Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): More than 19,000 tweets have been posted on twitter revealing the deep sentiment of Bahrainis for saving 12 political prisoners on death row, whose lives face grave danger if King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa decides to ratify their death penalties.

On Wednesday evening, July 8, 2020, rights defenders and social media activists in Bahrain launched a campaign of solidarity with Bahraini prisoners of conscience who were sentenced to death after their confessions were extracted under torture, according to international human rights organizations.

The tweeters called for participation in the Twitter campaign to reflect the detainees' grievances, stressing that their sentences are illegal because their confessions were extracted under duress.

Activist Yousif Al-Jamri launched the campaign by calling on Twitter users to participate in the campaign with the #No_For_Execution hashtag.

Amnesty International has previously commented on death sentences in Bahrain, saying that "Mohamed Ramadhan and Hussain Moosa should never have been convicted on the basis of a fabricated so-called confession extracted through torture."

"The country witnessed difficult periods when executions were carried out, despite all the calls to stop them," Rima Shaalan wrote. "The country is tired and needs a place of hope to get its wounds healed, not to bid farewell to more of its children."

Jawad Abbas saw that "Bahrain's youth are imprisoned, tortured and killed in cold blood by extrajudicial executions amid dubious international silence."

Human rights activist Inas Aoun called for "the suspension and abolition of all death sentences in the courts of terrorism, with the retrial of the convicts in the presence of their lawyers since the beginning of the trails and in courts where there is justice and transparency, taking into account all the torture, enforced disappearances and others cruel treatment they have been subjected to."

Tweeter Zaher wrote "the death row convicts demanded that the country not reach what it has reached today regarding many political and economic issues, and therefore they have been sentenced to death."

A number of tweeters recalled a speech by Sheikh Ali Salman on death penalties, in which he said that "death sentences are rejected because their introductions are invalid and that wise people do not resort to decisions based on false grounds."

"Can you believe that a prisoner would confess before the camera that he is a terrorist, or admit that he kills, destroys, sabotages, and receives funds to fight the government's achievements that no one senses, without torture?" tweeter Jihan Maatouk said.

"Don't you wonder what is done to him at one of the security headquarters to confess to all these crimes?" she added.

Al-Faraj Twitter user appealed a tweet to have mercy on the death row convicts' mothers, fathers, sons, wives and parents. "Have mercy on the homeland. Isn't it time for us to rest before death. We have grown old."

Arabic Version