The Bahraini prisoner of conscience, Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace, has continued his hunger strike for 59 days, in protest against the ill-treatment, and the authorities’ confiscation of a research book on popular proverbs he had prepared over four years.
Al-Singace is currently held in a health center due to the deterioration of his health condition due to the strike, which requires constant monitoring.
The Bahraini dissident suffers from polio syndrome and sickle cell anemia, with symptoms of chronic pain, numbness, and shortness of breath, which has led to a serious deterioration in his health.
Al-Singace is an academic, human rights activist, and well-known blogger. He was arrested in 2011 due to his participation in protests calling for improving political, social, and economic conditions. He is a member of the “Bahrain 13” group, which includes political leaders who were arrested in the Bahraini democratic movement in the same year, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment for overthrowing the government.
Days ago, Political prisoners in Jaw Central Prison in Manama began an open-ended hunger strike to protest the reluctance of the prison administration to meet their demands to improve their living conditions.
According to human rights sources, a number of prisoners went on hunger strike as the prison administration did not fulfill its promises to improve food and to allow family visits.
The prison administration claims to be preventing these visits due to the health restrictions imposed by the Coronavirus crisis, but the prisoners challenge their claim stating that they have taken the vaccination doses as a condition for the resumption of visits.
In March 2021, the European Parliament adopted a draft resolution condemning human rights violations in Bahrain.
633 deputies out of 689 voted in favor of the draft resolution condemning the increased use of the death penalty, the continued use of torture against detainees, and the persecution of human rights defenders in Bahrain.
The Parliament called on the Bahraini authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience, stressing the need for Bahrain to stop harassing, imprisoning, torturing, and arbitrarily punishing individuals simply for exercising their civil and political rights and freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, whether online or offline.
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK has repeatedly called on the international community, decision-makers in the world, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to take a serious position against the Bahraini government’s violations of human rights, pointing out that it deliberately demonizes its critics by labeling them as terrorism, as all other repressive regimes do as a justification to crush their opponents.
