E/CN.4/2002/77/Add.2 page 5 Introduction 1. At the fifty-third session of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, the permanent representative of Bahrain to the United Nations Office at Geneva announced that his Government had decided to invite the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to visit Bahrain on dates to be set in consultation with the Working Group. Initially scheduled to take place during the course of 1999, the visit did not take place because of practical problems encountered by the Bahraini authorities. On 6 July 1999, the Bahraini Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs wrote to the Vice-Chairman of the Working Group asking for the visit to be deferred to a later date. After further consultations, the visit was scheduled for 25 February to 3 March 2001. Because some of its members were unavailable, however, the Working Group had in turn to ask for a postponement, and the visit finally took place from 19 to 24 October 2001. The delegation comprised two numbers of the Working Group, its Vice-Chairman, Mr. Louis Joinet, and Mrs Leïla Zerrougui (Algeria), accompanied by the Group’s secretary. 2. Throughout its visit, the delegation enjoyed the full cooperation of the Bahraini Government. The authorities granted it unrestricted access to all prisons and police station holding cells. It was able to speak freely and without witnesses to prisoners it selected at random. It visited all the Bahraini prisons in which men and women are held in pre-trial detention or while serving sentence, and the rehabilitation centres for minors (for more details, see chapter III). The delegation members thank the Bahraini authorities for their cooperation; they also thank the office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Coordinator in Manama for its help and logistical support. 3. The delegation met Government figures on various occasions. In Manama, it met the Foreign Minister, the Interior Minister, the governor of the capital (Manama), the Director of Legal Affairs, the Chairman and members of the Shura (Consultative) Council’s Human Rights Committee, members of the committee responsible for giving effect to the National Action Charter, judicial officers and officials of the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs, the Director-General of Prisons and members of the Ministry of the Interior’s commission on human rights. 4. As regards non-governmental sources, the delegation had working meetings with the President of the Bar association, several representatives of female civil society and a delegation from the Bahraini Human Rights Society. 5. The delegation also had working meetings with officials from UNDP, the United Nations Information Centre, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).