Bahrain censured for denying entry to Danish MP, Irish rights activist

The ICSRF said Lars Aslan Rasmussen, an MP at the Danish parliament, and the Irish human rights campaigner, Brian Dooley, intended to visit the prominent Bahraini human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is also a Danish citizen and is serving a life sentence in relation to his influential role in the 2011 protests against the Al Khalifah regime.
 
The center, a member of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, said Bahraini authorities denied entry to Rasmussen and Dooley and deported them on Wednesday over allegations that they posed a security threat.
 
According to the Manama Post, the ICSRF expressed concerns over the issue, noting that it was not the first time Bahraini authorities banned rights activists from entering the Persian Gulf kingdom.
 
“Preventing members of parliament, human rights groups and journalists from entering the country shows how much the regime has to hide,” Dooley, who works as an advisor for the [Persian] Gulf Center for Human Rights, said in a statement.
 
Anti-regime protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the kingdom on February 14, 2011. They are demanding that the Al Khalifah dynasty relinquish power and a just system representing all Bahrainis be established.
 
On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to Bahrain to assist the Manama government in its crackdown on peaceful protesters.
 
Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or been arrested as a result of Bahrain’s crackdown.