Bahrain Mirror- Exclusive: Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) along with Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) made a joint intervention about Bahrain's use of mercenary in clamping down on citizens demanding democracy.

In the intervention in front of UNHRC in Geneva in the presence of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, the two organizations said that Bahrain "began enlisting as many as 2500 Pakistani servicemen to help violently suppress the pro-democracy protests."

They explained that "the narrow definition of a mercenary has made it easy for Bahrain to deny their recruitment of mercenaries. These recruits mainly come from Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sudan and UAE. They are paid approximately 1500 USD monthly for using tear gas and rubber bullets against Shia-majority communities and targeting houses of civilians."

BIRD and ADHRB stressed that these mercenaries often live in isolated communities and don't speak Arabic. They even don't receive guidance to learn Arabic. The government grants them citizenships to "claim that its security forces implement the laws and not the mercenaries," indicating that they vote in the elections to minimize the number of opposing seats. The 2 organizations also wondered about "the septs that can be taken by the Working group to ensure that governments do not resort to mercenaries in the future."

.@ADHRB و @BirdBahrain_ تقدمان مداخلة عن إستخدام حكومة #البحرين للمرتزقة #HRC33 pic.twitter.com/pDeWRfbnbT

— ADHRB (@ADHRB) September 16, 2016

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