The European Parliament calls on Bahrain to release an activist who demanded respect for human rights

The European Parliament called on the Bahraini authorities to immediately and unconditionally release human rights activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, who is sentenced to life imprisonment, and other detained political activists.

Al-Khawaja has so far spent 12 years in prison, on the charge of organizing peaceful protests in 2011, calling on the Gulf state authorities to respect human rights.

Al-Khawaja, who holds dual Bahraini and Danish nationalities, is considered one of the first initiators of the human rights movement in Bahrain, and he is a leader in the movement for greater freedoms and democracy in the region.

A statement issued by the European Parliament stated that Al-Khawaja suffers from a series of chronic health problems, which requires timely specialized medical treatment.

Parliament called on EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the European External Action Agency and member states – particularly the government of Denmark – to raise the case of Al-Khawaja and all other human rights defenders in the country in the public and private sectors.

MEPs strongly condemned the continued use of torture and ill-treatment in the Gulf state.

The members of Parliament also demanded that Bahrain should return the citizenship of the nearly 300 individuals – particularly human rights defenders – who had been stripped of it and end the ongoing practice.