Human Rights Watch: Bahrain Courts Try to Silence Women's Rights Activist

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Press release from Human Rights Watch
Dateline New York, Thursday June 2

Bahrain: Courts Try to Silence Women's Rights Activist
Ghada Jamsheer Should Not Be Punished for Denouncing Abuses Against Women

The Bahraini government should drop charges against a leading women's rights activist who goes on trial Saturday for publicly criticizing family court judges, Human Rights Watch said today. If convicted, Ghada Jamsheer faces up to 15 years in prison.

A prominent advocate for women's rights in Bahrain, Ghada Jamsheer heads the Women's Petition Committee, a network of activists demanding the codification of the kingdom's family laws and the reform of its family courts. In April 2003, the organization collected 1,700 signatures on a petition demanding legislative and judicial reform of these courts. For the past four years, Ghada Jamsheer has organized protests, vigils and a hunger strike in an effort to draw attention to the suffering of women in the existing family court system.

She faces three trials for publicly criticizing family court judges; the first is scheduled to begin in the capital Manama on June 4. She was indicted earlier this year before the High Criminal Court for three incidents of alleged "slander." She is accused of slander on the basis of calling family court judges in Bahrain "corrupt, biased, and unqualified" and calling a specific judge "rude and unfair." She is also being criminally charged by the ex-husband of a divorced woman whose case was adopted by the Women's Petition Committee. Her charges are based in part on provisions of the Penal Code of 1976 which have been largely condemned for giving the government wide latitude to suppress public criticism.

"Ghada Jamsheer is being punished for exposing the injustice that women face in the courtroom," said LaShawn R. Jefferson, Women's Rights director at Human Rights Watch. "These lawsuits are a blatant attempt to silence her and undermine the reform efforts she spearheads."

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