Sandeep Singh Grewal
Staff Reporter
The Public Prosecutor yesterday refused permission to a Bahrain Human Rights Society team, including doctors and psychiatrists, to visit detainees.
“The Public Prosecution said we could not include medical practitioners in our team. It was to be our first meeting today with those arrested in connection with disturbances last month,” society deputy secretary general Abdulla Al Derrazi told the Tribune last night. “We cancelled it.”
Sandeep Singh Grewal
Staff Reporter
The Public Prosecutor yesterday refused permission to a Bahrain Human Rights Society team, including doctors and psychiatrists, to visit detainees.
“The Public Prosecution said we could not include medical practitioners in our team. It was to be our first meeting today with those arrested in connection with disturbances last month,” society deputy secretary general Abdulla Al Derrazi told the Tribune last night. “We cancelled it.”
“We negotiated with the Public Prosecution but in vain. The ban on doctors from meeting detainees is in violation of international norms,” he said.
“I am not sure whether we will be able to talk to them during two other meetings slated for January 31 and February 3. The same problem will crop up. We will try to negotiate with the authorities again. The three visits were planned following allegations by families that their detained loved ones were tortured. The Public Prosecution had given a go ahead to us.
“We formed a team of six, including doctors, to meet the detainees. When we apprised the Public Prosecution of the team they said no doctors would be allowed,” Al Derrazi said.
“Why cannot we visit the detainees with doctors? This is an international norm and doctors accompany rights group for such meetings,” he said.
An official from the General Prosecution had said the authorities detained 22 men in connection with the incidents. “The visits were supposed to be made without the police presence to ensure transparency. We are disappointed. The authorities have not clarified why doctors cannot be part of our team,” Al Derrazi said. He said the society had planned to have United Nations forms filled in case detainees were tortured or ill-treated. “If we see any rights violation we will follow international procedures and register a case,” he said.
The society, which has a prisons monitoring committee, was the first rights group to be allowed to visit the Jaw Prison on two occasions in late 2005.
The Ministry of Interior has refuted as baseless torture allegations. Brigadier Ibrahim Al Ghaith of the ministry had earlier told the Tribune that his department solved 24 cases since January last year and was investigating eight others. These cover complaints ranging from civil cases to those of mistreatment in prison.
The spokesperson of the defunct Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said international experts would be arriving in the Kingdom to monitor detainees’ court trials.