the countries subjected to the UNHCHR 1503 procedure and has been the subject of a resolution by the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and urgent appeals from the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The Special Rapporteur summed up the practice of torture during this period in his 1997 report to the UN Human Rights Commission:

“most persons arrested for political reasons in Bahrain were held incommunicado, a condition of detention conducive to torture. The Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) were alleged frequently to conduct interrogation of such detainees under torture. The practice of torture by these agencies was said to be undertaken with impunity, with no known cases of officials having been prosecuted for acts of torture or other ill-treatment. In cases heard before the State Security Court, defendants were reportedly convicted solely on the basis of uncorroborated confessions made to political or security officials or on the testimony of such officials that confessions had been made. Although defendants often alleged that their "confessions" had been extracted under torture, impartial investigations of such claims were reportedly never ordered by the court. In addition, medical examinations of defendants were rarely ordered by the court, unless the defendant displayed obvious signs of injury. Such outward displays of injury were said to be uncommon, since torture victims were usually brought to trial well after their injuries had healed.

In addition to its use as a means to extract a "confession", torture was also reportedly administered to force detainees to sign statements pledging to renounce their political affiliation, to desist from future anti-government activity, to coerce the victim into reporting on the activities of others, to inflict punishment and to instil fear in political opponents. The methods of torture reported include: falaqa (beatings on the soles of the feet); severe beatings, sometimes with hose-pipes; suspension of the limbs in contorted positions accompanied by blows to the body; enforced prolonged standing; sleep deprivation; preventing victims from relieving themselves; immersion in water to the point of near drowning; burnings with cigarettes; piercing the skin with a drill; sexual assault, including the insertion of objects into the penis or anus; threats of execution or of harm to family members; and placing detainees suffering from sickle cell anaemia (said to be prevalent in the country) in air-conditioned rooms in the winter, which can lead to injury to internal organs.”