(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a 10 February 1999 WiPC letter to Shaikh Issa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa, Amir of Bahrain, protesting the continued incarceration of poet and religious scholar Sheikh Al-Jamri without charge or trial: **Updates IFEX alerts of 17 February 1998, 11 October, 4 October and 19 June 1995** His Highness Shaikh Issa Bin […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The following is a 10 February 1999 WiPC letter to Shaikh
Issa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa, Amir of Bahrain, protesting the continued
incarceration of poet and religious scholar Sheikh Al-Jamri without
charge or trial:
**Updates IFEX alerts of 17 February 1998, 11 October, 4 October and 19
June 1995**
His Highness Shaikh Issa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa
Amir of Bahrain
Office of His Highness
PO Box 555, The Amiri Court
Rifa’s Palace, Bahrain
Fax no: +973 533033
10 February 1999
Your Excellency,
On behalf of International PEN, the worldwide association of writers
with a 78-year history of defending freedom of expression, we write to
reiterate our concern for Sheikh Al- Jamri, a poet and religious scholar
currently detained in your country.
Aged 62, Al-Jamri has now spent more than three years in prison without
charge or trial; we wrote recently to remind you that, according to the
law of Bahrain, his continuing detention was illegal. We now hear
reports that a trial is being prepared against him in a state security
court. There are grave concerns that these proceedings may fall short of
international standards for due process. There are reports that the
trial is to be held in
camera and that Al-Jamri’s defence is to be conducted by a counsel not
of his own choosing. We would urge instead that the trial – if it is to
take place at all – should be open to the public and that Al-Jamri be
accorded the right to select his own defence lawyer. We also request,
along with many other human rights organisations, that international
observers be permitted to attend the proceedings and that full details
of the precise charges against him be made known.
However, we also wish to stress that, in our opinion, the only truly
fair resolution to this case is Sheikh Al-Jamri’s immediate and
unconditional release. To our best knowledge, he is guilty of nothing
other than his advocacy of political change in Bahrain and his ardent
call for the country’s National Assembly to be reinstated. As such, we
fail to understand the reasoning behind his three-year-long detention
and believe his continuing stay behind bars to be in violation of his
fundamental human right to freedom of expression and of opinion.
Yours sincerely,
Homero Aridjis
President
Similar appeals can be sent to:
Appeals To
His Highness Shaikh Issa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa
Amir of Bahrain
Office of His Highness
PO Box 555, The Amiri Court
Rifa’s Palace, Bahrain
Fax: +973 533033
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
