Amnesty International has warned that the human rights records of Persian Gulf Arab states must not be “swept under the carpet” during the upcoming meeting of (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain.
In a report released on Monday, Amnesty noted that human rights are notably absent from the agenda of the annual meeting of the six (P)GCC states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
“Hundreds have been harassed, unlawfully prosecuted, stripped of their nationality, arbitrarily detained or in some cases imprisoned or even sentenced to death after unfair trials, as part of a concerted effort to intimidate people into silence,” said Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Randa Habib.
“The use of such ruthless tactics to trample all over the rights of people in the (P)GCC has to end now,” she added.
The human rights group also called for the release of Bahraini rights activist Nabeel Rajab and Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the al-Wefaq opposition group, Bahrain’s largest parliamentary bloc before dissolution by the Manama regime.
“In the (P)GCC today exercising your fundamental rights or speaking your mind freely can very easily land you in jail. (P)GCC states need to stop branding independent human rights activists and peaceful critics as criminals. Instead of locking such people away for long periods under the false pretense of defending national security they should welcome scrutiny of their human rights records,” added Habib.
