5 minute read
Hundreds of people attend an anti-government protest to demand the release of political detainees, in Manama, Bahrain, 26 December 2014, Ayman Yaqoob/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images As authorities release some prominent political prisoners amidst a coronavirus outbreak in the country s prisons, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights highlights their harrowing stories.
This statement was originally published on bahrainrights.org on 20 April 2021.
Ramadan is marked this year in Bahrain with a wave of releases of detainees who have spent long years in prisons. In light of the outbreak of the Coronavirus in prisons, and the number of infected inmates which has reached about 90 cases among the elderly and those with chronic diseases, the Bahraini authorities announced their intention to release 126 prisoners, then 73 others. Authorities stated that most of the inmates will spend the remainder of their sentence outside prison.