Pregnant wife’s terrifying ordeal
By NOOR TOORANI
Published: 3rd May 2008
THE pregnant wife of one of eight Bahraini teachers arrested in Saudi Arabia two months ago is worried that her husband could miss the birth of their first child. Kawthar Yousif, the 20-year-old wife of Majeed Al Ghasra, is now five months pregnant.
She says she is terrified that her husband could still be behind bars when she goes into labour.
“I don’t think I can do this without him,” she told the GDN.
“If things keep going the way they are then I’m afraid he will miss the birth of our child.”
Pregnant wife’s terrifying ordeal
By NOOR TOORANI
Published: 3rd May 2008
THE pregnant wife of one of eight Bahraini teachers arrested in Saudi Arabia two months ago is worried that her husband could miss the birth of their first child. Kawthar Yousif, the 20-year-old wife of Majeed Al Ghasra, is now five months pregnant.
She says she is terrified that her husband could still be behind bars when she goes into labour.
“I don’t think I can do this without him,” she told the GDN.
“If things keep going the way they are then I’m afraid he will miss the birth of our child.”
Ms Yousif visited her husband in a Riyadh prison last weekend along with his father and two brothers.
They travelled to Saudi Arabia as part of a group of 32 relatives who went to see the eight teachers.
It was the first time the men were allowed contact with their families since they left Bahrain for Riyadh on February 29.
They were due to return to Bahrain the next day, but simply disappeared.
“They were supposed to return the next morning and I stayed up all night waiting for him, but when he didn’t call me I started to worry because it’s not like him to not call,” Ms Yousif, a university student, said as she tried unsuccessfully to fight back tears.
She described the next morning, when she called her husband only to find his mobile phone was switched off, as the most horrific moment of her life.
“I felt like I could have a heart attack any minute, it was a horrible feeling.”
“We spent three days not knowing whether he was dead or alive.
“If that had gone on for any longer the worry would have killed me,” she said.
Ms Yousif said it was only three days after the eight teachers went missing that a Saudi official confirmed they had been arrested.
“We weren’t happy to find out he’s in jail, but the relief that my husband was alive was breathtaking,” she said.
“I was so happy that he was well and breathing.”
Families claim the men, all teachers at Al Jaberiya Secondary Boys School and Shaikh Abdulla Secondary School, were detained after straying into a restricted area while travelling.
They say the teachers had cameras and laptops with them when they entered the restricted zone.
Mr Al Ghasra told his wife that when they got lost and asked for directions, police officers were “laughing and joking” with them.
However, he said as soon as they were taken to the police station all that changed.
“He told me that they took things very lightly because they were merely asking for directions and the police officers were friendly,” she said.
“The teachers were told to follow the officers to the police station for routine procedures.
“But as soon as they reached the station the officers changed 180 degrees and separated them.”
Mr Al Ghasra, like his colleagues, has now been held in solitary confinement for the past two months.
He has reportedly been prevented from seeing them and other inmates and only been allowed out into the courtyard for 10 to 15 minutes a week.
“His cell is like a cage in which the roof is a grill where the prison guards can see him from the top,” she said.
“There is a TV in his prison cell, but they only switched it on once and just for a few minutes.”
She said her husband was confident the Bahrain government was doing everything in its power to bring the teachers back home.
However, she was less optimistic.
“The government is not doing anything to secure their release,” she claimed.
“All we keep hearing are promises that they will be released soon, but when?”
Ms Yousif has now moved out of her home in Bani Jamra and is now living in her father’s house in the same area.
“I couldn’t stay in that house any longer without Majeed so I moved back into my father’s house,” she explained.
“Every day I imagine what I will do when the actual day comes when he will come home and walk through the door.”
The seven other teachers are: Mohammed Mahdi Khalil, 30, Sayed Ahmed Alawi, 28, Abbas Ahmed Ibrahim, 31, Isa Abdulhassan Ahmed, 26, Mohammed Hassan Ali Marhoon, 30, and Ibrahim Merzn Al Haddad, 28, and Mohammed Abdulla Al Momen, 32.
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