For the third year in a row, my mother will celebrate her birthday from a prison cell in Bahrain | The Independent

Today is my mother’s birthday. Like every mother, she would love to spend it surrounded by her family and friends. However, for the third year running, my mother will spend her birthday in a cell in Bahrain’s notorious Isa Town Prison, in which she is confined for 23 hours a day.

My mother, Hajer Mansoor, is not a criminal. She has committed no crime. She has been imprisoned, along with my brother and cousin, in response to the human rights campaigning of my husband, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, a refugee in Britain.

The United Nations and several international human rights groups have condemned her incarceration as an act of reprisal.

Our ordeal began over three years ago, while I was on a short visit to Bahrain. On 26 October 2016, my husband protested in London against the visit of Bahrain’s King Hamad to 10 Downing Street.

Source: For the third year in a row, my mother will celebrate her birthday from a prison cell in Bahrain | The Independent