Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei | |
---|---|
![]() Alwadaei in 2023 | |
Born | |
Occupation | Human rights activist |
Years active | 2011 - present |
Known for | Director of Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy |
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei is director of advocacy at the UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD). [1] Alwadaei fled Bahrain and the regime of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in approximately 2012, establishing refugee status in the UK. In 2015, the Bahrain government stripped him of his nationality rendering him and his UK-born daughter stateless. [2]
Alwadaei was involved in the 2011 Arab Spring in Bahrain. [3] As a result he was jailed and tortured. Alwadaei bears a prominent scar on his forehead, which he told a British Parliamentary Committee is from "the boot of a police officer, who was kicking me while I was on the ground". [4]
Alwadaei's Bahraini citizenship was arbitrarily stripped in 2015, leaving him and his UK-born daughter stateless. [5] In 2016 Alwadaei's wife and infant son were detained in Bahrain as a result of his activism in the UK. [6] [7] [8]
In 2017 Alwadaei was outside of the Bahraini embassy when someone from within the embassy threw boiling water on the protest he was involved in. [9]
In 2017, a Bahraini court sentenced three of Alwadaei's relatives to three years in prison on terrorism charges. [10] [11] The UN called for all three to be released from detention and suggested evidence showed they had been victims of torture and false confessions. [12] Also in 2017, Alwadaei's daughter was born in the UK, but was unable to claim a Bahraini or British passport, with Alwadaei writing for The Guardian that, "She has never owned a passport and cannot leave the country. Her only official form of identification remains her birth certificate." [5]
In 2018, a Bahraini court sentenced his wife to two months in jail in absentia. [13] [14]
In 2023, Alwadaei was arbitrarily detained at Gatwick airport. The home secretary, James Cleverly, has apologised and arranged for compensation to be paid after accepting that this was unlawful. [15] [16] [17]
Alwadaei's British citizenship has been severely delayed by the Home Office, which was condemned by The European Network on Statelessness. [18] The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was revealed to have asked the Home Office to block Alwadaei's application for UK citizenship due to concerns it would affect bilateral relations with Bahrain. [19] In 2024 Alwadaei was finally granted UK citizenship after threatening legal action. [20]
In 2016 Alwadaei jumped in front of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa's car [8] to draw attention to the human rights situation in Bahrain. [21]
Alwadaei has campaigned about Formula One ignoring human rights concerns in Bahrain. [22] [23]
Alwadaei has worked with Campaign Against Arms Trade, notably speaking at the 2015 launch of a campaign, [24] protesting with them at Bahrain's London embassy in 2017 [25] and campaiging against the sale of weapons to Bahrain. [26]
In 2022 Alwadaei gave evidence to the International Trade Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. [4]
Alwadaei has written numerous opinion pieces highlighting human rights concerns for The Guardian. [27]
In December 2022, Alwadaei was filmed protesting against British Member of Parliament Bob Stewart as the Conservative Party MP made his way to a reception hosted by the Bahraini embassy in London. Alwadaei challenged Stewart about a previous visit to Bahrain made by the MP and allegedly paid for by the Bahraini government, asking him: "Did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?" Stewart responded that Bahrain was "a great place", adding "Go back to Bahrain" and "You're taking money off my country, go away." Stewart later apologised for his remarks, but said he was "taunted" and had not taken money from Bahrain. Alwadaei submitted a letter of complaint to the Conservative Party, alleging that Stewart had brought the party into disrepute and victimised him because of his race or nationality. [28] Following a Metropolitan Police investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service authorised the police to charge Stewart with two offences under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, including racially aggravated abuse "and in the alternative, a non-aggravated section 5 offence under the same Act." [29] He retained the Conservative whip following the charges. [30]
On 3 November 2023, Stewart was found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence, fined £600, and ordered to pay costs. [31] He announced his intention to appeal against the conviction. [32]
Stewart's conviction was overturned in Southwark Crown Court on 23 February 2024. [33]
In 2020, Alwadaei was awarded Index on Censorship's 2020 Freedom of Expression Campaigning Award. [34] Alwadaei has been recognised as a human rights defender by Front Line Defenders. [35] Alwadaei has been profiled by human rights organisations such as Redress (charitable organisation) [3] and the International Service for Human Rights. [36]
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th century, coinciding with the rise of authoritarian governments in countries such as Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Francoist Spain, the Soviet Union, Ukraine, Hoxhaist Albania, Turkey, Iran, China, and Turkmenistan. In the Western world, there are historical examples of people who have been considered and have considered themselves dissidents, such as the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In totalitarian countries, dissidents are often incarcerated or executed without explicit political accusations, or due to infringements of the very same laws they are opposing, or because they are supporting civil liberties such as freedom of speech.
The Bahrain Grand Prix, officially known as the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix for sponsorship reasons, is a Formula One motor racing event in Bahrain. The first race took place at the Bahrain International Circuit on 4 April 2004. It made history as the first Formula One Grand Prix to be held in the Middle East, and was given the award for the "Best Organised Grand Prix" by the FIA. The race has in the past been the second, third, or fourth race of the Formula One calendar. However, in the 2006 season, Bahrain swapped places with the traditional season opener, the Australian Grand Prix, which was pushed back to avoid a clash with the Commonwealth Games. Bahrain staged the opening race of the 2010 season and the cars drove the full 6.299 km (3.914 mi) "Endurance Circuit" to celebrate F1's 'diamond jubilee'. In 2021, the Bahrain Grand Prix was the season opener again because the 2021 Australian Grand Prix was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Al Bander report refers to a political conspiracy by government officials in Bahrain to foment sectarian strife and marginalize the majority Shia community in the country. The conspiracy was led and financed by Ahmed bin Ateyatalla Al Khalifa, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and head of the Civil Informatics Organization and member of the Al Khalifa royal family. The allegations were revealed in September 2006, in a 240-page document produced by the Gulf Centre for Democratic Development, and authored by Salah Al Bandar, an adviser to the Cabinet Affairs Ministry. Following the distribution of the report, Bahraini police deported Al Bandar to the United Kingdom, where he holds citizenship.
Bahrain's record on human rights has been described by Human Rights Watch as "dismal", and having "deteriorated sharply in the latter half of 2010". Their subsequent report in 2020 noted that the human rights situation in the country had not improved.
Colonel Robert Alexander Stewart is a British politician and former soldier. He was the member of Parliament (MP) for Beckenham from 2010 to 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, he also is a former British Army officer and United Nations commander in Bosnia, commentator, author and public speaker.
The 2011Bahraini uprising was a series of anti-government protests in Bahrain led by the Shia-dominant and some Sunni minority Bahraini opposition from 2011 until 2014. The protests were inspired by the unrest of the 2011 Arab Spring and protests in Tunisia and Egypt and escalated to daily clashes after the Bahraini government repressed the revolt with the support of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Peninsula Shield Force. The Bahraini protests were a series of demonstrations, amounting to a sustained campaign of non-violent civil disobedience and some violent resistance in the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain. As part of the revolutionary wave of protests in the Middle East and North Africa following the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, the Bahraini protests were initially aimed at achieving greater political freedom and equality for the 70% Shia population.
The Kuwaiti protests refers to the series of 2011–2012 demonstrations for government reforms in the state of Kuwait. In November 2011, the government of Kuwait resigned in response to the protests, making Kuwait one of several countries affected by the Arab Spring to experience major governmental changes due to unrest. The protests began with stateless people (Bedoon).
Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Ahmed Qassim is Bahrain's leading Shia cleric and a politician. He is the spiritual leader of Al Wefaq, Bahrain's biggest opposition society. He is the founder and leader of the Islamic Enlightenment Institution.
Zainab Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is a Bahraini human rights activist, and a participant in the Bahraini uprising. She rose to prominence after posting tweets online about the protests under the name AngryArabiya as well as for protesting her father Abdulhadi al-Khawaja's detention during his hunger strike.
As of 15 March 2013, the Bahraini uprising of 2011 and its aftermath resulted in 122 deaths. The number of injuries is hard to determine due to government clamp-down on hospitals and medical personnel. The last accurate estimate for injuries is back to 16 March 2011 and sits at about 2708. The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry concluded that many detainees were subjected to torture and other forms of physical and psychological abuse while in custody, five of whom returned dead bodies. The BICI report finds the government responsible for 20 deaths. Opposition activists say that the current number is 88 including 43 who allegedly died as a result of excessive use of tear gas.
The following is a timeline of events that followed the Bahraini uprising of 2011 from April to June 2011. This phase included continued crackdown, lifting of the state of emergency and return of large protests.
The following is an incomplete timeline of events that followed the Bahraini uprising of 2011 from July to December 2011. This phase saw many popular protests, escalation in violence and the establishment of an independent government commission to look into the previous events.
The Bahrain Thirteen are thirteen Bahraini opposition leaders, rights activists, bloggers and Shia clerics arrested between 17 March and 9 April 2011 in connection with their role in the national uprising. In June 2011, they were tried by a special military court, the National Safety Court, and convicted of "setting up terror groups to topple the royal regime and change the constitution"; they received sentences ranging from two years to life in prison. A military appeal court upheld the sentences in September. The trial was "one of the most prominent" before the National Safety Court. A retrial in a civilian court was held in April 2012 but the accused were not released from prison. The sentences were upheld again on 4 September 2012. On 7 January 2013, the defendants lost their last chance of appeal when the Court of Cassation, Bahrain's top court upheld the sentences.
Ahmed Ismael Hassan al-Samadi, also known as Ahmed Ismail Hassan and incorrectly identified as Ahmed Ismail Abdulsamad, was a Bahraini citizen journalist and videographer who died after covering anti-government protests of the Formula One Grand Prix in Salmabad, Bahrain, where he was shot in the thigh and later died from the gunshot wound.
Bahrain Watch is a "research and advocacy organisation" devoted to issues related to Bahrain. The group was founded in 2011 by several people, including journalist Ala'a Shehabi.
The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) is a non-profit human rights organisation based in London which promotes democratisation and human rights in Bahrain. It was founded by Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Alaa Shehabi and Hussain Abdullah in 2013, and is funded by the Sigrid Rausing Trust for the years 2016-2019. The National Endowment for Democracy approved a grant for the year 2015.
General elections were held in Bahrain in November and December 2018 to elect the 40 members of the Council of Representatives. The first round of voting was on Saturday, 24 November, with a second round in 31 constituencies on Saturday, 1 December. A municipal poll coincided with the parliamentary vote.
Shamima Begum is a British-born woman who entered Syria to join the Islamic State at the age of 15. As of 2024, she is living in al-Roj detention camp in Syria.
The Stansted 15 are a group of non-violent human rights activists who took action to stop a deportation flight leaving from Stansted Airport, UK on 28 March 2017. The plane, a Titan Airways Boeing 767 was chartered by the UK Home Office to deport 60 migrants to Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi is a high ranking police officer in the United Arab Emirates. He currently serves as the 30th president of Interpol and the Major general of the United Arab Emirates' interior ministry.
{{cite news}}
: |last2=
has generic name (help)