Bahrain Mirror: The Secretary General of the National Institute for Human Rights Khalifa Al-Fadel said that the Institute's training center trained 248 people in February 2018, noting that 160 of whom work at the National Security Agency.

He added that the Institute has provided a number of general education programs and workshops specialized in national, regional and international human rights mechanisms, as well as held seminars, events and training programs related to the promotion and protection of human rights, which comes within the framework of its broad mandate under the law, aimed at spreading the human rights culture in society.

He said that the increase in the number of trainees to 248 people is due to the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Office of the Inspector General of the National Security Agency to train 160 workers from the Agency (involved in torturing dissidents), as they are supposed to be trained on "human rights principles."

The National Security Agency is considered one of the most notorious state bodies that practice torture to extract confessions from dissidents or blackmail them to work as informants. Human rights organizations have documented statements by a number of activists in a famous report entitled "Chambers of Death" published last year, which was widely received, pressuring the Agency to stop its systematic torture.

Arabic Version