MANAMA, 4 October 2004 — A 13-member group, which had applied for permission to form a human rights society nearly two months ago, appealed on Friday to the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Dr. Majeed Al-Alawi, to recognize and approve their organization.
The proposal to set up the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society was put forward by its members — eight women and five men — on July 17. The move is led by Shoura Council member Faisal Foulad who has been campaigning to set up a human rights committee under the umbrella of the National Assembly.
At a press conference in Juffair, Foulad said the society was meant to complement the efforts of other societies in the field and to spread awareness about human rights through media, not replace any of the human rights societies currently active.
He said the society was distinguished by its religious diversity which includes a Christian and a Jew among its founding members.
Foulad also called for respect for the rule of law, adding that the Bahrain Center for Human Rights’ former executive director Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, who had been arrested on Sept. 25, should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Human rights activists welcomed the idea of the society but criticized the fact that a Shoura Council member was trying to set up one. “The effort is commendable but Foulad is a member of the Shoura Council and therefore does not need a society to lobby the government,” one human rights activist said.
“He had proposed setting up a national committee for human rights through the National Assembly and those proposals should have been followed up.”
The society’s spokeswoman, Ahdeya Ahmed, said it would be an independent and non-governmental body. “Since the human asset is the main asset of this nation, protecting human rights will provide us the security and stability we need to move forward,” she said.
She denied it was a government society. “We have been asked a number of times whether we are pro- or anti-government and our answer has been that we are all Bahrainis,” she said.
“We are for human rights and this is a society with the main mission of protecting and fostering human rights.”
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs ordered the dissolution of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights for violating the 1989 Societies Law that the center was licensed under, froze its assets, and threatened the center’s president Nabeel Rajab with legal action for his continued efforts to communicate with international organizations to secure the release of Al-Khawaja who was arrested on charges of instigating hatred against the government and insulting a key government official during a seminar on poverty and economic rights in Bahrain.
