Bahraini authorities should immediately investigate these allegations of torture and guarantee the physical and psychological well-being of the four men. The attorney general has a legal obligation to throw out any coerced confessions and any evidence obtained by ill-treatment, including information that led to the men's indictments.

In early 2010, HRW reported that the government of Bahrain had reverted to using torture [report text] to gain confessions from detainees, after a decade of reform banning such practices. HRW conducted interviews with 20 former detainees who claimed that they had suffered torture [JURIST report] and ill-treatment as early as 2007. The reversion appears to have coincided with the rising political tension between Shia Muslims and the Sunni-run government. The report also claimed that prosecutors have failed to respond appropriately by not launching formal investigations and administering medical examinations. The detainees' allegations were strengthened when a Bahraini court acquitted all defendants on all charges on the basis of medical reports that suggested the defendants had been physically coerced into confessing.