ADHRB’s documentation corroborates these trends, as

we have recorded repeated cases of Jordanian, Yemeni,

Pakistani, and Syrian personnel perpetrating abuses during
MOI operations or within MOI facilities, particularly at
the GDRR’s Dry Dock Detention Center and Jau Prison.

ii. Hate Speech, Profiling, and Violations of

Religious Rights
There is also evidence that Bahrain’s security forces directly
propagate extremist materials and hate speech, and some
personnel have left the services to join extremist groups.
The military has disseminated religious pamphlets that call
for violence and discrimination against Shia Muslims, and
ADHRB has documented nearly 300 cases in which MOI
personnel used similar sectarian hate speech or otherwise
engaged in religious discrimination in the course of their
operations, particularly during arbitrary arrests and torture.
These abuses include systematic prevention of prayer during Policemen in Bahrain circa 1950
detention at the CID and GDRR; forced verbal repudiation
of religious beliefs under torture at the CID; and arbitrary targeted for abuse. After the government’s initial attacks
prohibition or confiscation of religious materials within on the protest movement in 2011, the authorities erected
GDRR facilities. Inmates generally report that guards treat dozens of roadblocks around majority Shia areas and
Shia detainees worse than their Sunni counterparts, and police began questioning persons with Shia names,
that all Shia religious texts are banned within the prison arresting anyone with signs of injury.255 Police often
system. In December 2016, ADHRB received reports that conduct seemingly random raids in Shia areas, dispersing
detainees at Jau Prison had announced a hunger strike after gatherings or detaining individuals from homes without
guards assaulted inmates for participating in a mass prayer. any warrant or reason provided. During repeated raids on
The reports indicated that the guards had specifically one family’s home throughout 2012-2016, MOI personnel
beaten Sheikh Mohammed al-Mansi for leading prayers. also arbitrarily cut electricity to the house, saying “the
At the Isa Town Women’s Prison, guards have punished reason we cut off your electricity was because you are
women for celebrating religious occasions and have not paying your electricity bills, because I know that you
reportedly harassed and separated Sunni and Shia inmates Shiites do not pay your electricity bills” (see Section 3.A for
that attempt to pray together. Human rights defender more on arbitrary arrests and home raids).
Zainab al-Khawaja observed naturalized security forces
MOI personnel have also directly targeted Shia religious
subject Shia women to hate speech during her arbitrary
traditions and symbols for attack, infringing on the
incarceration at Isa Town; in one case, a guard described
community’s rights to free belief, assembly, and association.
a Bahraini Shia prisoner as one of the “disgusting terrorist
In the immediate aftermath of the 2011 protests, security
Iranian people.”253 That prisoner, Rabab Mohammed, had
forces damaged or destroyed at least 53 Shia mosques
been arrested after she spoke back to a squad of SSFC riot
and religious institutions.256 Of these, at least 28 were
police that called her a “dirty Shia whore.”254
entirely demolished, and the government has still failed to
While the MOI employs arbitrary detention, torture, and fully rectify the situation more than seven years on. MOI
other unlawful repressive measures against all perceived personnel routinely disturb Shia religious ceremonies
dissidents, regardless of religious affiliation, Bahraini Shia during the Islamic calendar month of Muharram, despite
are subject to profiling and remain disproportionately formally taking responsibility for the security of these

253 Locked Inside a Nightmare: Voices from Bahraini Prisons, BCHR and BYSHR, 9 June 2014, http://www.bahrainrights.org/sites/default/files/Prison%20Report%20-%20
FINAL%20II.pdf
254 Ibid.
255 Richard Sollom, “Do No Harm: A Call for Bahrain to End Systematic Attacks on Doctors and Patients,” Physicians for Human Rights, 2011, http://
physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/bahrain-attacks-on-doctors-2011-04-22.html
256 Submission for Bahrain’s List of Issues Prior to Reporting (LOIPR) under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ADHRB, July 2017, http://
www.adhrb.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ADHRB-CERD-LOIPR_July-2017.pdf

ANATOMY OF A POLICE STATE Systematic Repression, Brutality, and Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior 69