Bahrain Postpones UN’s Torture Investigator Trip

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The U.N. human rights office in Geneva said Bahrain formally requested postponing until July the visit by the special rapporteur on torture, which had been scheduled for March 8-17.

The investigator, Juan Mendez, will express his regrets to Bahraini representatives in meetings next week over this "last minute postponement", said Xabier Celaya, a spokesman of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

He would also "seek to secure new dates as he remains very committed to undertaking this important visit", Celaya added.

Bahrain said it was "still undergoing major reforms and wants some important steps, critical to the special rapporteur’s mandate, to be in place before he visits so he can assess the progress that Bahrain has made to date", the spokesman said.

Bahrain, a U.S. ally ruled by Al Khalifa family, has been under its people pressure to improve its rights record and institute political reforms after it crushed a anti-discrimination uprising last year, imposing a period of martial law.

Fatima al-Balooshi, Bahrain’s minister for social development, told the U.N. Human Rights Council this week the kingdom had drawn lessons from the upheaval.

"Mistakes were made. Serious wrongs were committed," she told the Geneva forum. "We believe we are on the right track."

Bahrain told a number of human rights organisations in January they should delay trips to the country to after Feb. 22, the date the government set itself for reviewing policing, the judiciary, education, media and other reforms such as paying torture victims and national reconciliation – as recommended by a body of international legal experts in November.

The government said on Thursday it would need up to 20 more days to complete its plans for implementing the recommendations of the experts, whose Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) issued a damning report in November.

The BICI said protesters, who come mainly from the majority Shi’ite population, had suffered systematic torture to force confessions that were used in military trials.

The country remains in turmoil as clashes between youths and riot police continue daily in the island and the banking and tourism-based economy, already down after the world financial crisis, struggles to pick up.

Since mid-February, thousands of anti-discrimination protesters have been staging regular demonstrations in Bahrain, calling for the US-backed Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

On March 14, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded Bahrain to assist the ruling regime in its brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in the Persian Gulf island.

Human rights activists say many Bahraini doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or have disappeared because they had evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces and riot police in the crackdown on anti-discrimination protesters.

The Bahraini regime has also been handing heavy sentences and long jail terms to the detained activists, some of whom say they were tortured while in custody.

The move has drawn international criticism, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressing “deep concern” over the sentences and calling for the release of all political detainees in Bahrain.

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