Human Rights Watch said on Friday that after the organization voiced concerns about Bahrain’s rights record, the country cancelled the visas it had provided to its representatives so they could attend an international legislative meeting. Two members of the rights group who were granted visas on January 30 had them revoked on March 8 — only three days before the conference’s scheduled start on Saturday, according to HRW. The 146th session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an international organization with the slogan “For democracy. For everyone,” will begin on Saturday in the US ally country of Bahrain.
Although it “is not responsible for the visa procedure,” which is a sovereign decision of the host nation, the IPU, which is a global organization of parliaments with the goal of promoting democracy and human rights, acknowledged that the visas had been cancelled. Without this opportunity, HRW wouldn’t have been able to return to the Gulf state since 2012. Human Rights Watch (HRW), a group with observer status at the IPU, urged delegates to speak out about “the alarming suppression of human rights in Bahrain” on Monday. The resolution also called on the organization to demand that Bahrain “free all individuals imprisoned simply for peaceful expression” and scrap regulations that prevent political opponents from running for office. The government of Bahrain has not yet issued a statement. In 2011, predominantly Shia protestors inspired by the Arab Spring took to the streets to demand an elected government for the Gulf monarchy of approximately 1.4 million inhabitants. Authorities responded by launching a crackdown. The government has subsequently arrested hundreds of protesters and made it illegal for anyone to join opposition groups. The two largest opposition parties in Bahrain, the Shiite Al-Wefaq and the secular Waad, were banned from fielding candidates in the country’s legislative elections in November. Both of the political organizations folded in 2017. Human rights, criminal justice, and prisoner care are all areas where the government of Bahrain claims to have achieved notable strides in recent years. Iran has also claimed that its elections are democratic and rejected allegations of human rights violations.
Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations have accused Bahrain of “whitewashing” or “sports washing” its human rights record by using international events, like last week’s Formula One race, to divert attention from the government’s persecution of political dissent. The revocation of visas was seen as “a stark illustration of [Bahrain’s] growing persecution” by HRW’s interim executive director Tirana Hassan. Hassan stated in a statement that Bahrain’s hosting of athletic and high-level international events is a clear attempt to launder the country’s decades-long drive to squash political dissent and smother the country’s thriving civil society.
