Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society

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The Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society (BHRWS) is a Bahraini human rights organization established in November 2004 which has been at the forefront of efforts to protect housemaids, fight for women’s rights and confront Islamist campaigns to restrict personal freedoms. (It is not to be confused with Human Rights Watch, which is a separate organization with different goals).

In September 2006, the BHRWS was implicated in the Bandargate scandal, and its founder, Faisal Fulad was accused of receiving BD500 per month from the head of the scandal, Ahmed bin Ateyatalla Al Khalifa [1].

Its president is Huda Azra Nono, making the Society unique in the Arab world in being the only human rights group headed by a Jewish woman. Ms Nono is a business woman and cousin of Ebrahim Nono, who sits on Bahrain’s Shura Council. Another prominent member is former trade unionist and National Democratic Action activist, Faisal Fulad, who also sits on the Shura Council.

The Society has sought to support women’s rights activists’ campaign for the introduction of a personal status law to protect women in divorce and child custody. In association with the National Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women, the BHRWS launched the Respect Movement, a petition in support of the Personal Status Law[2]. The second part of the Respect Movement’s agenda is a petition for laws to protect housemaids, who are not currently protected by Bahrain’s labour laws.

Both campaigns have put the BHRWS in direct opposition to Bahrain’s clerics, who oppose the introduction of the Personal Status Law because a codified law would undermine the discretion of religious judges to determine family cases. Clerics are also unhappy that legislation to protect housemaids will make them too expensive for poorer families – and therefore a direct attack on some of their most loyal supporters.

The BHRWS’s defence of leftist writer, Sameera Rajab, also brought the Centre into conflict with Islamists: in 2004 the Akhbar Al Khaleej columnist received death threats from Shia Islamists after she described Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as an ‘American general’ for his tacit support of the US invasion [3]. BHRWS took a lead in the arguments that ensued with Al Wefaq over the right of journalists to criticise clerics.

The Society has also clashed with salafists, specifically after the group organised a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Al Dana boat tragedy and Asalah MP Adel Mouwda criticised the laying of a wreath as against religious values. The Society's Faisal Fulad responded "We did not do anything that was against religion especially that Islam is a religion of tolerance and compassion. The public tribute is not an unhealthy innovation as some people have said, but a compassionate attitude that helps people appreciate how tolerant and inclusive Islam is, particularly that our religion is being relentlessly savaged by anti-Muslims in several countries."[4]

Mr Falud’s position on the Shura Council and the BHRWS’s and the group's failure to take a credible stance on local issues such as unemployment, arbitrary detention, excessive use of force by security personnel at demonstrations and the targeting of political and rights' activists have led to allegation that it is too closely tied to the government and its own personal interests to be effective.