Bahrain sentences 13 ‘political prisoners’ for protest

DUBAI: Bahrain has sentenced 13 “political prisoners” to three more years in jail over a 2021 protest against the conditions in which they were held, a rights group said on Wednesday.

The prisoners were sentenced “in a mass trial amid credible torture allegations”, the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) said in a statement. The court announced a verdict on Tuesday against 65 defendants, none of whom were present at the session, the group said, adding that “62 of them are political prisoners”.

On top of the sentences they were already serving, the judges sentenced 13 men to three more years in prison, and acquitted 52 others, BIRD said.