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EI General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, recently visited the Kingdom of Bahrain, in order to get first-hand impressions of the situation in a country that has seen severe mistreatment of teachers in the past months, following “Arab Spring”-inspired upheavals throughout the middle eastern state.

Van Leeuwen was especially keen to meet with a large number of those teachers that were subject to intimidation and harassment after having taken part in meetings and demonstrations. They had suffered various illegal retributions: dismissals, arrest, detention, salary cuts, submitting to various commissions of inquiry and disciplinary councils in addition to a number teachers who were attacked in schools and education departments, arrested as criminals and subjected to physical and moral insults.

Apart from the above meetings, Van Leeuwen also encountered higher education teachers. All these meetings were made possible by the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions and the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

Moreover, he was granted an audience with the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI). The Commission will issue a report and recommendations about the recent developments on November 23. It was therefore timely that the EI General Secretary could focus his intervention in front of members of the commission on the statements he had received from the teacher activists and education staff. Fred van Leeuwen reminded the BICI about the importance that the report recommends that all dismissed teachers be reinstated and that leaders and activists of the education union movements, including the Bahraini Teachers Association (BTA) be freed from detention and unfair verdicts withdrawn.

Van Leeuwen also reiterated the unions’ concern about the decline in education quality due to the replacement of teachers by untrained recruits from Bahrain and other countries, and the prevailing animosities in view of the way teachers were dismissed and arrested. The EI General Secretary also confirmed once more to the BICI that incidents of torture of union activists, teachers and students took place in the past months.

EI will continue to submit complaints to relevant authorities, including the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, UNESCO and key embassies in Bahrain. EI already submitted a complaint to the ILO on violations of the right to freedom of association, as well as to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture about the endless ill-treatment suffered by the BTA President, Mr Mahdi 'Issa Mahdi Abu Deeb, and the other teachers detained.

At the end of his stay in Bahrain, Fred van Leeuwen expressed his gratefulness and showed himself impressed by the leadership and commitment of the Bahraini teachers and unions, stating they are a “vibrant trade union movement in the region”.

He also reassured the Bahraini teachers that EI would do all it could for the cause of the teachers in Bahrain, especially to help reinstate all the dismissed teachers and education personnel, help release all teachers detained by the authorities or help those still awaiting trial on trumped-up charges.

“We are with you completely, we will help in all possible ways, you are not alone!” Fred van Leeuwen said, applauded by the members of the Bahraini Teachers Association – who were keen to stress that EI was the first organisation to condemn what was happening to teachers in Bahrain, notably also the arrest of BTA leaders, Mahdi Abu Deeb, Jalila Al Salman and other teachers.