HAQ: Movement of Liberties and Democracy- Bahrain
حق: حركة الحريات والدموقراطية- البحرين
الـحـقـوق للـجـمـيـع .. Rights for All
www.haaq.org, Email: HAAQ.Bahrain@gmail.com, HRB.BAHRAIN@gmail.com
مـكـتـب حـقـوق الإنـسـان Human Rights Bureau
Urgent Press Release
HAQ concerned about indirect torture- detainees exposed infectious disease inside prison
HAQ: Movement of Liberties and Democracy- Bahrain
حق: حركة الحريات والدموقراطية- البحرين
الـحـقـوق للـجـمـيـع .. Rights for All
www.haaq.org, Email: HAAQ.Bahrain@gmail.com, HRB.BAHRAIN@gmail.com
مـكـتـب حـقـوق الإنـسـان Human Rights Bureau
Urgent Press Release
HAQ concerned about indirect torture- detainees exposed infectious disease inside prison
Karzakan detainees terminate a hunger strike when demands for improving conditions are met
Reports from Dry Dock prison indicated that the security authorities had, once again, joined three new cases of criminal prisoners seriously ill with infectious diseases with December detainees (15 detainees, including well known human rights defenders). According to these reports, the new prison inmates are suffering from epidemic TB, which is infectious through air.
This is not the first case in which the criminal prisoners sick with infectious diseases are joined with political prisoners and activists. A month ago, two prison inmates were found to be suffering from the same disease. Earlier, cases of hepatitis other diseases were also found in the same prison cell.
HAQ casts doubts on the intentions of these “old” practices which aim to permanently damage the health of the detained activists, for the rest of their lives. HAQ, therefore, considers that what happens to those activists is a form of an indirect torture of the detainees to punish them for their activities in the previous period. HAQ sympathizes with the relatives of the detainees and their concerns about their sons for the coerced exposure to communicable diseases without the ability to protect themselves. HAQ holds the authorities fully responsible for the safety of those detainees who were not infected with these diseases before their arrest last December. A fact confirmed by the medical committee which examined them few weeks back and affirmed their exposure to torture in front of the judge in the session before the former.
On the other hand, two days have elapsed on the hunger strike carried out by the detainees of Karzakan incident resulting in the collapse of more than one detainee, among them Mohamed Mansoor Makki and Hassan Kadhom. While some striking detainees were transferred to the military hospital after collapsing and losing consciousness, reports indicated that some of them were subjected to threats of return to the Criminal Investigations Bureau (CIB) for torture if the hunger strike was not disengaged.
It has been confirmed that later today, the detainees have halted their hunger strike after the security authorities responded to some of their demands associated with improving the detention conditions, which include:
1) open the doors to all cells and allow detainees to meet each other.
2) allow the detainees to be exposed to sunlight and fresh air outside the cells.
3) stop putting cloths laundry inside a bathroom and toilets and allow for then to be laid outside the jail in the open air
4) open cell windows for fresh air.
5) Provide adequate and clean food
6) allow for private calls to families
7) allow for visits for a period of not less than an hour each visit.
8) allow access to appropriate treatment and provision of medicines
9) stop insults and slander to faith, doctrine imams and honour by the jail officers
HAQ appeals to local and international organizations, especially the International Red Cross, to intervene to protect all detainees in custody in relation to recent events as they are exposed to ill-treatment and exposure to infectious diseases. This appears to be a revenge of the security apparatus because of the position taken by the international organizations due to the information of torture and inhuman treatment, which they suffered during the their presence at the notorious CIB.
Time: 6 pm local time (3 pm GMT)
June 10, 2008
