Bahrain: Leading Human Rights Activist Fined For Protesting Against Prison Conditions

by Tauqeer Abbas
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A Bahrain court has upheld two charges against one of the most prominent human rights defenders who is already serving a life sentence, his family and rights groups have reported.

Abdul-Hadi al-Khawaja, a Danish-Bahraini national who was imprisoned in 2011 after leading peaceful protests, was convicted on Monday of insulting a prison guard and breaking a plastic chair and fined the equivalent of £353.

Khawaja’s family say he was denied his right to legal representation in the cases that are linked to protests the 61-year-old had made after he was repeatedly denied his right to call his daughters from Jau Prison.

“The court has breached its own order where our father, to this date, has been denied the right to grant his lawyer power of attorney,” Maryam al-Khawaja, one of his four daughters, said.

Without a lawyer, she said, her father has been denied “his right to challenge the bogus charges levelled against him, including the most basic right of having access to information on what the charges contain”.

Source: middleeasteye , Shafaqna English

www.shafaqna.com

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