Do you know Bahrain’s eldest prisoner of conscience?

I wrote previously a number of articles about Bahrain and in particular about the human rights activist Hussain Jawad, Chairman of the European-Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights (EBOHR). If you do not know him, then read my “Story in Tweets” which tells the story of his arrest in February 2015 until his (conditional) release in May 2015  using the tweets of his wife Asma Darwish. Hussain’s father Mohammed Hassan Jawad (“Parweez Jawad”) is also a human rights activist. He was arrested six years ago on 22 March 2011 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Parweez Jawad is Bahrain’s eldest prisoner of conscience. This post will tell his story.  

1. Background

Mohammed Hassan Jawad, who is usually called “Parweez” Jawad, was born on 1 January 1948 in Manama, Bahrain. He was one of six children. He had two brothers and three sisters (after the death of one brothers and two sisters there are still two of his siblings alive). When he was 12 years old his father died. In the testimony he gave in court in June 2012, he said that the loss of his father at an early age was something which shaped his personality and meant he had a “deep feeling of injustice, and sympathy with the oppressed at an early age“.

In the early seventies Parweez Jawad met his future wife Batool Baqal in Manama. Shortly afterwards in 1973 they got married. Parweez Jawad and Batool Baqal have six children who are now between 39 years old and 6 years old. Their two daughters are Ramla (39 years) and Susan (38 years) and their four sons are Ali (34 years), Hussain (29 years), Hamid (27 years) and Hadi (6 years).

Parweez Jawad used to work at the oil pipeline between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. However for the last 30 years he was banned from this work, because of his human rights activism.

2. Human Rights Activism

Parweez Jawad has a long history of protests against the government and was always outspoken for human rights. He was particularly interested in human rights of prisoners and campaigned as independent activist against arbitrary arrests. Even when he was in prison himself, he taught other prisoners about ethics and human rights and documented the detainees cases.

He was himself arrested many times in the late 1980s and the 1990s. The reasons for these arrests were protesting, demanding the release of political prisoners and also insulting the king. “Insulting the king” is still an offense human rights activists are often charged with. Every criticism of the king or the government can lead to such charges. Until 2014 the sentence for insulting the king could be between 10 days and 3 years. In February 2014 the king of Bahrain approved a law which increased the sentence to up to 7 years and a fine of up to 10,000 Bahrain Dinars (ca. GBP 21,700).

I spoke with Hussain about his father and he told me that most arrests of his father in the 1990s were without charges. These were arrests for security reasons and his father was released after a few days or maybe sometimes a few weeks. However, in 1994 this was different. Hussain was 9 years old and he told me that he still remembers well that his father was disappeared for 9 months. Parweez Jawad could not make any calls, his family was not allowed to see him and he was tortured. Parweez Jawad spoke about this arrest in his testimony in court in 2012. He explained that he was arrested at 2.30 am by police officers who suddenly broke into his house, took valuables like a camera and took him out of the house in handcuffs. He describes in his statement that he was insulted, humiliated and tortured by physical and psychological means.  He was ultimately brought to Jaw Central Prison where he was held for almost a year without charges or trial.

He could not get a job anymore, because his name was blacklisted and every application for work for the government or a private employer was rejected. In 2002 / 2003 he started therefore a workshop in which he made iron furniture. In 2011 security forces destroyed all machines.

3. Bahrain Uprising 2011

In December 2010 Parweez Jawad took part in a demonstration for the release of political prisoners. The night after the protest, armed forces broke into his house and arrested him without an arrest warrant. He was detained for 33 days and was released in January 2011.

A short time after his release the Arab Spring began in Bahrain. After protests in Egypt, Tunisia and other countries in the Middle East, ten thousands of Bahrainis took the streets on 14 February 2011. They protested for meaningful reforms, in particular constitutional and political reforms as well as for human rights. Also Parweez Jawad joined the protests on this day in Sitra where a large demonstration took place.

Bahrain’s government responded to the demonstrations with tear gas, shotguns and rubber bullets. The police fired into unarmed crowds which caused panic and let to injuries. On the evening of 14 February 2011 one protester Ali Mushaima died from police shot guns. There were more protests over the following days and more fatalities.  On 17 February 2011 1000 police officers were dispatched to clear the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, Bahrain’s capital. There were 1500 people staying over night in tents. The police used again excessive force to clear the place, including shotguns, tear gas and flash grenades. Four protesters were killed by the police and 300 man, women and children were injured. The government claimed that the protesters had attacked the police; however independent inquiries did not find any proof for these allegations. The 17 February 2011 is remembered as “Bahrain’s Bloody Thursday”.

The demonstrations and protests continued. Many protesters called for an end of the monarchy in Bahrain and the establishment of a republic. According to Amnesty International the demonstration and marches were peaceful. Many people went on strike. The situation got tenser on 12 and 13 March 2011 when anti-government protesters and government supporters crashed. On 15 March 2011 Saudi Arabia sent troops with at least 1200 soldiers to Bahrain and the King of Bahrain declared a three-months state of emergency which gave the police wide powers to arrest and detain protesters. The Pearl Monument who had been a symbol for the protesters was destroyed on 16 March 2011. Hundreds of people were arrested and detained.

Parweez Jawad participated in a number of marches in February and March 2011. On 22 March 2011 he went to the place of the Pearl Roundabout to get his car back which was parked there. He explained in his witness statement what happened next:

“… I went there to take back my car, my car at that moment was not working and I had to fix it,  but before I get it back, I was stopped at one the army check points, and after they asked me about my name, and then asked for my ID card, and once they say it, then they asked me to get out of the car. // and once I got out of the car, so they started beating severely …”

After his arrest Parweez Jawad was first brought to Naim Police Station. He was beaten and insulted and had to stand for a long time. After a few days he was brought to the “Castle”. This is a place of detention run by the National Security Agency in the basement of a building in Al Qualaa. He was questioned about the marches and demonstrations and was pushed to name other participants. Parweez Jawad explains that he was tortured by the security forces. He was beaten with sticks, whipped and kicked, hung by his feet and hung from his hands. There was sexual harassment and torture with electric shocks. After 15 days in the “Castle” he was transferred to Dry Dock Prison where many political prisoners are detained and later he was brought to Al Qurain prison. The torture continued in these prisons. There is a very detailed account of his time in the “Castle” and the subsequent prisons and what he had to endure in an article in the Bahrain Mirror: “This is how the son of the king tortured us; Parweez narrated the story from inside the prison“.

4. Trial and Judgment

The trial against Parweez Jawad and twenty other Bahraini opposition activists started on 8 May 2011 at the National Safety Lower Court. It is a military court and the case was brought by a military prosecutor. Apart from Parweez Jawad the following 13 defendants appeared in front of the court: Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, Abdulwahab Hussain, Dr. Abduljalil Al Singace, Hassan Mashaima, Ibrahim Sharif, Mohammed Habib Al Muqdad, Sheikh Mirza Al Mahrooz, Mr. Abdulhadi Al Makhdour, Salah Al-Khawaja, Sheikh Saeed Al Noori, Mohammed Ali Ismael, Sheikh Abduljalil Al Muqdad and Al-Hur Yousef al Somaikh. Seven further defendants were tried in absence. Some of them were in hiding, presumably in Bahrain, while others lived abroad.

The defendants were accused of a number of charges connected with national security crimes under Bahrain’s 1976 Penal Code and the 2006 Counterterrorism Law. The charges included among others “organising and managing a terrorist group for the overthrow and the change of the country’s constitution and the royal rule,” “seeking and correspond[ing] with a terrorist organisation abroad working for a foreign country to conduct heinous acts” against Bahrain, “broadcasting false news and rumours” that threatened public security, inciting sectarianism, and other similar charges.  The defendants denied all charges.

Further hearings took place on 12 May and 16 May 2011. On 22 June 2011 Bahrain’s National Safety Court sentenced Parweez Jawad to 15 years in prison. Seven defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment (Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, Abdulwahab Hussain, Dr. Abduljalil Al Singace, Hassan Mashaima, Mohammed Habib Al Muqdad, Sheikh Abduljalil Al Muqdad and Sheikh Saeed Al Noori), apart from Parweez Jawad three other people were sentenced to 15 years in prison (Sheikh Mirza Al Mahrooz, Mr. Abdulhadi Al Makhdour and Mohammed Ali Ismael). Ibrahim Sharif and Salah Al-Khawaja were sentenced to five years each and Al-Hur Yousef al Somaikh was sentenced to two years of imprisonment.

Parweez Jawad said that he could not prepare for the hearings. He did not have access to a lawyer before the trial. He also mentioned that he could not hear some of the questions because of an impairment of hearing which got worse because of the torture. He was furthermore forced to sign a report without being able to read it.

Human rights organisations share these concerns for the trial in general. They criticised the trial against civilians in front of a military court. They also said that the charges were vague and politically motivated. The trial was not fair, because lawyers were only granted very limited access to the files. Family members were not informed about trial dates (or informed very late) and were not allowed to visit the defendants. For some of the hearings international human rights organisations like Frontline Defenders and Human Rights First were denied entry to the court. Human rights organisations were alarmed by the allegations of torture and demanded independent investigation of these serious allegations against police and security forces.

The appeal against the verdict was heard on 6 September 2011 by the National Safety Court of Appeal, again a military court. The verdict of the court of appeal was handed down on 28 September 2011. The appeal court upheld all convictions and sentences imposed in the first instance.

On 30 April 2012 the Court of Cassation in Manama ordered that the 14 opposition activists shall appear in front of a civilian court. The court reduced the sentence of Al-Hur Yousef al Somaikh to six months and he was released. The sentences against the 13 other activists remained unchanged.

The High Criminal Court of Appeal (another civilian court) started appeal proceedings on 22 May 2012 and went through several hearings until the last hearing on 24 July 2012. The final verdict was issued on 4 September 2012. The court acquitted three of the defendants of some of the charges, but upheld the overall sentences for all 13 defendents, including the sentence against Parweez Jawad.

Amnesty International said that there is no evidence that any of the defendants had committed a crime and used or advocated violence. Amnesty International considers all 13 activists as prisoners of conscience who are in prison for their right to freedom of expression and association.

5. Current Situation

Parweez Jawad is still in prison six years after his arrest in 2011. He is in Jaw Central Prison. Jaw Central Prison is one of Bahrain’s main prisons. It is directly at the sea in the east of Bahrain near Al Dur. Hussain told me that all 13 activists (“Bahrain 13”) are in a separate section of Jaw Central Prison. After the release of Ibrahim Sharif and Salah Al-Khawaja last year eleven prisoners are left. They have no contact with other prisoners, but can talk to each other.

Parweez Jawad is not in good health. During the past years he was brought to hospital several times. In August 2012 he was admitted to hospital because he lost consciousness and vomited blood. Because of his critical condition he was unable to speak. In 2014 he was told that he had been diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure. He also complained that he was still suffering pain after the torture in 2011. The prison authorities did not provide him with proper medical care. He was again taken to hospital in September 2015, but returned to prison after a few days without receiving specialised treatment.

I asked Hussain how is father is now. He said that he is still not in good health, but also does not want to be transferred to a hospital because they are not doing anything anyway.

Usually Parweez’s family is able to visit him every other week. For holidays like Eid there are regularly special visiting rights. Hussain told me that he speaks with his father on the phone about once a week and his family speaks several times a week with Parweez. However, the prison authorities are always listing in to these calls. The calls are frequently interrupted, depending on the topics about which Parweez Jawad and his family are speaking. The right to receive visits or calls is also occasionally withdrawn. The same applies for the access to books, including the Koran, newspapers or television. Just a few days ago Maryam Al-Khawaja, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s daughter, tweeted about new regulation to harass the Bahrain 13 prisoners: There is a cancellation of spousal visits, family hours are reduced to 30 minutes, furthermore newspapers are forbidden and shia channels were removed from television, the cell doors remained locked for most of the day, Bahrain 13 prisoner are chained whenever they are moved anywhere, all hospital visits are cancelled and a number of other restrictions were imposed.

6. Further Information

I based my blog post on a number of articles about Parweez Jawad, but also about the situation in Bahrain general. I can recommend the following articles:

• The Testimony of the eldest Prisoner in Bahrain -65 years old- in front of the Court in June, published on the website of the European Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights (EBOHR) on 23 June 2012
• Short biography about Mohammed Hassan Jawad and excerpt about his torture from the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, published on the website of Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
• This is how the son of the king tortured us; Parweez narrated the story from inside the prison, published in Bahrain Mirror on 2 June 2012

There are also two general Amnesty International Reports about Bahrain which are interesting. There are both from 2012 and cover the protests and the human rights violations by police and security forces. Both reports also mention Parweez Jawad briefly:

• Bahrain: Flawed reforms: Bahrain fails to achieve justice for protesters, published on 17 April 2012. It mentions Mohammed Hassan Jawad (in the report spelled “Jawwad”) on page 22 and 23.
• Bahrain: Reform shelved, repression unleashed, published on 21 November 2012. It mentions the trial against Mohammed Hassan Jawad (in the report spelled “Jawwad”) and the other defendants on page 31

I got also much information in a conversation with Parweez Jawad’s son Hussain Jawad on 8 January 2017. I am very grateful to Hussain for his patience in answering all my questions.

7. Please get involved and support Parweez Jawad

Hussain has been campaigning for his father all the years since his father’s arrest in 2011. Please support him.

Share Parweez Jawad’s story on social media and outside of social media. Please use on social media the hashtags #Free_Parweez and #ParweezJawad. Please read also the following post about a campaign of EBOHR and join the campaign.