Report on the Effectiveness of the National Institute for Human Rights (NIHR)

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Introduction:
Bahrain is still witnessing, since February 2011, complicated human rights issues due to the way the Bahrain government deals with citizens. e Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report has set a description to these issues that can be summarized in violations of the right to life, the right to physical safety, the freedom of religion, opinion and expression; the right to free trial, the right to education and work and the right to religious practices. ese violations have indicated an institutional disorder in the state agencies. e violated rights were the result of the demand of a political structural reform that includes granting people the right to power and reform the justice and security systems.
e international community presented a number of demands to the Bahrain authorities that pushed for key institutional reforms. A number of regulatory bodies were formed to enhance human rights, in order to prevent the above mentioned violations. e institutional reform includes the National Institution for Human rights (NIHR), which its formation has been modi ed more than once in order to obtain the satisfaction of the international community, to make it a part of the formal institutional reform with a previous intent of facing public demands. It is apparent that these institutions are intended to re ect an elegant image to the way the Bahrain authorities dealt with these demands, despite the violations committed that have required urgent changes to be put in place.
e largely negative role the NIHR has so far played by painting a warped and many times sham picture of the human rights situation in Bahrain has resulted in a need to shed light on its role, assessing its e ectiveness, examining in detail its annual reports (most recently 2015 and 2016), and investigating the reality of its compliance and execution of the Paris Principles.

Methodology:
is report will assess NIHR’s work and e ectiveness in Bahrain by the extent of its institutional compliance to the Paris Principles, as well as the rate in which it has satis ed the protocols issued by the coordination committee of NIHR and international institutes, that are intended to enhance and protect human rights.