Rights court faults Dutch for deporting Bahraini refugee

The European Court of Human Rights found on Tuesday that Dutch immigration authorities had not properly assessed the risks for an asylum seeker if he was sent back to Bahrain when they deported Ali-Mohammed al-Showaikh.

The 32-year-old is now serving a life sentence in Bahrain for helping a terrorist group. He was arrested immediately upon his return in 2019. According to Amnesty International, he was tortured into confessing. 

Judges at the Strasbourg-based court ruled that the Dutch government had violated Al-Showaikh’s human rights by refusing to allow him access to a lawyer and excluded last-minute evidence that he was wanted by Bahrainian authorities. 

Just before his scheduled deportation, Al-Showaikh provided new documents to the Dutch from the Bahraini public prosecutor’s office, written in Arabic, which he said showed he would be arrested if he returned. The Dutch claimed Al-Showaikh was merely trying to delay his departure and refused to consider them. 

“By bluntly concluding that no probative value could be attached to these documents… without any prior assessment of their potential relevance … the [Dutch] took too narrow an approach,” the seven-judge panel wrote. 

Al-Showaikh fled to the Netherlands in 2017, saying he was afraid that the authorities would arrest him because his brother is a political activist. 

The court ordered the Dutch to pay Al-Showaikh €50,000 in damages. Both sides have three months to appeal the ruling.