Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the announcement by the government of Bahrain on 12 March that it will release 1,486 detainees for “humanitarian reasons, in the backdrop of current circumstances", what representations they have made to the government of Bahrain about the release of Sayed Nizar Alwadaei, who was deemed arbitrarily detained by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on 7 January 2019; and what discussions they have had with that government about the reasons why Sayed Nizar Alwadaei and other vulnerable political prisoners, including Hassan Mushaima and Abduljalil al-Singace, were reportedly declared ineligible for release.

We welcome news of a royal pardon for 901 Bahraini prisoners and the conversion to alternative sentencing of a further 585 individuals' sentences. We have previously raised the cases of Sayed Nizar Al Wadaei, Hassan Mushaima, Abduljalil al-Singace and Nabeel Rajab at a senior level with the Government of Bahrain, including health concerns. We continue to monitor these cases.