Bahrain: Human Rights Defenders ar risk.

Prior to a meeting in the United Kingdom's House of Lords in London to discuss the human rights situation in Bahrain, Front Line is issuing a statement sumarising our concerns re the situation of human rights defenders.

Front Line is concerned about the ongoing persecution of human rights defenders in Bahrain. Despite provisions for basic rights in Bahraini law and its adherence to a number of internationalhuman rights treaties, in practice these rights are substantially limited. Human rights defenders inBahrain continue to face high levels of insecurity and are victim to various forms of repression,such as arbitrary arrest, judicial proceedings based on false or unfounded charges of “encouraginghatred of the state and distributing falsehoods and rumours”, threats, physical assaults, illtreatment, torture and numerous other acts of harassment by the authorities and government security forces.