NGOs release 2 new reports on torture in Bahrain

REDRESS and the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) issued a significant new report on torture in Bahrain.Entitled Bahrain: Fundamental Reform or torture without end? the report describes torture as an integral part of the ongoing crisis in Bahrain, bahrainf1.wordpress.com reported.The press release reads in part, "In 2011 the Bahrain International Commission of Inquiry (BICI) found that torture and ill-treatment had been used systematically to respond to protests in Bahrain. While the Government of Bahrain has taken some steps to implement the recommendations of the BICI, torture and ill-treatment continue and obligations towards victims have not been met.""Bahrain must address the legacy of torture and ill-treatment, as the practice continues to be documented in a number of different contexts, both in detention and by riot police who are ostensibly controlling protests," said Lutz Oette, counsel at REDRESS. "Providing victims of torture and ill-treatment the reparation promised after the BICI report, and guaranteed to them under international law constitutes an overdue and important first step towards that end."Earlier Friday, the Bahrain Rehabilitation and Anti-Violence Organisation (BRAVO) issued its latest report: Resurgence of Sexual Violence as a Torture Technique in Bahrain.The report summary reads," sexual violence in its many forms has re-emerged as a torture technique in Bahrain. The Bahrain Independent Commission Inquiry report contains a disturbing litany of testimonies from victims of sexual violence occurring since February 2011.""Human Rights Watch had noted ongoing violations before 2010 but there has been a dramatic upsurge in rape, sodomy, sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation of detainees in recent years.""Despite numerous testimonies and the findings of the BICI report the Bahraini government denies that sexual violence occurs in their prisons and detention centers.Bahrain is a signatory of the Convention Against Torture and should repeal laws such as Law 56, 2002, which offers impunity for those responsible."BRAVO calls for an independent review of all claims of sexual violence against detainees in Bahrain under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.The reports come just days after the death of Colonel Ian Henderson, a British citizen who, for several decades, headed state security in Bahrain as an advisor to the government. Grave accusations of torture have been leveled against Henderson, earning him the nickname "The Butcher of Bahrain". In 1984, he received a CBE from Queen Elizabeth, for his "services to British interests in Bahrain". Middle East expert Emile Nakleh, who encountered Henderson in the 1970s, wrote about him on Thursday in a piece entitled: Ian Henderson and Repression in Bahrain: A Forty-Year LegacyAnti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February 2011, calling for an end to the al-Khalifa dynasty.Violence against the defenseless people escalated after a Saudi-led conglomerate of police, security and military forces from the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member states - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar - were dispatched to the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom on March 2011, to help Manama crack down on peaceful protestors.So far, tens of protesters have been killed, hundreds have gone missing and thousands of others have been injured.