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UN to Bahrain: Stop Using Excessive Force Against Protesters
Stop Using Excessive Force Against Protesters, UN Rights
Chief Tells Bahrain
New York, Feb 16 2011
9:10AM
The United Nations human rights chief has voiced
alarm at the excessive
use of force by authorities in
Bahrain, including the killing of two
peaceful
protesters, and urged respect for the right to
demonstrate.
Ali Abdulhadi al-Mushaima, 27, was shot on
Monday and Fadhel Salman
Matrook, 32, was killed on
Tuesday by members of Bahrain’s security
forces,
according to a
<"http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Media.aspx?IsMediaPage=true">news
release
issued yesterday by the Office of the High Commissioner
for
Human Rights (OHCHR).
“I urge the authorities to
immediately cease the use of disproportionate
force
against peaceful protestors and to release all
peaceful
demonstrators who have been arrested,” said
High Commissioner Navi Pillay.
“Too many peaceful
protestors have recently been killed across the
Middle
East and North Africa,” she added.
“Authorities
everywhere must scrupulously avoid excessive use of
force,
which is strictly forbidden in international law.
They must conduct
prompt, impartial and transparent
investigations where there have been
breaches of this
obligation.”
Protests calling for democratic change have
erupted in recent days in
Bahrain, Yemen and Libya
following popular uprisings in Tunisia and
Egypt that led
to the ouster of long-time rulers there.
Ms. Pillay
stressed that lasting social stability could only be built
on
the foundations of the freedoms of expression and of
peaceful assembly,
adding that Bahrain, as a State party
to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political
Rights, must fully respect its human rights
obligations.
OHCHR had been working on establishing a
dialogue with the authorities
since the political
crackdown that began in the country in August 2010.
“I have been urging the authorities to curb the excesses of the security apparatus and to undertake serious investigations into allegations of torture and abuse of detention rights of hundreds of political and human rights activists,” said the High Commissioner.
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