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April 8 marks his 60th hunger striking day. On April 2, Bahrain's Court of Cassation refused to release him on health grounds. If he survives, another hearing's scheduled for April 23. It's doubtful he can hang on that long.
BCHR "call(s) on the international community and the United Nations, and all related international and regional human rights mechanisms, to stand up to their responsibility of protecting human rights and freedoms in Bahrain and ensure the immediate release of human rights defender Al Khawaja as recommended by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry and Sir Nigel Rodley.""We recommend that he be immediately released to the Danish Authorities on humanitarian grounds, as requested by the Danish Foreign Minister."
A Final Comment
Abdulhadi's daughter Maryam serves as BCHR's Head of Foreign Relations. On April 5, she wrote the following:
"My Father is Dying. This is the thought constantly running through my head.""As a human rights defender I have learned to numb my emotions and continue working. I have been working on covering human rights violations in Bahrain for more than two years now, documenting all the arbitrary arrests, systematic torture, rapes, kidnappings, extra-judicial killings; the list goes on."
"The so-called Arab spring proved, once again, that we are still living in an age where the UN Human Rights Council has little agency to act on its own accord. It, like all other agencies must bow to the powers that be."
The so-called "Arab Spring" is more winter than rebirth throughout the region, especially in Bahrain, Egypt, post-Gaddafi Libya, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf States, Yemen, and Palestine. Syria's another issue altogether.
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