Bahraini Legislators Respond to Letter from US Congress

Photo Credit: Bahrain News Agency

A group of Bahraini legislators issued a response to a letter sent earlier this month by 20 Members of the United States Congress that expressed concern at the delayed visit of U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez. The response criticizes the United States for its past refusal to prosecute those who engaged in torture, and says that the “United States has over the past decade and a half followed a path of adamant refusal of U.N. inspections of prisons and other detention facilities.” The legislators lay out Bahrain’s efforts to hold security members accountable and to engage in reform, but contend that the decision to delay Mendez’s visit “was made as a matter of national interest.” “In this context of peril to our open, political life, the pursuit of accountability seems secondary to many of our citizens, who feel threatened by domestic insurrection, the spread of militant Hezbollah into our long prosperous and once so peaceful country, and international indifference to their plight,” the response reads. It also is critical of the sources upon which the original letter relied, including the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, which is labeled as “a cloak for a stridently sectarian handful of individuals whose partisan falsification of daily events is treated with derision by anyone who understands our language and is familiar with reality on the ground.”

The original letter, led by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), urged the Bahraini government to reverse its decision to postpone Mendez’s visit “to demonstrate [its] commitment to help put an end to such abuses [of torture].”

In his own statement after the cancelation, Mendez said, “This is the second time that my visit has been postponed, at very short notice. It is effectively a cancellation as no alternative dates were proposed nor is there a future road map to discuss.” Mendez added, ““Let me be clear, this was a unilateral decision by the [Bahraini] authorities. Unfortunately, it is not the first time the Government has tried to avoid responsibility for the postponement of my visit, which was originally supposed to take place over a year ago.”

Rahat Husain writes, ”Angrily responding to the Congressional representatives and in defending Bahrain’s permissive attitude on torture, Bahraini officials paradoxically assert they have not gone far enough, ‘Large segments of our population are incensed at what they see as our Government’s leniency with the sectarian opposition.’”