TEAMS from Bahrain’s main human rights watchdog start their visits to prisons and reform and rehabilitation centres today.
The three main facilities the National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR) will cover include the Jaw Prison, the Dry Dock Detention Centre in Hidd and the Women’s Reformation and Rehabilitation Prison in Isa Town.
The teams’ mandate is to ensure all prisoners are enjoying the freedom to practice their religious rituals, particularly during Ashoora.
“Our teams starting from today will be visiting the three prison facilities in the evening to observe the Ashoora rituals and ensure religious rights are not being violated, in accordance with Covid-19 precautionary measures,” NIHR chairwoman Maria Khoury told the GDN.
“This is the second year in a row our teams will be visiting the facilities to observe the religious rituals.”
Ms Khoury explained that the visits are in collaboration with the Jaffari Waqf (Endowments) Directorate and the Interior Ministry as part of planned NIHR visits that will continue until next week.
“We have received good co-operation from the Jaffari Endowments who provided us with 200 religious books that will be helpful to the prisoners.
“They will now have more religious books to save prisoners from sharing the same books, which is not advisable in times of Covid-19.”
Ms Khoury also pointed out that the NIHR teams would be following a wide range of safety measures while visiting the facilities and monitoring the prisoners.
“We are open to receiving complaints from the prisoners which will be reviewed with a view to recommending appropriate action where required,” she added.
The institution earlier proposed virtual prison inspections as part of ongoing measures to combat the spread of Covid-19.
This included NIHR commissioners to remotely inspect the facilities and speak to prisoners via video calls to discuss their alleged grievances.
Last year, the NIHR teams made more than 20 prison visits, identified issues which were communicated to the authorities, and sat through 35 court trials.
Meanwhile, Ms Khoury revealed that the next plan was to cover labour camps to monitor health and safety guidelines, as well as to ensure that the rights of expats are not violated.
“We have approved a plan to visit labour camps in Asry and Alba, and other accommodations run by a leading private company starting from September 2,” she said.
“The NIHR teams also want to revisit the government quarantine centres to review the progress made and challenges that need to be addressed.”
The watchdog was formed by His Majesty King Hamad in 2009 to work with state agencies on drafting Bahrain’s rights reports, hold conferences and workshops and promote human rights.
The watchdog registered 32 complaints from January to June this year compared with 43 complaints during the same period last year.
It also provided 304 assistance requests in the first six months of the year, compared with 154 in 2019, and further monitored 77 cases this year.
The NIHR received 854 calls on its hotline between January until June, compared with 401 calls during the same period last year.
Grievances can be registered via the hotline, 80001144, or through the NIHT mobile app available on Android and Apple stores.
sandy@gdn.com.bh
&uuid=(email))