AhlulBayt News Agency

source : al Wefaq
Thursday

24 January 2013

6:08:00 AM
384335

Bahrain Appeals Court Upholds Death and Life Sentences Related to the Pro-democracy Popular Movement

The Appeals Court in Bahrain has issued verdicts Wednesday 23rd upholding a death sentence to a Bahraini youth, Ali al-Tawil, and a life sentence to another named Ali al-Shamlool. The harsh sentences are related to the popular pro-democracy movement that has erupted in February 2011.

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society condemns such oppressive verdicts against activists and dissidents for their practice of freedom of expression and assembly in the pro-democracy uprising that was fueled by the Arab Spring.   

Al-Wefaq believes that the regime is using sham trials to punish dissidents who are coerced into confessions under torture, as mentioned in the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report. Such trials have been criticized by the U's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay to represent "political persecution", while Amnesty International said such verdicts are a "travesty of justice".     

Al-Wefaq strongly refuses the politicization and exploitation of the judiciary by regime officials. The judiciary is controlled and directed to punish dissidents for their political opinions by issuing retaliative verdicts based on coerced confessions as mentioned in the BICI report.  

The whole process of prosecutions, starting from the arrest to the coerced confessions draw in advance the retaliative verdicts which do not suit international legal standards and do not provide guaranties for defendants.       

Whereas, criminals responsible for murders of tens of citizens remain free and protected by the political clout that controls the judiciary, this, however, reveals that justice is absent in these sham trials. The opposition rejects any interference in the judiciary.   

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