A prominent Bahraini surgeon and human rights defender, Dr Ghassan Dhaif, has been barred from entering Australia for a speaking tour organised by Amnesty International Australia and the Bahrain Australia Youth Movement.
The Department of Immigration rejected DrDhaif's visa application on the grounds that he may seek asylum even though he applied for a Temporary Work (Short Stay Activity) Visa (Subclass 400) with the support of Amnesty International Australia, the Australia Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Nursing Federation and the Australian Education Union.
He was due to speak about the military crackdown and human rights crisis in Bahrain, in which he was arrested, incarcerated and tortured for over one year for the crime of treating injured protesters.
“It is disappointing that one week following a condemnation of Bahrain’s human rights crisis in the Federal Parliament of Australia, immigration has denied a Bahraini human rights defender from entering the country,” said Abdulelah al Hubaishi, a Bahraini refugee and spokesperson for the Bahrain Australia Youth Movement.
The federal parliament had just adopted a motion condemning the violent repression of pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. The heavy repression of Bahraini medics was highlighted during the debate.
Less than a week later, a well-known pro-democracy activist based in Melbourne, Mahmood al-Fardan, learned that his Bahraini family home had been raided by security forces.
“Yesterday Bahraini security forces attacked my Mother’s home,” he said on June 27. “[They] smashed all belongings and stole documents from my bedroom. It is standard practice for the regime to target the families of activists outside of Bahrain.”
Al Hubaishi said: “The government is only escalating their attacks on pro-democracy activists. Another protester was killed yesterday and there have been hundreds of arbitrary arrests in recent months where protesters are subject to brutal torture, sometimes until death.”
Health services continue to be militarised and thousands of political prisoners are behind bars.
He said the Australian government’s decision to refuse Ghassan Daif a visa on the basis that he may claim asylum further persecutes the Bahraini people it claims to support in the name of democracy: “It is clear that Western countries are backing the Bahraini regime and continuing their standard practice of hypocrisy. The Australian government is only concerned with human rights on paper but in reality it is silencing the Bahraini people.
“Attempts to silence Dr Ghassan Dhaif only cause us to raise the volume of our voices. We must stand in solidarity with the Bahraini people and continue to expose the daily human rights violations in Bahrain.”