Bahrain detains activist for posts on final day of F1 pre-season testing
Bahraini authorities have arrested a human rights activist and former political prisoner over social media posts, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird).
Ali al-Hajee was arrested on 28 February, the final day of pre-season testing for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
In the run-up to his arrest, while pre-season testing was taking place, he received a series of phone calls telling him to report to the interior ministry’s Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) for interrogation, according to a record of phone calls and messages seen by Middle East Eye. These calls were followed by a written police summons.
Once he was detained, Hajee was interrogated for several hours “about his social media posts on X exposing abuses against political prisoners and advocating for human rights in Bahrain”, Bird said. His X account has since been suspended at the request of his family.
On 1 March, the day after his arrest, Bahrain’s public prosecution ordered his detention pending investigation on charges of “misusing social media”. Hajee’s lawyer was not present. He is currently being held in Dry Dock prison.
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The activist left a video message, which has been shared with MEE, to be played in the event of his arrest. In it, he says: “Continued restrictions on human rights defenders will not deter us from demanding justice and victims’ rights.”
Hajee spent over 10 years in Bahrain’s prisons, between 2013 and 2023, and faces the prospect of imprisonment once again under the kingdom’s strict freedom of expression laws.
'His current detention is a direct result of his activism - authorities are targeting him during Formula One testing to prevent any exposure of human rights abuses'
- Sayed Alwadaei, Bird
He is a huge F1 fan, and became well known for writing several letters to British F1 driver Lewis Hamilton while he was incarcerated in Jau prison.
Sayed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy at Bird, told MEE that Hajee had been “very vocal since his release from prison in June 2023”.
“His current detention is a direct result of his activism - authorities are targeting him during Formula One testing to prevent any exposure of human rights abuses. The message is clear: he is being made an example, and anyone who dares to expose human rights violations will face severe punishment,” he said.
Zainab al-Khamees, Hajee’s wife, said: “Ali is detained simply for his human rights advocacy and interrogated by the interior ministry and the public prosecution without the presence of his lawyer - in blatant violation of Bahraini law.”
“It breaks my heart to have learned that he is held under harsh conditions at Dry Dock prison and was given only a soiled blanket,” she added.
Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, also called for Hajee’s release.
A spokesman for Formula 1 told MEE: “For decades Formula 1 has worked hard be a positive force everywhere it races, including economic, social, and cultural benefits.
"We take our responsibilities on rights very seriously and set high ethical standards for counterparties and those in our supply chain, which are enshrined in contracts, and we pay close attention to their adherence,” it added.
Formula One in Bahrain
After his release from prison in 2023, Hajee led a campaign to release another fellow activist, Mohammed al-Singace, who was eventually given a royal pardon last April along with many other political prisoners.
Singace became famous during the 2011 protests that swept Bahrain in the wake of the Arab Spring, appearing in an Al Jazeera documentary, his white shirt covered in blood.
Hajee was also part of the anti-government uprising, which protested at economic austerity measures, political repression, the targeting of Bahrain’s Shia community and the dominance of the ruling Al Khalifa family.
Bahraini authorities have, since then, continued to heavily police anything they deem to be dissent, often conducting waves of arrests around the time F1 holds its Grand Prix in the kingdom.
In 2023, four Bahraini activists were arrested, threatened, verbally abused and forced to sign a plea restricting their right to protest in the future after they held a protest near the Bahrain international circuit during the F1 race.
During last year’s F1 testing in Bahrain, the son of one of these activists was arbitrarily detained following a house raid.
Bahrain was the first country in the Middle East to host a Grand Prix. In 2021, the motorsport’s longtime supremo, Bernie Ecclestone, told MEE how he did the deal that brought the race to the kingdom in 2004.
The idea had come from the Cambridge-educated Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who became Bahrain’s crown prince in 1999.
Salman got in touch with Ecclestone, who found the young royal to be a “very nice person” and a “very good leader”.
“He was completely behind this because he realised that it would be the best thing that could happen for the country,” Ecclestone said. “It was a case of pointing out what was best for everyone.”
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