On October 21, 2010, the Bahraini government reported that 43 Amnesty Decrees Laws have been issued since 2001 pardoning 2639 convicts indicted for involvement in terror or state security cases. Following the implementation of the February 5 Amnesty Law, Sheikh Hamad officially abolished the State Security Law and State Security Courts that were implemented during his father's rule. One year later in February 2002 after the national referendum, Sheikh Hamad pronounced Bahrain a constitutional monarchy and changed his title from Amir to King. In February 2010, Human Rights Watch hosted a news conference during the release of its report on recent allegations of torture in Bahrain. The report indicated that Bahrain had successfully ended the use of torture for a good part of the last decade but raised concerns over a recent lack of interest for the government to investigate newly documented cases of abuse. Since the release of this report, hundreds of young men and 23 more prominent citizens, including four Shia clerics were arrested just weeks before the country's parliamentary elections on charges of spreading false information, inciting violence, fomenting terrorism or plotting the government's overthrow. Independent observers reckon that the accusations of torture against those who have been arrested are credible and believe that the government is overreacting without a shred of evidence to support that the opposition is plotting to overthrow the current government. According to an August 2010 article featured in The Economist, “Rising sectarian tension, the government’s overreaction to the protests and the blatant harassment of opposition parties, particularly the main Shia-dominated one, are all tarnishing Bahrain’s reputation as a fledgling if limited democracy.”