The most recent attack Human Rights Watch investigated, in Aleppo governorate on July 26, 2013, killed at least 33 civilians, including 17 children.

Human Rights Watch has investigated nine apparent ballistic missile attacks on populated areas that killed at least 215 people that local residents identified as civilians, including 100 children, between February and July.

It visited seven of the sites. There were no apparent military targets in the vicinity of seven of the nine attacks investigated by Human Rights Watch.

In two cases there were nearby military objectives that may have been the government force’s intended targets, but were not struck in either attack.

“You cannot distinguish between civilians and fighters when you fire ballistic missiles which have a wide-area effect into populated residentialareas,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“Even if there are fighters in the area, you cannot accurately target them and the impact in some of these cases has been devastating to local civilians.”

When used in populated areas, ballistic missiles with large payloads of high-explosives have a wide-area destructive effect, and it will not be possible when using them so to distinguish adequately between civilians and fighters, which almost inevitably leads to civilian casualties.

Military commanders, as a matter of policy, should not order the use of ballistic missiles in areas populated by civilians, Human Rights Watch said.
It is difficult to draw final conclusions about the legality of an individual attack without knowing the motivation or the information available to the attacking party.

But the nine attacks Human Rights Watch investigated caused significant civilian damage with no apparent military advantage.

The repeated use of these high explosive weapons with wide-area effects in areas populated by civilians strongly suggests that the military willfully used methods of warfare incapable of distinguishing between civilians and combatants, a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

While using ballistic missiles in an armed conflict is not prohibited, their use is subject to the laws of war. A warring party is obliged to use means and methods capable of distinguishing between civilians and combatants, an attack should not cause disproportionate damage to civilian lives and property, and the party using the weapons should take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm.

According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a Syrian human rights group, the government used at least 131 long range surface-to-surface missiles between December 2012 and early July.

Twenty of the attacks, some using multiple missiles, killed approximately 260 civilians, the group said. Human Rights Watch has not independently verified these attacks.

A Syrian government official denied in February that the authorities had used Scud missiles against the opposition

Syria stockpiles several types of ballistic missiles, according to the authoritative publication Military Balance 2011 by the International Institute of Strategic Studies. They include Scud missiles, variants of Scud missiles, SS-21 Tochka missiles, and Luna-M missiles.

On July 31, 2013, the government authorized the interior minister to “take all necessary measures” to “confront violence and terrorism” in the sit-ins, but did not elaborate what those measures would be. In dealing with protests, Egypt’s security forces have regularly resorted to excessive use of force, killing at least 137 people in the past month alone.

“To avoid another bloodbath, Egypt’s civilian rulers need to ensure the ongoing right of protesters to assemble peacefully, and seek alternatives to a forcible dispersal of the crowds,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The police’s persistent record of excessive use of force, leading to dozens of deaths this month, and the density of the sit-ins mean that hundreds of lives could be lost if the sit-in is forcibly dispersed.”

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Egyptian authorities are required to protect and ensure the right to assemble peacefully. This means they must facilitate demonstrations and ensure they can take place peacefully.

Any restrictions imposed must be for a legitimate aim, nonarbitrary, and according to law. And any restrictions may not discriminate on grounds such as political belief, and must be necessary and proportionate to the aim pursued. Prohibition of any particular demonstration, including dispersal, must be a last resort. Imposition of restrictions and bans on demonstrations should be subject to appeal before an independent and impartial court.

Under international law, the overall duty to ensure the right to peaceful assembly means that state authorities may not treat an entire demonstration as violent due to the acts of a few participants, Human Rights Watch said. The authorities may not punish peaceful protesters for crimes committed by individual protesters or for possession of unlicensed weapons by some protesters.

Human Rights Watch visited the two main protest sites, in Rab’a al-Adawiya and al-Nahda square, both of which were densely populated with women, children, and men who have been staging a month-long sit-in to protest the removal of President Mohammed Morsy.

Over the past weeks, some residents of the buildings surrounding the sit-in in Rab’a al-Adawiya have filed formal complaints because of their inability to easily access their building entrances. Media reports have circulated claiming some Morsy supporters abused individuals they suspect of being “infiltrators” of the sit-in. Witnesses have reported seeing protesters armed with guns at the Giza sit-in. Human Rights Watch interviewed one man who said he and a group of men grabbed and detained another man under the Nahda stage along with eight other captives, as well as a boy who said protesters at Nahda beat him, subjected him to electric shocks, and cut him with bladed weapons.

The Egyptian authorities are required to take the utmost care in the choice of means and methods employed by its security services when confronting or dispersing a protest. The authorities must ensure that thorough planning takes place before any operation is carried out and then ensure that the operation is carried out in a way that minimizes harm or any risk to life. This planning should include giving advance notice to protesters so they can respond to dispersal requests by the security forces, HRW said.

On July 17, 2013, the court of appeals confirmed the conviction of Sara al-Drees, 26, on charges of offending Kuwait’s emir and misusing her mobile phone when sending tweets that the authorities considered offensive. She is free on bail, awaiting the outcome of a further appeal.

“The Kuwait authorities over the past year have prosecuted dozens of people for peaceful political statements,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“The government should tolerate this kind of criticism, not persecute people who dare express it.”

Since a political crisis between the government and the political opposition in June 2012, the authorities have charged several dozen politicians, online activists, journalists, and others with “offending” the emir, Kuwait’s head of state.

The government should drop charges against those accused or convicted of crimes solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and it should amend Kuwait’s criminal code to remove the crime of “offending the emir,” Human Rights Watch said.

On May 29, 2013, a Kuwaiti criminal court convicted al-Drees of offending the emir in four tweets that she admitted sending. One referred to an October 2012 protest that local activists said was met with a violent government response and many arrests. She wrote: “What’s taking place now is a shame on Kuwait’s history. Damn this era! The curse of Allah shall rest on the oppressors!”

In another, referring to the ruling family, she wrote: “We loved you as a part of Kuwait’s history, rejecting violations by some of you, but we now feel that you are spongers imposed on us by our constitution.”

Al-Drees, who teaches high school students about human rights under Kuwait’s constitution, is not the only woman to be sentenced to prison for political speech.

On June 10, a court sentenced Huda al-Ajmi, a 37-year-old teacher, to 11 years in prison, including 5 years for “offending the emir,” after convicting her on charges based on a series of tweets. She is free on bail, awaiting the outcome of her appeal.

Article 25 of Kuwait’s penal code of 1970 sets out sentences of up to five years in prison for anyone who publicly “objects to the rights and authorities of the emir or faults him.” This provision violates the free speech protections in international treaties to which Kuwait is a party, Human Rights Watch said.

“Kuwait used to have a better reputation than most other Gulf states in respecting the right to free speech,” Stork said. “But with each case like this, the authorities are lowering themselves to the standards of the rest of the region.

The investigations need to be conducted by the civilian judiciary, independent both institutionally and practically from the military chain of command.

Witnesses described a sequence of events on July 8, in which the military and police used unnecessary force, leading to the deaths of 51 protesters. Prosecutors have investigated only Muslim Brotherhood supporters and leaders for their alleged roles in the clashes, but not the military and police forces.

“The military has a track record of resorting quickly and excessively with lethal force to break up protests,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Witness after witness described the military shooting into the crowd, including at unarmed people. The government needs to find out who was responsible and ensure they are held accountable if it hopes to show it will respect basic rights during this interim period.”

On July 8, army troops and police moved just before dawn to break up a peaceful sit-in of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Violence broke out over the next six hours with military officers, including snipers posted on military building rooftops, shooting live ammunition, in many cases killing and wounding unarmed protesters. Protesters threw stones, Molotov cocktails, and in some cases shot guns. By the end of the morning, fifty-one protesters, three security force members, two police officers, and one military member were dead, according to the Health and Defense ministries.

The military spokesman, Col. Ahmad Ali, claimed that protesters tried to storm the Republican Guard building. Butthe military has not made public any evidence supporting its claim and Human Rights Watch found no evidence that this occurred, finding instead that protesters were peacefully praying or gathering when the military and police moved in to break up the sit-in.

Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters had gathered outside the Republican Guard headquarters on Salah Salem Street starting on July 5, and their numbers grew after the group called for a sit-in there on July 7.

Human Rights Watch spoke to 24 witnesses, including protesters and neighborhood residentsand interviewed seven doctors. Human Rights Watch also visited the site of the incident, four hospitals where dead and injured were taken, and the morgue, and reviewed video footage obtained from protesters and news outlets that Human Rights Watch considered credible. All those interviewed who witnessed the start of the violence agreed, and video evidence also suggested, that just before dawn on July 8, military troops and Central Security Forces, Egypt’s riot police, moved in to break-up the peaceful sit-in, simultaneously approaching protesters outside the Republican Guard building at one end of the street and outside the Mostafa Mosque, at the other end.

Security forces fired teargas and blanks into the air, and moved in on protesters from two sides by foot and with more than a dozen armored vehicles. The protesters backed off and scattered down side streets. Over the next four hours, the witnesses said, many protesters responded with rocks and Molotov cocktails as army troops shot live ammunition and the riot police fired birdshot into the crowd, which at that point numbered in the thousands. Witnesses as well as video footage viewed by Human Rights Watch confirmed that at least a few Muslim Brotherhood supporters had guns, and fired both live ammunition and birdshot. Military snipers stationed on nearby rooftops, and officers positioned elsewhere, shot a number of unarmed protesters or bystanders. It is not clear from the footage which side used live ammunition first.

In response to the killings, President Mansour ordered an investigation by a civilian “judicial panel,” but authorities have made no further information available about its composition and powers. The Constitutional Declaration announced by Mansour on July 8 gives the military justice system exclusive jurisdiction over crimes involving military personnel, meaning that this civilian panel could not investigate and try army officers involved in the violence. To deal with this and other incidents, President Mansour should issue another declaration to authorize independent civilian courts to investigate military personnel in the case of serious human rights abuses in which the victims are civilians, Human Rights Watch said.

“We have seen again and again how Egypt’s military justice system cannot investigate serious human rights abuses with any impartiality,” Stork said. “Military prosecutors and judges remain in the same line of command as those they are investigating, making independence and impartiality impossible.”

Prosecutors have announced only that they are investigating 206 Muslim Brotherhood supporters arrested at the scene and still in detention. Prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 10 Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including the group’s supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, on charges of inciting violence in connection with the incident. No investigation of army or police personnel has been announced to date, though the vast majority those who died were among the protesters.

It is impossible to say precisely which of the lethal shootings may have been lawful – that is, where those killed were armed and shooting at security forces, Human Rights Watch said. What is clear from the death toll and witness evidence is that the army responded with lethal force that far exceeded any apparent threat to the lives of military personnel.

All of the deaths – protesters, bystanders, and security forces – should be investigated and those responsible for unlawful use of force should be prosecuted, Human Rights Watch said.

“This is the single bloodiest incident that Egypt has seen since the uprising against Mubarak, and it comes at a moment of extreme political polarization,” Stork said. “President Mansour should issue a constitutional declaration that will give independent civilian judges the authority to examine the responsibility of the military and police at all levels of command as well as demonstrators, and issue criminal indictments against those found responsible for using excessive or otherwise unlawful force and violence.”

At a previous hearing, the state attorney told the court that the military would pledge not to use white phosphorus in populated areas “for the time being,” with two “very narrow exceptions” that it would not make public for unspecified security reasons. The state attorney shared information about the exceptions with the court during a hearing from which the petitioners were excluded. In her ruling, Justice Edna Arbel accepted the state’s pledge and rejected the petition as unnecessary, and said she was “convinced” that the secret exceptions were “very limited” and that it is “doubtful if they would have any practical implications.”

The seven-paragraph ruling requires the military to notify the petitioners, including 117 Israeli citizens and human rights organizations, in the event the policy changes. The court also ordered the military to conduct a “comprehensive check” concerning its policies on the use of white phosphorus, but did not set a time limit for the check, or require that any results be made public.

“The military’s pledge to limit the use of white phosphorus is a positive step, but it shouldn’t be hedged with secret exceptions,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “And Israel’s highest court missed a chance to clarify as a matter of law, not just policy, that the military shouldn’t be using airburst white phosphorus munitions in populated areas.”

The court rejected the state’s position that the court could not review the military’s selection of means of warfare, which can be a crucial element in a war crimes case, although it limited its review to “exceptional special cases,” Human Rights Watch said. The ruling urged the military to use alternatives to white phosphorus munitions “whenever possible.”

Human Rights Watch documented Israeli forces’ unlawful use of airburst white phosphorus munitions during fighting in Gaza in 2008-2009. Subsequent Israeli military investigations have held no one responsible for international humanitarian law violations regarding white phosphorus.

White phosphorus generates a dense white smoke and ignites on contact with oxygen. It is considered an incendiary rather than a chemical munition, and is not banned by international treaty. However, the use in populated areas of white phosphorus munitions, which spread burning toxic substance over large areas, violates the prohibition against attacks that cannot discriminate between civilians and combatants, Human Rights Watch said.

White phosphorus munitions are generally designed to serve as smokescreens and to illuminate targets, but they are harmful, regardless of their intended purpose. Human Rights Watch has been working to strengthen Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons by urging states parties to prohibit the use of all incendiary weapons in civilian areas, while working toward a complete ban. Israel has joined the Convention on Conventional Weapons, but has not ratified the protocol on incendiary weapons.

The parliament, government, and other bodies should ensure that women can participate actively and equally in the drafting of the new constitution and the reform of legislation that affect their lives, Human Rights Watch said.

“Libyan women are at a pivotal moment in their country’s history with the drafting of a new constitution and the start of legislative reform,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “If Libya misses this opportunity to lay the legal foundation for women’s rights, it could lead to serious violations for years to come.”

The 40-page report, “A Revolution for All: Women’s Rights in the New Libya,” highlights key steps that Libya should take to meet its international obligations by firmly rejecting gender-based discrimination in both law and practice.

The report calls on Libya’s parliament, the General National Congress (GNC), to ensure that women are involved on equal terms with men in the entire constitution drafting process, including active participation in the Constituent Assembly tasked with preparing the draft.

H“The revolution was an earthquake to the cultural status of women in Libya,” said Iman Bugaighis, a rights activist in Benghazi. “We don’t want to lose what we’ve gained as Libyan women.”

Her sister, Selwa Bugaighis, a lawyer, echoed this view: “We had never participated before in protests; these were taboo. The revolution made us proud to be there on the front line … But now there are some who think it is time for women to go home.”

The Constituent Assembly will be chosen by popular election, which is expected later in 2013. The GNC is currently preparing an election law for that election.

Women’s active participation in the Constituent Assembly is essential, Human Rights Watch said. This includes appointing a gender advisor to help ensure the draft constitution meets international standards of human rights.

Once drafting of the constitution begins, the Constituent Assembly should include explicit language that guarantees full equality between women and men. The constitution should make clear that its provisions on equality override any law, Human Rights Watch said.

The new constitution, which must be approved by popular referendum, should explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender, sex, pregnancy, and marital status, among other categories, Human Rights Watch said. Libya is party to the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women and other international instruments that require gender equality before the law. The government should also prioritize ending discrimination against women that is still pervasive in Libya and minimizing violence against women, including domestic violence.

The report urges the General National Congress and future parliaments to repeal or amend Gaddafi-era laws and regulations that subject women to discrimination and abuse. This includes discriminatory laws on gender-based violence, unequal personal status laws, and an ambiguous nationality law, as well as problematic articles in the penal code.

Women played a key role in the anti-government protests that began in Benghazi in February 2011 and sparked the uprising that led to Gaddafi’s fall. They helped organize demonstrations, they documented human rights abuses, and they circulated information through social media. As the conflict intensified, Libyan women provided medical, logistical, and other support to opposition armed groups, including by smuggling ammunition and feeding fighters.

The 2012 parliamentary election, which saw voters elect 33 women to the 200-member General National Congress, marked a significant increase in female political participation. The electoral law included a gender parity provision requiring each party to place its female candidates in an alternating pattern with male candidates on their lists to ensure that women were elected.

Despite these gains, Libyan women continue to face significant challenges. In February 2013, Libya’s Supreme Court effectively lifted restrictions on polygamy. In April, the Ministry of Social Affairs reportedly suspended issuing marriage licenses for Libyan women marrying foreigners after Libya’s Grand Mufti called on the government to ban women from marrying foreigners.

During the operation, scores of protesters and some soldiers died. The report by HRW provides evidence that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the defense minister, and senior defense and interior ministry officials may have ordered the raid, although it does not address what orders they issued concerning the use of force.

It does claim though that the defense minister and senior defense and interior ministry officials did not respond to warnings of excessive use of force by the security forces. The committee gave Human Rights Watch the preliminary findings of its investigation.

Members of a separate ministerial committee named by Maliki to investigate the episode told Human Rights Watch that they seriously doubt they will be able to complete their work. The ministerial committee is inadequately resourced, stymied by lack of cooperation from security forces, and unlikely to lead to prosecutions or publish its conclusions, committee members told Human Rights Watch.

“The people of Iraq aren’t going to be fooled by a Potemkin inquiry into the killings at Haweeja,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“As the country teeters on the brink of further violence, the government is wasting a critical opportunity to restore confidence in its ability to achieve justice for the civilians and security forces who died on April 23.”

The ministerial committee has so far failed to interview any witnesses to or participants in the raid on the demonstration, raising serious doubts as to the government’s intent to hold instigators of the attack responsible, Human Rights Watch said.

The Iraqi government should immediately provide the ministerial committee with the financial and political support necessary to investigate the apparently unlawful use of lethal force by the security forces, including senior-level officials, Human Rights Watch said. Armed men killed at least one security official after security forces raided the demonstration.

According to both committees and media reports, on April 23, army soldiers, federal police, and SWAT forces fired on a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators in Haweeja. The Defense Ministry said that 23 people were security forces from using violent means to stop future protests.

Despite numerous instances in the past five months in which security forces allegedly used excessive force at protests, killing scores of demonstrators, Iraqi authorities have not undertaken any full and comprehensive public inquiry into attacks on protesters, or investigated senior officers for abuses of authority, including potentially ordering attacks on civilians, HRWE said.

A politicized and inadequate investigation is not going to get to the truth of what happened,” Whitson said. “The ongoing protests and escalating violence that have followed the Haweeja killings are evidence that many people regard the ministerial investigative committee as a mere diversion rather than as a credible step toward accountability.”

Dozens of labor and independent trade union activists are in prison for speaking out in defense of workers.

Human Rights Watch called for the government to end the crackdown and free labor rights advocates in anticipation of International Workers’ Day on May 1, as part of a joint campaign by Iranian and international rights groups to highlight the plight of workers.

Labor rights groups say that the rights of Iranian workers have come under increasing attack during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Security forces have harassed and arbitrarily arrested an increasing number of striking workers, who are then subjected to politically motivated prosecutions and unfair trials.

“Iranian workers are on the front lines of the struggle to demand such basic rights as freedom of assembly and association, “said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “They are often the first victims of government crackdowns that aim to silence criticism.”

The Iranian government’s stranglehold on unionization and crackdown on labor rights activists have left workers without a voice to influence government policy and working conditions, even as the country’s worsening economic situation is pushing many into poverty, Human Rights Watch said.

Independent trade unions are banned in Iran. More than a dozen labor activists are in prison for exercising their right to freedom of assembly and association. Many others have been released on bail, with cases pending against them in revolutionary courts.

Earlier in 2013, Iran’s Supreme Work Council, a government body charged with promulgating labor regulations, set a 25 percent minimum wage increase (487,000 toman per month, about US$ 140) for the coming year. A group representing Tehran workers at the Islamic Labor Council, a state-sanctioned body that ostensibly acts to protect the rights of workers in lieu of independent trade unions, has officially submitted a complaint to the body demanding a larger increase.

Article 41 of Iran’s labor law requires authorities to take the rate of inflation into account when establishing the minimum wage. The official inflation rate is close to 32 percent, but many economists say the real rate may be above 50 percent.

Iran’s labor law does not recognize the right to create labor unions independent of government-sanctioned groups such as the Islamic Labor Council. Nonetheless, workers have formed large, independent unions, including the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Workers’ Syndicate, and the Iran Free Workers’ Union.

Since 2005, authorities have repeatedly harassed, summoned, arrested, convicted, and sentenced workers affiliated with these and other independent trade unions.

Most of these arrests have taken place during International Workers’ Day celebrations or strikes the unions have called.

About 80 percent of workers are working under temporary, short-term or at-will employment arrangements, which severely restrict their benefits and provide little protection from summary firings by business owners, labor activists say.

The situation is particularly dire for the most vulnerable workers: women, children and Afghan migrants.

“Regardless of sanctions or other causes of economic hardship in Iran, workers should have the right to organize, strike, and hold sit-ins, and speak out against government policies they consider harmful,” Whitson said. “The worsening crackdown on workers who try to exercise their rights is a flagrant violation of the Iranian government’s obligations to its people.”

On April 27, 2013, a trial court in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, ordered the probe of Saleh and other former ranking officials – including his nephews Yahya Saleh and Tareq Saleh.

Yemeni prosecutors should promptly comply with the order and also reopen the original investigation of the so-called Friday of Dignity massacre, Human Rights Watch said.

Gunmen in civilian clothes killed at least 45 protesters and wounded 200 others during a rally in Sanaa, part of the 2011 uprising against the Saleh government. The initial government investigation into the killings was marred by political interference, a Human Rights Watch report found.

“The court ordered investigation of former president Saleh and several top aides for the ‘Friday of Dignity’ massacre may prove a breakthrough for justice in Yemen, but only if prosecutors now do their jobs,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“The authorities should leave no stone unturned until they have identified the people responsible for these killings and held them to account.”

A day after the court order, Attorney General Ali al-Awash also ordered an investigation of Saleh and his son Ahmed Ali, until recently the commander of the elite Republican Guard, in connection with the May 2011 shelling of a home belonging to the country’s powerful al-Ahmar tribe.

The strike killed several people including tribal mediators. At the time of the attack, the sheikhs had been trying to end a political standoff between Saleh and al-Ahmar family members who supported the uprising.

In October 2012, lawyers for victims of the Friday of Dignity massacre filed a motion seeking the indictment of the former president and senior officials, who were not among the 78 suspects already on trial for the killings. The court suspended the trial pending a ruling on the motion. Most of the defendants had been registered as fugitives from justice.

Investigations of former government officials are complicated by an immunity law that Yemen’s parliament passed as part of the political deal under which Saleh stepped down in February 2012, ending the year-long popular uprising. The amnesty grants sweeping immunity to Saleh and all those who served with him during his 33-year rule. Victims’ lawyers hope the new investigation will serve as a test case of the immunity law. The law would not prevent the prosecution of Saleh and others by courts outside the country with jurisdiction over international crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

The attack on a rally that demonstrators called the “Friday of Dignity” was the deadliest against protesters of the uprising. Human Rights Watch research found that the Central Security Forces, a paramilitary force then headed by Yahya Saleh, withdrew from the area of the demonstration the night before the killings and largely failed to intervene once the shootings began. Prosecutors never questioned the Salehs and other top officials in connection with the killings, and the former president also dismissed the attorney general at the time, replacing him with al-Awash, just six weeks after he began investigating possible government involvement.

President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who succeeded Saleh, removed Yahya Saleh as Central Security Forces chief in December 2012. Last year Hadi also removed Tareq Saleh from his positions heading the Presidential Guard and the 3rd Brigade of the Republican Guard, but in April he appointed Tareq Saleh as defense attaché to Germany. The former president remains in Yemen as head of his political party, the General People’s Congress.

In recent weeks, security forces have conducted home raids in the vicinity of the race circuit and arbitrarily arrested and detained opposition figures. Protesters have indicated they will demonstrate against the Grand Prix, with the risk that the Bahraini authorities will use repressive measures to close down the protests.

“Bahrain is already tightening the lid on protest as the Formula 1 race grows near,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Formula 1 organizers apparently prefer to bury their heads in the sand, risking holding their race against repression it has provoked.”

Human Rights Watch said it was unaware of any public comment by Formula 1 organizers about the recent spate of security force abuses near the race site.

Race authorities also have failed to consider the impact of the event on Bahrain’s ongoing human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said. The Bahraini authorities regularly imprison peaceful demonstrators and human rights defenders, and security forces use excessive and at times deadly force against protesters. The authorities have failed to investigate and prosecute high-level officials responsible for serious human rights violations.

Since large-scale protests began in 2011, abuses by security forces have resulted in the death of scores of protesters and bystanders, serious injuries to hundreds of people, arrests of thousands more, and more than 300 formal allegations of torture and ill-treatment. In February, Human Rights Watch concluded, based on discussions with officials, that authorities have made no progress in investigating and prosecuting higher-level officials responsible for the worst abuses during the 2011 protests.

On May 26, 2011, Human Rights Watch wrote to the chairs of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile and the Formula One Teams Association, Jean Todt and Martin Whitmarsh respectively, to urge that they and their member organizations take into account the severe human rights crisis in Bahrain and consult the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Human Rights Watch has not been able to determine that either body has taken any steps to assess the ramifications of their current involvement in Bahrain.

Responding to the news media about abuses by the government during the 2012 race, Todt said: “We know protests can have a negative result. We are a governing body running sport, you can have lots of protests and there can be consequences, and I am not sure the protests would not have happened if the Grand Prix would not have happened.”

During protests that took place on April 21 during the 2012 Grand Prix, Bahraini security forces killed Salah Abbas Habib, a protester, in the town of Shakhoura. A November 2012 follow-up report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry concluded that Habib “was arrested and assaulted, and then shot with [a] shotgun” by security forces.

The chief prosecutor of Bahrain’s Special Investigations Unit announced on April 8 that his office had charged a police officer with wilful homicide in Habib’s case, but the case exposes the dangers that protesters face in confrontations with security forces and criminal charges in cases such as these are the exception.

In stark contrast to impunity for security forces, Bahrain’s justice system has prosecuted peaceful protesters, Human Rights Watch said. On January 7, the Court of Cassation upheld the convictions and lengthy prison terms of 13 prominent dissidents, of whom seven were sentenced to life in prison, solely for exercising their rights to free expression and peaceful assembly in the 2011 protests.

Between April 1 and April 10, security forces conducted a series of home raids and arbitrarily detained opposition protestors in Dar Khulaib, Shahrakan, Madinat Hamad, and Karzakkan, towns close the Bahrain International Circuit. During the raids, plain-clothes, masked, and armed police officers arrested at least 20 people, some of them prominent and well-known anti-government protesters.

Human Rights Watch has received new reports of security forces shooting protesters in the head with tear gas canisters. In the most recent incident, on April 13 in Samaheej, local sources told Human Rights Watch, Sara Ismail, 18, required medical attention after security forces shot her in the head with a teargas canister.

“The inconvenient reality for Formula 1 organizers is that their event in Bahrain has become a focal point for popular discontent, with abuses against protesters ratcheting up in a country that has become notorious for them, and is unwilling or unable to implement meaningful reforms,” Whitson said. “And those who care about Formula 1 officials should care that human suffering and repression is tainting their sport.”