Association
Prominent human rights defenders in Bahrain remain in prison and have not benefited from any of the Eid pardons offered to other prisoners, including the recent pardons for the Eid in June.
In May 2025, a group of human rights organisations wrote a joint letter to member and observer states of the United Nations Human Rights Council regarding the continued detention of leading human rights defenders, bloggers, journalists, opposition and religious activists, and death row inmates who are at imminent risk. The royal pardons previously issued by Bahrain’s King benefitted a total of 1,526 inmates on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr (marking the end of Ramadan) on 27th March 2025 and to mark Bahrain National Day on 15th December 2024. However, no political prisoners or human rights defenders were released through these pardons either and they were instead offered only conditional releases through the open prisons programme, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD). The NGOs’ letter raised concerns about human rights defenders, leading opposition and political activists serving unjust life imprisonment sentences in Bahrain including Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace, Hassan Mushaima, Sheikh Mohamed Habib Al-Muqdad and Sheikh Ali Salman.
Additionally, 26 individuals in Bahrain remain on death row at risk of imminent execution, 11 of whom were convicted following manifestly unfair trials that relied solely or primarily on confessions allegedly extracted under torture. This includes Mohammed Ramadan and Hussain Moosa, who have been arbitrarily detained for over a decade.
On 12th August 2024, three UN human rights experts highlighted concerns about the conditions of detention in Jau Prison and Bahrain’s lack of adherence to standards of humane and dignified treatment. The death of a political prisoner in custody on 5th December 2024, which marked the second death in 2024 under similar circumstances, led to renewed concerns about Bahrain’s failure to provide emergency care and first aid in Jau Prison. Authorities then reportedly used excessive force and collective punishment against hundreds of political prisoners to violently suppress a strike that had been ongoing for nearly eight months, according to BIRD. There are currently an estimated 322 political prisoners still imprisoned in Bahrain, with an additional 40 prisoners part of the open prisons, according to BIRD.
Expression
On 5th March 2025, a group of 24 human rights organisations called on Bahraini officials to immediately release Ali Al Hajee, a human rights defender who was arrested on 1st March 2025, in connection with his comments on social media. On 28th February, which marked the last day of Formula 1 testing in Bahrain, Al Hajee received a written police summons issued by the Interior Ministry’s General Directorate of Crime Detection and Forensic Science. Shortly after, Al-Hajee received a phone call from an official at the Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID) instructing him to report to the gate of the CID building in Adliya immediately and on his own. After willingly obeying the summons, Al Hajee was questioned about his human rights work, especially his social media posts on X (formerly Twitter).
The next day, Al-Hajee was arrested, and Bahrain’s Public Prosecution ordered him to be detained for seven days pending investigation on charges of “misusing social media.” Both his prolonged interrogation and detention order occurred without the presence of his lawyer, according to his family.
If formally charged, he faces imprisonment under Bahrain’s draconian laws restricting freedom of expression, particularly Article 168 of Bahrain’s Penal Code, which allows authorities to punish “any person who deliberately disseminates false reports, statements or malicious rumours, or produces any publicity seeking to damage public security.”
Members of the MENA Alliance for Digital Rights issued a joint appeal calling on Bahrain’s Shura Council to reject the government’s proposed amendments to the Law on Press, Printing, and Publishing (Decree-Law No. 47 of 2002), which risk increasing repression of media freedom. On 8th May 2025, the House of Representatives approved the draft amendments and referred them to the Shura Council for review and adoption. The statement notes the government’s misleading claim that “abolishing the imprisonment of journalists and replacing it with fines of up to 50,000 Bahraini Dinars (approximately US$133,000) is one of the key reforms. …Far from being protected, journalists can still be prosecuted under Bahrain’s arsenal of repressive laws that criminalize online speech and activities, such as the Penal Code or Anti-Terrorism Law, which have been routinely used to prosecute and imprison Bahraini journalists and activists. Maintaining a dual legal regime, imposing fines under Decree-Law No. 47 of 2002 while preserving prison sentences under other legislation, allows authorities to arbitrarily apply one or the other based on the political profile of the individual exercising their right to freedom of expression.” The statement adds, “another major concern is the proposed imposition of mandatory licensing requirements for new online media and ‘media related’ activities from the Ministry of Information.”