TEHRAN — Hossein Amir Abdollahian, a senior foreign policy advisor to the Iranian Parliament speaker, has strongly condemned the systematic violation of human rights in Bahrain.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Amir Abdollahian wrote, “Amid corona crisis, upholding death penalty agnst 2 young Bahrainis shows rift btwn #AlKhalifa & nation is deep. Strongly condemn torture, death sentence & systemic violation of HR in #Bahrain.”

Amid corona crisis, upholding death penalty agnst 2 young Bahrainis shows rift btwn #AlKhalifa & nation is deep. Strongly condemn torture, death sentence & systemic violation of HR in #Bahrain. Instead of ties w/Israeli regime, AlKhalifa must reform engagement w/its own people. pic.twitter.com/qpqDoWSIlQ

— H.amirabdollahian (@Amirabdolahian) July 13, 2020

“Instead of ties w/Israeli regime, AlKhalifa must reform engagement w/its own people,” he added.

Bahrain’s supreme court of appeal has upheld death sentences against two anti-regime activists, which human rights groups say were issued based on confessions extracted under torture.

According to Press TV, the Court of Cassation on Monday sentenced the defendants, identified as Mohamed Ramadhan and Hussain Moosa, to death after finding them guilty in the “killing of a police officer and attempt to kill other members of the force in a premeditated ambush using an explosive device on February 14, 2014” in al-Dair village, which lies northeast of the capital, Manama. Ten other people were also handed down jail terms.

Both Amnesty International and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) rejected the ruling.

Amnesty expressed regret that the last-ditch efforts for seeing some modicum of justice in Bahrain were crushed when the Court of Cassation reaffirmed the death sentences for the two men, despite evidence that they were tortured during their interrogation. 

“Bahrain’s judiciary has decided to blatantly ignore court evidence of torture in the case of Mohamed Ramadhan and Hussain Moosa, and this, despite the repeated violations of the men’s right to a fair trial since their arrest over six years ago," said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director.

"The death penalty is abhorrent in all circumstances and should never be used," she added and called "on the Bahraini authorities to immediately quash these convictions and death sentences."

"Instead of condemning to death the victims of this irreparably flawed trial, they must hold to account those responsible for their torture and guarantee that the defendants receive reparations, rehabilitation, and an ironclad guarantee of non-repetition," she noted.

MH/PA