Education and human rights activists in Bahrain demanded the regime’s authorities to open education in prisons without restrictions, including higher education.
Activists and human rights activists emphasized that the right to education does not lapse once the student enters prison.
They added that the regime authorities should not use education deprivation as a tool to punish imprisoned students arrested at school age due to their involvement in popular protests.
There are about four thousand detainees in Bahrain’s prisons. Some of them were deprived of their right to complete their academic life.
A fundamental right
Activist and academic, Jalila Salman, affirmed that education is a fundamental human right, and it is the key to development, and that neglecting it will not benefit anyone.
January 24th of each year coincides with the International Day of Education. The United Nations affirms all individuals and both sexes’ right to obtain an education without discrimination.
Al-Salman called on her Twitter account, on the occasion of the World Education Day, for all educational graduates to be employed, stop destroying the energies of youth, and reflect the curricula’ social reality.
It also demanded that the rights taught to students be allowed to be exercised, and new leaderships injected.
She asked: “Where is education heading in Bahrain, with all the observations related to it, and with being overlooked as if it were non-existent and not lived?”
She added, “Are we, with what we are, able to achieve the fourth goal of the sustainable development goals?” And she continued, “The issue of everything is complete needs to be reviewed.”
In the context, the Peace Organization for Democracy and Human Rights called on Bahrain’s government to grant prisoners their full right to academic education at all levels.
In a press release, it urged respect for the right to education and the Convention against Discrimination in Education.
Sectarian discrimination
Scholarly sources revealed to Bahraini Leaks that the Ministry of Education had excluded dozens of people from applying for scholarships for this year.
The sources added that these measures were taken after security investigations that proved that the students belong to the imamate sect, which is embraced by most of Bahrain’s population.
Bahraini Leaks monitored several complaints received from outstanding Shiite graduate students about the practice of excluding them and preventing them from applying for scholarships.
The most recent example is what a Bahraini student was exposed to, who got 98.8% and applied for a scholarship.
However, the Ministry refused to approve his application, so he resorted to the judiciary. The Court of Cassation shocked him by asserting the Ministry is “absolute” right to set the general policy for missions.
The former head of the Teachers’ Association, Mahdi Abu Deeb, commented on this by saying that the Ministry’s failure to include the outstanding student with a percentage of 98.8% in the lists of beneficiaries from the scholarships is “an injustice that we are used to from the ministry.”
“As for the ruling of the Court of Cassation on the absolute right of the Ministry, it is a devastating blow to supremacy, and depriving the superior of their rights, and the nation of the energies of its children.”
The “distribution of missions” is one of the most important humanitarian issues that the people of Bahrain suffer from because of the abhorrent persecution that works to fight the citizens and their families’ ambition and hope.
Opponents accuse the Bahraini regime of applying the policy of collective punishment against the nation’s youth and depriving them of employment and leaving them victims of unemployment, frustration, brokenness, and helplessness.
