Protest Bahrain Executions and British Government Complicity

On Friday 20th January 2017, Inminds human rights groups and the Islamic Human Rights Commission undertook a guerilla projection on the walls of the Palace of Westminster and the walls of the Embassy of Bahrain in London, to protest recent execution of three pro-democracy activists in Bahrain and to condemn British government support for the Bahraini dictatorship.

On 15th January, three young pro-democracy activists, Sami Mushaima, Abbas Jamil Tahir al-Sami’ and Ali Abdulshahid al-Singace were executed by the Al Khalifah dictatorship in Bahrain following a mock trial where the defence were not even allowed to ask questions. The three had been tortured for 3 weeks to extract false confessions which they retracted at the first opportunity. Amnesty reports that two of the men were "given electric shocks, beaten, burnt with cigarettes, deprived of sleep, and sexually assaulted". The United Nations human rights commissioner has condemned the executions and the lack of a fair trial.

Inminds chair Abbas Ali said "Its disgusting that despite the Bahraini regimes barbaric record of human rights abuses, the British government continues to prop it up with its arms sales, and with its training. The UK has sold £51 million worth of arms to the Bahraini regime since the popular pro-democracy uprising started. Those arms have been used by the regimes troops to indiscriminately kill Bahrainis, including children as young as 6 years old. These killer troops were trained in the UK by the elite Lima Company of 42 Commando Royal Marines. Similarly the Bahraini police force, which the regimes own inquiry admits tortures people, was trained by the Metropolitan police. We are here to tell the British government to put humanity before profit and end its complicity with torture and murder in Bahrain."

Inminds chair Abbas Ali also condemned the Saudi regime "We are also here call for an end to what is effectively a Saudi occupation of Bahrain with its troops being used to savagely suppress the Bahraini peoples uprising. We demand the British government end its complicity in these and other Saudi war crimes."

The protest continued outside the Bahraini embassy. Inminds chair Abbas Ali added "We projected the 12 bloody bullet holes in the bodies of the three executed activists onto the walls of the Bahraini embassy to tell them that the blood of these martyrs will hasten the end of their tyranny. They cannot kill the entire nation, freedom will come to the people of Bahrain."