Bahrain Mirror: Six human rights organization said that some activists and bloggers were recently summoned to the National Security building, and were subject to torture and sexual assault to force them into suspending their human rights and media activism.

The signatory organizations of the urgent appeal are SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights, The European-Bahraini Organization for Human Rights, Bahrain Forum for Human Rights, The Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, The International Center for Supporting Rights and Freedoms.

In the appeal, the organizations said, "In May of this year, a number of human rights defenders entered for interrogation by the National Security Service, inside the security complex, the third floor. An interrogation was initiated against the law for long hours while standing and blindfolded for this entire period. Lawyers were not allowed to follow the proceedings of the investigation, in which these activists were severely beaten."

"These activists have also been subjected to religious slur, insulting, defamation, verbal harassment, sexual assault and electric shocks, as well as attempts to intimidate them by some of their family members if they do not leave their work with local and international human rights organizations. Interrogators have asked them to inform their colleagues to stop working in this field and some were forced to post on Twitter stating their suspension of activities in human rights and media," the appeal went on to say.

Moreover, the aforementioned NGOs denounced the security measures against rights defenders. They added in their statement, "We also urge the authorities in Bahrain to take the necessary measures to stop the targeting of human rights defenders as well as to activate the international mechanisms that protect members of civil society organizations who are living in difficult and dangerous situations and are eyewitnesses to the recent repression inside the country."

Arabic Version