{"id":15534,"date":"2018-12-08T15:01:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T15:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=15534"},"modified":"2018-12-08T15:01:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T15:01:02","slug":"bahraini-refugee-footballer-begins-open-ended-hunger-strike-in-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/bahraini-refugee-footballer-begins-open-ended-hunger-strike-in-thailand\/","title":{"rendered":"Bahraini refugee footballer begins open-ended hunger strike in Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"item-body\">\n<div class=\"item-text\">\n<p><strong>Bahraini footballer Hakeem Ali al-Araibi has launched an\u00a0open-ended hunger strike in protest against an \u201cunfair decision by a Thai court to arrest\u201d him and prevent him from returning to his place of residence in Australia.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The chairman of the [Persian] Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, Yahya al-Hadid, in a post published on his official Twitter page, announced that Araibi had been transferred to prison.<\/p>\n<p>Araibi was detained upon arriving in Thailand last week, and now faces deportation to Bahrain where he is at risk of persecution and torture.<\/p>\n<p>Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Bangkok to recognize the refugee status of the 25-year-old footballer\u00a0and let him return to Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Brad Adams, the executive director of the Asian division of HRW, pointed to the \u201cgrave dangers\u201d that Araibi faced if he was returned to Manama.<\/p>\n<p>Araibi\u00a0is wanted in Bahrain over his alleged involvement in attacking a police station for which he received a 10-year prison sentence in absentia.<\/p>\n<div data-oembed-url=\"https:\/\/www.presstv.com\/Detail\/2018\/12\/07\/582226\/Bahrain-footballer-torture-deportation-Thailand-Hakeem-alAraibi-FIFA\">\n<div class=\"oembed\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.presstv.com\/photo\/20181207\/b65a317a-949f-4e24-8f04-ab7ab5a06158.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"title\">PressTV-Bahraini footballer fears &#8216;torture&#8217; if deported by Thailand<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A Bahraini footballer, who enjoys political refugee status in Australia, but has been arrested during a recent trip to Thailand, says he fears facing &#8220;torture&#8221; upon political deportation to Bahrain.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The footballer says the charges against him are fabricated and that he was in Qatar at the time of the purported incident.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.<\/p>\n<p>They are demanding that the Al Khalifah regime relinquish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.<\/p>\n<p>Manama has gone to great lengths to clamp down on any sign of dissent.\u00a0On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to assist Bahrain\u00a0in its crackdown.<\/p>\n<p>Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested as a result of the Al Khalifah regime\u2019s crackdown.<\/p>\n<p>On March 5, 2017, Bahrain\u2019s\u00a0parliament\u00a0approved the trial of civilians at military tribunals in a measure blasted by human rights campaigners as being tantamount to imposition of an undeclared martial law countrywide.<\/p>\n<p>Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah ratified the constitutional amendment on April 3 last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"item-sharings\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"item-comments\">\n<div id=\"hypercomments_widget\">\n<div class=\"hcc hc__root\">\n<div class=\"hcc\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"hcc hc__right\">\n<div class=\"hcc hc__top\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"hcc hc__clear\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"hcc hc__menu\">\n<div class=\"hcc hc__menu__item hc__menu__comment hc_unclick\" data-tab=\"comment\">Comments (<span class=\"hcc hc__menu__count\">0<\/span>)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bahraini footballer Hakeem Ali al-Araibi has launched an\u00a0open-ended hunger strike in protest against an \u201cunfair decision by a Thai court to arrest\u201d him and prevent him from returning to his place of residence in Australia. The chairman of the [Persian] Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, Yahya al-Hadid, in a post published on his &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-islamic-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15536,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15534\/revisions\/15536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}