Press Release
Published on May 22, 2026
Bahrain’s authorities have returned to their traditional methods of repression since the start of the U.S. war on Iran in February 2026. This includes detaining more than 400 people, stripping 69 of their citizenship in a single day, and returning to his family the body of a man tortured to death in custody.
A report released today from Human Rights First details this sweeping crackdown of mass arrests, enforced disappearances and citizenship revocations, showing Bahrain has revived its repressive methods from 15 years ago.
The report, “Bahrain’s Rulers Return to 2011 Repression Methods,” features the death in custody of 32-year-old Sayed Mohamed Al-Mosawi, who was detained at a checkpoint in Muharraq on 19 March 2026 and whose body was returned to his family nine days later bearing extensive injuries. Dr. Allen Keller, an internationally-recognized torture expert who served on the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) in 2011, reviewed the photographic and medical evidence and concluded that Al-Mosawi’s injuries were “highly consistent with torture” and that it was unlikely that only one perpetrator was involved.
“Bahrain made promises of reform after the 2011 crackdown that it never kept, and now we are watching a return to that type of government violence,” said Brian Dooley, Senior Advisor at Human Rights First and co-author of the report. “Arbitrary arrests on this scale, a death in custody with clear evidence of torture, and the stripping of citizenship from entire families, including infants, is the predictable consequence of fifteen years of impunity. The international community has seen this before, largely failed to act, and should take action now.”
“The security agency whose arrest and detention powers were stripped following findings of systematic torture in 2011, then quietly restored in 2017, is the same institution that detained Sayed Mohamed Al-Mosawi and in whose custody he died,” said Human Rights First’s Suchita Uppal, co-author of today’s report.
The report’s recommendations include an independent international investigation into Al-Mosawi’s death, the restoration of citizenship to those stripped of nationality, the release of prominent dissidents still imprisoned since 2011, and coordinated Magnitsky-style sanctions against officials credibly implicated in torture and arbitrary detention.
Human Rights First has been documenting human rights violations in Bahrain since 2011, although it has not been allowed into the country since 2012. In 2014, U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern was denied entry to the kingdom with Human Rights First Senior Advisor Brian Dooley. Dooley was also refused entry at Bahrain’s airport in 2018. Human Rights First has been a leading voice on torture and other human rights issues in Bahrain, briefing and testifying in the U.S. Congress, at the Italian Parliament, and the UN. In 2024, it called for a U.S. visa ban on Bahrain’s Prince Nasser bin Hamad al Khalifa based on his alleged involvement in torture. In 2025, it recommended targeted sanctions against Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al Khalifa, Bahrain’s long-serving interior minister, based on his role in torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in prisons he oversees.
Read the full report here.
