Arrest of Ali Hasan

Ali Hasan Alqudaihi is an 11-year-old Bahraini boy who was arrested for allegedly participating in an "illegal" protest during his country's national uprising. Alqudaihi was arrested on 14 May 2012 and released without bail during a trial about one month later. On 5 July the court handed down a verdict allowing him to stay home while a social worker monitored him for a year. However, charges were not dropped.

Alqudaihi is one of the youngest detainees in Bahrain since the uprising began in February 2011.

Biography

Alquidaihi has three sisters and a brother. Protests continued for a month reaching over 100,000 participants in a nation of about 500,000 citizens, until more than a thousand troops and police from the Gulf Cooperation Council arrived at the request of government and a three-month state of emergency was declared. Authorities then launched a "brutal" crackdown on protesters, including doctors and bloggers. They carried out midnight house raids in Shia neighbourhoods, beatings at checkpoints, and denial of medical care in a "campaign of intimidation". However, smaller-scale protests and clashes have continued to occur almost daily, mostly in areas outside Manama's business districts, with some rare marches in the center of the capital city. More than 80 people had died since the start of the uprising.

In 2011, BCHR said it had documented 188 cases of child arrests which they described as "unlawful and many cases fall under kidnapping or abduction". According to the rights group almost all of them reported mistreatment while in detention and some were transported to hospitals after being detained and had torture marks. The government, however denies such reports. In a statement it said the average number of children held in juvenile detention in the first half of 2012 is about fifteen and that most of them are released within weeks.

Arrest

BCHR said Alqudaihi was arrested on 13 May by plainclothes policemen near his house in Bilad Al Qadeem, a neighbourhood of Manama. However, Noura Al-Khalifa the chief prosecutor for juveniles said the arrest happened on 14 May when Alqudaihi was "blocking a street outside Manama with garbage containers and wood planks". He added, on the next day he was "playing in the street" with two of his friends at his age when policemen arrested him. According to him, his friends were able to make it away, but he stopped when a policeman threatened to shoot him with a shotgun. However, the government said he only spent six hours in police custody and spent the rest of the month in a juveniles detention center. While in custody, Alqudaihi was allowed to attend his final school exams.

Trial

Alqudaihi's first trial was in a juvenile criminal court on 4 June 2012 and the second on 11 June. He was charged with "joining an illegal gathering" with nearly a dozen of people

According to chief prosecutor, Alqudaihi pleaded guilty of the charges saying it was on his third attempt to block the street when he was arrested. She further claimed that Alqudaihi said he along with his friends were given three Bahraini Dinars (about $8) by "a man accused of stirring trouble".

Reactions

A number of rights groups called for Alqudaihi's immediate release. Among them is the Ireland-based Bahrain Rehabilitation and Anti-Violence Organization which issued a statement regarding the "growing number of children detained for investigation in security cases". BCHR expressed its concern for targeting children under fifteen. Human Rights Watch expressed concern that Alqudaihi "was not accompanied by a lawyer during his questioning", adding, "It seems the only evidence used against him is his own confession and the testimony of a police officer". Amnesty International stated, "Arresting an 11-year-old boy, interrogating him for hours without a lawyer before trying him on spurious charges shows a jaw-dropping lack of respect for his rights". The organization criticized the proceedings as "completely out of step with international standards, or even Bahrain's own penal code". The spokeswoman further added that "his case shows the excessive means the Bahraini authorities have resorted to in order to crush protest. I hope they will see sense and drop all the charges against Ali Hassan".

The Bahraini newspaper Al Wasat wrote that Alqudaihi's case drew "great sympathy" on Facebook and Twitter, and that a number of "former MPs, political society members, human rights activist and citizens" demanded his immediate release. The BBC Arabic reported that his case "received considerable attention by the international media", citing an article in The Independent as an example.