Bahrain Centre for Human Rights

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The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights is a Bahraini non-governmental organisation which registered with the Bahrain Ministry of Labour and Social Development in 2002. The centre was given a dissolution order after its president Abdulhadi Al Khawaja was arrested in September 2004 for criticising the country's Prime Minister, Shaikh Khalifah ibn Sulman Al Khalifah at a seminar in which he blamed the Prime Minister for the failure of widespread economic development for all citizens (in particular the disenfranchised Shia majority). In November 2005 a court sentenced Al Khawaja to one year in prison on charges which included "inciting hatred" and accusing authorities of corruption, under provisions prescribed by the 1976 Penal Code. However, later on the same day, 'Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja was released after the King issued a decree exempting him from spending the rest of his sentence in prison.

Although its license was revoked, members of the centre have remained active and the group recently launched its own English language website.

The BCHR seems to be made up of a loose coalition of members with different backgrounds and political leanings, and different areas of interest or focus. Some are closely associated with the Islamic Action Society, a small radical Islamist party in Bahrain which is said to have been formed by members of the Iranian-backed Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain following their return from exile, and others take a more secular approach in their work, while others still work solely on an issue-basis without any overriding political leaning.

The group mainly works by campaigning on, and documenting / releasing reports on local issues including the targeting of human rights defenders or political activists targeting, the detention of Bahraini citizens after a series of demonstrations with began with the brief arrest of a prominent local Shia cleric by security officers at Bahrain International Airport on his return, the detention of more than 500 men - including six Bahrainis - at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, migrant workers conditions and rights of migrant workers, restrictive local laws, torture and abuse of an unknown number of citizens during a period of local unrest in the 1990s (see: Torture in Bahrain and 1990s Uprising in Bahrain), and women's rights.

It describes its vision as "a prosperous democratic country free of discrimination and other violations of human rights" and says its mission is to "encourage and support individuals and groups to be proactive in the protection of their own and others' rights; and to struggle to promote democracy and human rights in accordance with international norms" based on four objectives:

Promoting freedoms and basic rights (Civil, Political and Economic)
Combating racial discrimination
Dissemination of human rights culture
Contributing in providing support and protection for victims and the vulnerable

There seems to be an unsaid rivalry among the three main human rights groups in Bahrain, the Bahrain Human Rights Society, the Centre and the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society. The groups often fail to back a cause being championed by the other which has fragmented important campaigns such as work for fair legal proceedings for the Bahraini detainees at Guantanamo Bay, or otherwise work on the same issue separately. The Centre is largely viewed as taking a credible but largely oppositional stance, while the Bahrain Human Rights Society is seen as less confrontational with the government over issues, and the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society seen as basically an unofficial government body (its members include members of the unelected Shura Council.