Maryam Al Khawaja comes from a family that has made tremendous sacrifices in the name of human rights in Bahrain. Maryam’s father, Abdulhadi Al Khawaja, headed the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and was instrumental in organizing peaceful demonstrations at the start of the country’s pro-democracy uprising. In April 2011, he was taken by force from the family home by masked policemen. He later had to have 36 screws and 18 metal plates surgically inserted into his face as a result of the torture and physical violence he suffered during and after his arrest. Today he continues his activism even while serving a life sentence for his political activity. In 2012 he undertook a 110-day hunger strike on behalf of his fellow political prisoners. Outside the prison, his cause was taken up by two of his daughters. Maryam’s older sister Zainab has endured multiple detentions and prison sentences for acts of peaceful disobedience. Meanwhile, working in exile, Maryam herself has served as the co-director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights and (until recently) the acting president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, advocating tirelessly for the rights and freedoms of Bahrainis and people throughout the Gulf.

On August 24th, in order to draw attention to the government’s ongoing and arbitrary arrests of political dissidents, Abdulhadi Al Khawaja, still in prison, embarked on a new hunger strike. A few days later, having received word that her father’s health was rapidly deteriorating, Maryam Al Khawaja decided to travel to Bahrain in hopes of visiting him.

Upon arriving in the Manama airport at 1:00am on the morning of August 30th, Maryam Al Khawaja had her Danish passport confiscated and learned that she had been stripped of her Bahraini citizenship. When she subsequently tried to peacefully resist detention and protest the confiscation of her phone, Ms. Al Khawaja was charged with assaulting a policewoman -- a charge that she denies (alleging that in fact, it was she who found herself brutally attacked by four policewomen at once), and which fellow Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab dismisses as a “a common charge in Bahrain when they have nothing against you: they wanted to take her by force and she refused.” Maryam was additionally charged with insulting the king on social media and spearheading the campaign “Wanted for Justice”, which drew international attention to acts of torture committed by the Bahraini regime. Both charges carry possible sentences of multiple years in prison. In the days since, she has been held in detention, interrogated at the Public Prosecution, and remanded to Isa Town women’s prison -- all while denied access to a legal representative.

The Bahraini government’s current treatment of Ms. Al Khawaja amounts to a blatant violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically the following provisions:

Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 13
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 15
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Maryam Al Khawaja’s case should be a matter of grave concern for the American government, which maintains a close military and strategic relationship with Bahrain. When we partner with regimes that commit massive human rights abuses against their citizens, we undermine our standing as a liberal democracy and tarnish our own human rights record on the international stage. Apart from the moral argument for intervening in this situation, it is therefore also in our own tactical best interest to hold our international partners accountable for their crimes. As Bahrain’s most powerful and strategically valuable ally, the United States has considerable clout with the island nation and is uniquely well situated to exert positive pressure on its monarchy.

Speaking in May 2014 about the dangers of returning to her home country, Maryam expressed her fears that it was “unrealistic that [the U.S. and U.K.] will change their position” regarding Bahrain’s human rights record. If there were ever a time to prove those fears unfounded and take a principled stand for human rights in Bahrain, that time is now, as Maryam herself faces the prospect of years of imprisonment.

[Update as of September 18, 2014: following intense international pressure, Maryam has been released to her family. However, she is banned from leaving the country and still faces charges for her human rights activism, together with the possibility of severe prison sentences. Today's developments are progress, but not victory.] 

We therefore call on Secretary of State John Kerry to issue a public statement urging the government of Bahrain to drop all charges against Maryam and make her release unconditional.