A few months earlier, the regime illegally detained and imprisoned religious scholar Sheikh Ali Salman the Leader of the al-Wefaq opposition. Now it has kidnapped Bahraini human rights defender Hussain Jawad – a move that has made American journalist Joseph Sabroski compare the Aal-e Khalifa with the terrorists of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) that is trying in vain to destabilize Syria and Iraq.
Recently, by citing what it called “brotherly ties of kinship,” the Aal-e Khalifa dictatorship of Bahrain has pledged the aid to Jordan in the fight against ISIL following the burning alive of a captured Jordanian pilot. However, the regime’s kidnapping last Monday of Hussain Jawad, suggests the ruling family might also have a lot in common with the Takfiri terrorist threat it claims to be fighting.
The chairman of the European-Bahraini Organization for Human Rights (EBOHR), Jawad was at risk of being tortured, according to a report from Amnesty International. After being snatched from his home by masked police officers, he was taken to the Criminal Investigations Directorate — an affiliate of the Ministry of Interior notorious for the torture of detainees who are in the process of being charged with a crime.
Concern over the safety of human rights defender Hussain Jawad is growing. Reports surfaced on Wednesday that Jawad was going to be released, according to his lawyer Reem Khalaf. But at the time of publication, Jawad has yet to be returned home to his family. This wouldn’t be the first time the island sheikhdom abducted and tortured a political dissident.
Loved by the West for, among other things, hosting the US Fifth Fleet and its hostility toward Islamic Iran, the regime of Bahrain has been violently repressing peaceful protests and political opposition while implementing only piecemeal reforms recommended by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, February 14 marked the fourth anniversary of Bahrain’s failed uprising and was predictably marked by violent clashes between security forces and protesters who have become disillusioned by the limits of peaceful political expression.
Jawad’s wife, Asma Darwish, is the head of information and media relations for the EBOHR and immediately took to Twitter on Monday to report the kidnapping of her husband, and numerous human rights activists followed suit. The Irish human rights organization Front Line Defenders said “masked men in civilian clothes” kidnapped Jawad and held him incommunicado for 10 hours before he was finally allowed to speak by phone to his wife.
According to Darwish’s tweets about her conversation with her husband, he may have been tortured already. She said: His voice was so weak, he barely talked those 4 words. I am confident he was subjected to torture and ill-treatment. My husband Hussain Jawad just called for 4 seconds saying he is ok. I asked him if he was harmed he replied yes.
The terror that incidents like these inspire for loved ones is reminiscent of the pain felt by the family members of ISIL’s victims. According to Sabroski, he was told by Asma Darwish over Skype: “To have masked men raid your house at dawn is scary, specifically when holding a 2-year-old son between your arms. I am worried a lot. When Hussain called, that one only call … I heard noises and strange sounds. He hardly spoke. He left me there, broken beyond repair — yet feeling more empowered to fight back to bring my husband home.”
When armed masked men of ISIL kidnap and torture their prisoners, the US and UK lead the charge in denouncing these actions in the strongest terms. But when their favorite Arab dictatorships, with which they have all kinds of cozy arrangements and mutual geopolitical interests, employ similar violent and brutal tactics to suppress political freedoms, the West looks the other way while entrenching its vested military and political objectives.
In a recent column at Middle East Eye, author Hussain Abdulla writes that “Western countries appear to be employing the ‘stability over democracy’ approach in the Persian Gulf,” as combating ISIL is seen as a bigger priority. The US valued parking its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain long before the rise of ISIL. But as Abdulla points out, by shoring up support for Bahrain and other allied Arab dictatorships in the name of combating ISIL, the US is all but guaranteeing the rise of future violent extremist groups in Bahrain by allowing the regime to continue committing its brazen human rights abuses.
After serving a two-year sentence for tweets that he wrote during the uprising, Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab was sentenced to six months in prison shortly after his release for tweeting that “many Bahrain men who joined terrorism & ISIS came from Bahrain’s security institutions and those institutions were the first ideological incubator.”
As if eager to vindicate his claims, the regime determined that the best course of action would be to follow ISIL’s lead: lock him up in a cage for the high crime of blaspheming the state.
Jawad was previously detained multiple times by the authorities and is already facing charges of insulting the king, according to a report in Middle East Eye. It remains to be seen if new charges will be brought in connection with his latest detention. His case, however upsetting, is unfortunately just one in a long line of victims who had the temerity to challenge and question the US-backed dictatorship of Bahrain. Meanwhile, Bahrainis can rest assured that wherever there are masked gunmen throwing innocents into the back of a vehicle, the US will not stand idly by, so long as it’s the right kind of villain behind the mask.
Meanwhile, the Amnesty International has voiced concern over the arrest of a prominent human rights activist in Bahrain, saying he is under risk of torture and other ill-treatment. The London-based rights group said in a statement that the Aal-e Khalifa regime should explain the charges against Hussain Jawad, the chairman of the European-Bahraini Organization for Human Rights. The report said masked men dressed in plain clothes transported Jawad to the Criminal Investigations Directorate, without explaining why they were detaining him.
Bahraini authorities have been asked to give Jawad access to his lawyer, family and any medical attention he may require. In 2013, Jawad was arrested at a police station south of the capital, Manama, while lodging a complaint. Authorities accused him of “inciting hatred against the regime” in a speech he gave earlier. Many prisoners taken under custody in Bahrain have reported being tortured or otherwise ill-treated. This is while Amnesty International has called on Bahraini officials to observe citizens’ rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of peaceful protesters have held numerous demonstrations on the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Aal-e Khalifa family to relinquish power. Bahraini authorities have since arrested a number of opposition figures and activists, including al-Wefaq National Islamic Society Secretary General Sheikh Ali Salman and prominent Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab. Scores of Bahrainis have been martyred and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
