Rights Groups Describe Lawsuit Raised to Dissolve Bahrain'd Wa’ad Society as “Vexatious”

Rasa - A number of human rights organizations described the lawsuit raised by the Bahraini Justice Ministry against the National Democratic Action Society (Wa'ad) as "vexatious," adding that it contributes to undermining political freedom in the country.

News ID: 428289

Date: 20 March 2017 - 23:44

RNA - The advocacy groups stressed that the Bahraini authorities continue to "impose more limitations on civil society and not comply in a serious manner with international control mechanisms, its previous dissolution of a number of civil society institutions, such as Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, Al-Tawiya, Al-Risalah Islamic Societies, as well as the Islamic Ulama Council in 2014 and the Bahrain Center for Human Rights in 2006," Bahrain Mirror reported.

Bahrain Human Rights Observatory, Bahrain Human Rights Forum, Salam for Democracy and Human Rights and (Persian) Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights said that the political societies law imposes arbitrary limitations on the actions and management of political parties that the Bahraini authorities prefered to call political societies.

In addition to the fact that the penal code criminalizes the establishment or management of an unlicensed group or joining it, the law also allows the justice ministry to file a lawsuit for dissolving or suspending a political society for mysterious reasons, such as "grave violation of the provisions of the kingdom's constitution," this law or any other law, without specifying the nature of this violation.

The HR organizations further noted that the Bahraini authorities have not yet responded to 9 requests made by UN special rapporteurs and groups to visit Bahrain, including the Special Rapporteur on the rights to peaceful assembly and of association, since 2011.

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