CHAPTER II CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS PREFACE: The international community pays special attention to the promotion and protection of civil and political human rights as a key tool to ensure greater enjoyment of human rights to the full degree. The Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly No. 200A XXI dated December 16, 1966 adopting the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bahrain acceded under Law No. 56 of 2006, is the first legally binding instrument that organizes these rights as a whole. Civil and political rights fall within fundamental human rights and freedoms related to the right to self-determination, the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to effective remedy, the right to life and physical and moral integrity, the right to liberty and security of person, the right to freedom of residence and movement, the right to fair trial, the right to citizenship through recognition of legal personality, the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to hold public office, the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and organization, and the right to participate in public affairs. Accordingly, this Chapter addresses some of these civil and political rights that have faced challenges in practice as a result of the events that took place in Bahrain after February and March 2011 and its subsequent consequences. The most important rights among these rights are the right to life; the right to physical and moral integrity, which includes protection from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the right to individual freedom and personal safety in terms of the inadmissibility of arbitrary arrest or detention; and the right to fair trial at all stages of litigation, in addition to the right to citizenship. This Chapter also tackles the right to freedom of opinion and expression, which encompasses freedom of the press and media, religious freedom, the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and the restrictions governing them, and finally the right to organization, in terms of the right to form and join private or political associations or trade unions. 39