Sayed Yusuf Almuhafdha is a Bahraini human rights activist and blogger, living in exile in Germany.
Amid a global recovery from both a devastating pandemic and Donald Trump's equally disastrous tenure in the White House, which reshaped much of the political landscape in the Middle East, the small Gulf island of Bahrain has barely made news headlines for years. Perhaps the lasting image for many in Washington was when Bahrain's foreign minister joined his Emirati counterpart and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the South Lawn of the White House in September 2020 for the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords, brokered by Trump in his last months in office.
But normalization with Israel overshadowed the Bahraini government's brutal repression at home and Bahrainis' ongoing struggle for rights and freedom that has not ended, even if much of the world has stopped paying attention.
Bahrain, which is home to both the U.S. Navy's critical Fifth Fleet and the U.K.'s Naval Support Facility, was one of the central stories of the Arab Spring in 2011, when it was rocked by widespread protests demanding democratic reforms and the government's subsequently bloody crackdown. Unlike most of the uprisings in the region at the time, Bahrain's remained principally peaceful. Yet in the 13 years since then, as Bahraini authorities have restricted foreign media access and upheavals from Syria to Gaza have consumed the region, news from Bahrain has been at best sporadic and scattered.
The lack of attention on Bahrain's internal political situation has given the misleading impression that dissent had been quelled. But as outlined in a new report on human rights in Bahrain from 2019 to 2024, authored by myself and published by HuMENA For Human Rights and Civic Engagement, an NGO based in Brussels, repression in the country, in fact, has become more methodical and systematic behind a façade of reform. The state has used legal mechanisms in new and nefarious ways to suppress Bahrainis and claim it is just enforcing the law.
While claiming to have adopted reforms, Bahrain has reverted back to an authoritarian police state.
- Sayed Yusuf Almuhafdha
The report found overall that the authorities continue to pursue a national project that aims to rid Bahrain of any human rights activism, opposition or public participation in politics and government policies. While claiming to have adopted reforms, Bahrain has reverted back to an authoritarian police state. The government's earlier promises of political change and "dialogue" in 2011 turned out to be a mirage, concealing the harsh reality that continues to define life for Bahrainis.
Based on the report's findings, repression in Bahrain has remained nearly the same throughout the kingdom's history since its independence from Britain in 1971. All that changed for the former British protectorate were the preferred methods of oppression. Suppression under the law remains, but now the authorities have added subtler techniques to the extra-legal brutality experienced by Bahrainis throughout the 20th century, under both British colonialism and the Hamad dynasty.
Bahrain's legal and constitutional framework, though ostensibly aligned with international human rights standards, nevertheless acts as a tool of repression. The contradictions between local laws and international covenants to which Bahrain is a signatory are stark and yet ignored by those in power. As a result, Bahrain's legal system has been weaponized against the citizens it is meant to protect. Moreover, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly—rights enshrined in both local and international law—are routinely violated. This is not simply a matter of legal oversight, but rather a deliberate strategy of control.
Between 2011 and 2020, at least 51 individuals held as political prisoners were sentenced to death in Bahrain. Currently, 12 of them are at risk of being executed at any time. Torture and abuse are rampant within Bahraini prisons, with detainees subjected to horrific conditions in both known locations and undisclosed "black sites." The testimonies of former detainees, including human rights defenders, activists and dissidents, are chilling. They report being arrested arbitrarily, often subjected to enforced disappearance, and silenced through fear of violent reprisal. Their accounts make clear that these are not the actions of a government committed to reform but of one bent on maintaining its grip on power at any cost.
The data speaks for itself: Between 2019 and 2024, there were approximately 1,267 incidents of arbitrary imprisonment, with a notable spike in 2023. Over the past five years, the authorities in Bahrain issued an unprecedented 480 arbitrary summonses to activists, protesters and others, likely intended to intimidate and smother any potential dissent. The regime's current strategy is to avoid arresting protesters outright to avoid unfavorable coverage from Western media. It has instead summoned protesters and subjected them to threats and psychological torture.
Bahrain's path to genuine reform lies in ending repression and actually aligning its laws and actions with international human rights standards.
- Sayed Yusuf Almuhafdha
The government has largely succeeded in reducing both the number of protesters on the streets and the level of criticism and dissent online without much pressure from international human rights groups, because dissidents are typically released from these summonses after a few hours. While there have been some gradual human rights reforms, they are limited and incomplete. For example, King Hamad has released thousands of prisoners over the past several years—a welcome step, and to the great relief of their families, many of whom waited a decade for their release. The announcement this week that the king had pardoned 450 inmates, including at least 100 political prisoners, is more welcome news, although the names of all of those released have not yet been made public. And hundreds of Bahrainis—among them prominent activists and opposition leaders like Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a dual Danish national; 76-year-old Hassan Mushaima; and Sheikh Ali Salman, secretary general of the opposition group al-Wefaq—still remain in jail on political grounds, often for non-violent crimes.
The Bahraini government has implemented so-called open prison programs and alternative punishments, to allow prisoners to serve their sentences outside of a prison cell. Although they are another positive step toward releasing prisoners from draconian detention, these same programs place legal restrictions on prisoners to prevent those who are released from returning to politics or activism ever again, thus ensuring the silence of the political opposition.
The Bahraini government has also ignored any attempt at transitional justice and failed to hold accountable those responsible for violating the rights of detainees, including through torture. Anyone following the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs' National Human Rights Plan will see that it focuses on economic rights and steps to protect the environment—which are important, no doubt, but should not mean come at the expense of civil and political rights. It is those rights that have driven Bahrainis to take part in demonstrations and popular uprisings going as far back as the 1920s.
If the government really has a plan for human rights, it must contain the security and intelligence agencies, which now interfere with almost every other organ of state. The electoral process, travel, religious visits, employment and government appointments are all subject to the whims of the powerful security sector. State security also regularly interferes in health care, education and the media. The effect on Bahrain's once-active civil society is staggering. Most independent human rights institutions and political societies have been dissolved, making human rights and political engagement impossible. The political and civil isolation laws—passed in 2018 to bar former political opposition party members from running for parliament, as well as serving on the boards of civil society organizations—has stripped the opposition of any remaining space for political activity.
This repression extends outside Bahrain's borders. The Ministry of Interior has distributed its security lists to other countries, resulting in several Bahraini activists being barred from visiting Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. With many Bahraini activists, journalists and scholars still barred from leaving Bahrain, the government has tried to ensure that its narrative about reform and "progress" is the only one anyone hears, whether in Bahrain, the wider region or beyond.
Bahrain's path to genuine reform lies in ending these repressive practices and actually aligning its laws and actions with international human rights standards. Until then, the façade of reform will continue to crumble, revealing the rot beneath—a nation where the rights and freedoms of its people are systematically denied. It is time for the rest of the world to recognize the true, grim state of human rights in Bahrain. British and American government training and capacity-building programs provided to some Bahraini judges or institutions will not change the behavior of the government unless there is constitutional reform, citizen participation, effective mechanisms and space for civil society. Only through sustained international pressure can we hope to see meaningful change in Bahrain.
