A Bahraini court has sentenced Akbar Ali al-Kishi, a teenage protester, to 65 years in prison for taking part in anti-regime protests.
The young human rights activist has been arrested by regime forces several times since 2010 and was tortured in Bahraini prisons. In 2009, when Al Kishi was only 14 years old, he was wounded by shotgun pellets after Bahraini forces attacked a rally in the village of Sanabis.
What happened during that protest, and what is currently happening to Al-Kishi is against many Bahraini laws. More importantly Bahrain is a state party to the United Nations ICCPR which ensures the freedom of expression under Article. 19 and freedom of association under Article. 22. The case of al-Kishi also violated number of the articles in Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 3 (Best interests of the child), Article 37 (Detention and punishment), Article 40 (Juvenile justice), Article 13 (freedom of expression/ Freedom of speech), Article 19 (Protection from all forms of violence) are only some of them.
