NEW YORK: Bahrain is restricting the travel of rights activists to prevent them from publicizing the arrest of opposition members, Human Rights Watch said, calling for the restrictions to be lifted.
"The authorities are trying to keep human rights defenders from spreading information about a recent spate of arrests of opposition members," Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director, said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Instead, Bahrain officials need to investigate the serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment of the detainees at the hands of Bahrain’s security forces," Whitson said.
Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) President Nabeel Rajab was prevented from traveling to Saudi Arabia on September 27, the statement said.
The day before, Abd al-Hadi al-Khawaja, a former BCHR chief and current Middle East and North Africa director for rights group Frontline, was prevented from boarding a plane at Bahrain’s airport, HRW said.
And authorities on September 18 prevented Laila Dashti, a member of the Bahrain Youth Human Rights Society, from traveling to Geneva for the 15th UN Human Rights Council session, it added.
The reported travel restrictions come amid heightened tension in the Shiite-dominated kingdom, sparked when 23 Shiite activists were charged earlier this month with forming a "terror network" aimed at bringing down the Sunni-dominated government.
Rights group Amnesty International has accused the authorities in Bahrain of an intensifying "clampdown… on Shiite opposition and human rights activists in the run-up" to October 23 parliamentary elections.
Two of the 23 activists accused this month are in London and were charged in absentia, while the remaining 21 were arrested in August.
