Amnesty International has denounced a decision to uphold prison sentences against two former leaders of the Bahrain Teachers’ Association.
On Sunday, Mahdi ‘Issa Mahdi Abu Dheeb was sentenced to five years in prison while Jalila al-Salman, who was not present in the courtroom, was handed a six-month sentence when an appeal court upheld guilty verdicts against them.
While the ruling reduced their sentences from ten years and three years respectively, family members immediately expressed their dismay, calling the ruling a “nightmare”.
Their lawyers have said they will appeal the decision before Bahrain’s Court of Cassation.
Philip Luther, Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa director, said: “All these teachers did was to call for a strike in their role as trade union leaders – this is merely exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association and is certainly not a crime.
“With this guilty verdict, Bahrain’s justice system has added to a growing list of outrageous injustices.
“Mahdi ‘Issa Mahdi Abu Dheeb is a prisoner of conscience who must be released immediately and unconditionally, and Jalila al-Salman must not be put behind bars – these convictions must be quashed as a matter of urgency.”
Following his arrest after calling for a teachers’ strike in early 2011, Abu Dheeb has already spent some 18 months in prison, while al-Salman spent five-and-a-half months in prison before being released on bail.
Amnesty said in a statement that it considers Abu Dheeb to be a prisoner of conscience and will grant the same status to al-Salman if she is returned to jail.
Abu Dheeb and al-Salman were initially sentenced before a military court last year for using their positions as vice-president and president of the Bahrain Teachers’ Association to call for a strike by teachers, halting the educational process, and attempting to overthrow the ruling system by force.
Follow us on
