4 September 2018 – Today, prominent activist Zainab Alkhawaja joined Ali Mushaima on the 35th day of his hunger strike outside the Bahraini Embassy in London. Ali is demanding basic human rights for his 70-year-old imprisoned father.
Zainab’s Statement:
“Today I start a silent hunger strike in support of Ali Mushaima in his fight for his father, who represents the thousands of political prisoners suffering in Bahraini prisons. Ali is now on his 35th day of hunger strike, he has not eaten for more than a month, and has lived on the street to demand basic prisoner rights for his father. Ali is striking for not only the thousands of political prisoners in Bahrain, but their family members who live every day knowing their mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers are living without access to adequate medical treatment in unsanitary, abusive conditions. Ali has lost 14 kilos and was hospitalized.
‘All my pills are either finished or almost finished. Some of these pills I can’t be without even for a day. It is too painful’ Hassan Mushaima told his son Ali. Mushaima, who used to be an English teacher, is now a 70 year old cancer survivor, a torture survivor and political prisoner. He is also one of the most beloved leaders of the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain. He has been in prison for the past seven and a half years for demanding freedom and democracy for the people of Bahrain. Ali has followed in his father’s’ footsteps and is a very well-known activist who has been heroically fighting for the rights of Bahrainis for more than a decade. Three days after that phone call from his father, Ali decided he had to do something to save his father’s life, so he started a hunger strike at the door of the Bahraini embassy in London where he is in exile. Not only has his father not had any family visits for a year and half and had all his books confiscated, he does not even have access to his medication.”
Zainab Al-Khawaja,
4 September 2018
Background Information:
Zainab Al-Khawaja is a Bahraini woman human rights defender, who was imprisoned twelve times for joining the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain. After her last imprisonment with her baby son, she was forced into exile by the Bahraini regime. She is the daughter of Abdul-Hadi Al-Khawaja, Bahrain’s leading human rights defender and EU citizen, who was brutally arrested and tortured in 2011, then sentenced to life imprisonment along with Hassan Mushaima in the case popularly known as the Bahrain 13.
