Second Annual Report of the National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR) 2014 - Kingdom of Bahrain • Urging the Government to take action to encourage community partnership to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations in order to raise the level of awareness in all matters relating to the rights of persons with disabilities. • Urging the Government to provide its initial periodic report to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities emanating from the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the prescribed dates. • Considering and allowing the Special Rapporteur on disability of the Human Rights Council to visit the Kingdom. RIGHTS OF THE ELDERLY24: • The Government needs to establish and develop the departments concerned with health care for the elderly, in order to provide the necessary medical care and treatment. • Urging the Government to create more social care homes for the elderly in each province in order to keep the elderly close to their families, and providing a variety of programs to fill the leisure time of the elderly with activities that suit their interests and abilities. • Urging the Government to create an infrastructure that considers the needs of the elderly and their requirements when designing and planning modern cities, public utilities, roads and streets, so as to facilitate their movement and provide them with psychological satisfaction and social security just like the rest of the community groups. • The Government needs to adopt a media policy that establishes social and psychological awareness of issues of older people, and interacts with the transformations experienced by the society so that a public opinion is crystallized that takes into account the needs of all ages. THIRD: RECOMMENDATIONS RELATED TO THE JUDICIAL AUTHORITY (SUPREME JUDICIAL COUNCIL) RIGHT TO LIFE AND THE RIGHTS TO PHYSICAL AND MORAL INTEGRITY • The Special Investigation Unit in the Public Prosecution should be the body entrusted with investigation into allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and should have full independence, according to Istanbul Protocol. • The Special Investigation Unit of the Public Prosecution, in accordance with the provisions of Protocol Istanbul, should be committed to issuing public reports that include the following minimum components: the procedures and methods adopted in assessing evidence, the specific events that took place, the findings drawn by the Unit based on the applicable law, and the recommendations made based on the findings. • Reducing recourse to solitary confinement punishment as disciplinary sanction in line with the findings of the report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the Council of Human Rights. • The need to take the necessary legal accountability procedures in respect of all decisionmakers of security leaders with regard to death cases that occurred in the detention places, as a result of torture or other forms of ill-treatment, which are explicitly referred to in the report of Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. 24 For further information on the Rights of the Elderly, refer to NIHR first annual report for 2013, p. 123. 24