UNITED NATIONS, May 20: The international community should push Bahrain to adopt specific measures to ensure free expression and peaceful assembly, end torture, free political prisoners, and establish credible accountability mechanisms for continuing abuses, The Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Sunday.

It also asked United Nations member states to scrutinise Bahrain’s deplorable human rights record during the country’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council on May 21.

Under the UPR process, the Human Rights Council examines the human rights record of each UN member state once every four years. The process began in 2008, and Bahrain is the first country to undergo a second UPR round.

“The UPR should focus on Bahrain’s routine suppression of basic political rights like freedom of association as well as the grave human rights violations committed in the brutal 2011 crackdown against pro-democracy protesters,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Countries should ask Bahrain why it hasn’t released scores of prisoners whose only crimes were to call for greater political rights.”

The voice of the international community has been subdued regarding Bahrain’s manifold violations, especially compared with the international response to abuses in Libya, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, Human Rights Watch said.