A Coalition of 10 human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement Sunday (April 30, 2017) stressed that “Bahraini authorities’ treatment of wrongfully imprisoned detainees violates international standards on prisoner treatment and in some cases may constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.”

The date scheduled to issue the verdict in the case raised by Ministry of Justice, demanding the dissolution of Wa’ad, was postponed until May 31, 2017.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Human Rights file in Bahrain will kick off Monday (May 1, 2017) at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva

The Al-Wasat newspaper said that the price of Bahrain’s crude oil extracted from Abu Saafa oilfield has reached $50 per barrel in the global markets that will witness a huge difference between supply and demand, leading to price dispersion.

82 clerics residing in Britain issued a statement in which they urged the Government of Bahrain to stop the trial of Sheikh Isa Qassim, the most prominent religious leader for Shia in the country.

Summary: Fawzi Al-Jowder said that the commission will not accept the equivalences of students' qualifications who studied abroad through foreign embassies’ scholarships, in case these scholarships were not received through the ministry of Foreign Affairs and approval of Ministry of Education, according to the circular recently issued by the Prime Minister.

Secretary General of the Higher Education Council Abdulghani Al-Shuwaikh stressed on banning the universities and private colleges under his supervision from dispatching any of their students in scholarships, without the approval of the higher education council, given that the scholarship should be sent from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior said that it found a body of a Gulf national (39 years) after he fell from the second floor of a house in Nuwaidrat. The ministry said on its Twitter account that “No criminal suspicion behind the case and the police are at the scene”

Freedom House issued its annual report on World Press Freedom, and Bahrain was among the “Not Free” countries, and one of the worst countries on the level of freedom. It also noted that Bahrain “has become one of the Middle East’s most repressive states.”

Deputy Secretary General of The National Democratic Action Society - Wa'ad, Mahmoud Hafez, said that “Wa’ad’s philosophy is based on reform and peace, and the open approach was not a diplomacy we practice or a tactic, but rather a strategic choice we openly do.”

The Director of NGO Support at the Bahraini Ministry of Labor and Social Development, Najwa Janahi, issued a circular prohibiting civil society organizations supervised by the Ministry, from accepting any offers from foreign embassies

Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain and a number of human rights groups strongly condemned the judicial harassment of political activists, human rights defenders, and other civil society actors, attempting to attend international human rights mechanisms such as the UPR.

Bahraini and American human rights organizations strongly condemned the judicial harassment of human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, and other members of civil society attempting to attend international human rights mechanisms such as the UPR, calling on the Government of Bahrain to immediately lift all restrictions on them.

Front Line Defenders condemned this recent wave “of harassment against human rights defenders in Bahrain” considering it to “be solely motivated by their peaceful and legitimate activities in the defence of human rights”. It urged the authorities “to cease all forms of harassment against all human rights defenders in Bahrain” and “immediately and unconditionally remove the travel bans imposed against human rights defenders facing travel restrictions.”

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) stressed that the religious freedom for the majority-Shi’a community deteriorated, stating that there was a sharp increase in the number of interrogations, arrests, convictions, and arbitrary detentions of Shi’a Muslim clerics, in particular most senior Shi’a cleric in Bahrain, Sheikh Isa Qassim, whose citizenship was arbitrarily stripped by authorities in June.

Bahraini scholar and human rights activist Khalil Al-Halwachi allegedly jailed in connection with the Arab Spring protests is to appeal his 10-year prison term. Al-Halwachi claims he has been targeted for his peaceful political activism around the time of the Arab Spring uprisings and was tortured while he was held in custody in 2011.

Bahraini Interior Minister Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa said in a joint meeting held with the GCC states in Riyadh on Thursday (April 27, 2017) that his country faces persistent threats coming from the Iranian and Iraqi territories.

Activists on Twitter said that the Bahraini authorities arrested Shiite cleric and his wife at the dawn today from his house in Karbabad, noting that reasons behind the arrest are unknown.

A prominent Bahraini activist jailed for life for his role in anti-regime protests has been on hunger strike for two weeks to protest the treatment of prisoners, campaigners said Thursday.

Bahraini scholar and preacher of Imam al-Sadiq Mosque in Manama, Sayed Abdullah Al Ghuraifi believed that “the case of Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim put the country in front of a very difficult turn.”