By Joshua Colangelo-Bryan
Published in The Huffington Post
February 25, 2010
By Joshua Colangelo-Bryan
Published in The Huffington Post
February 25, 2010
From 2004 through 2007, I represented six Bahraini detainees who were held at Guantanamo Bay. During that time, I informed the Bahraini government about abuses my clients said they suffered at the hands of the US government. Bahraini government officials, parliamentarians, and the media, rightly condemned this treatment outright. Not once was I ever asked for corroboration to show that abuses had actually occurred (even though there often was corroboration).
I was also the author of a Human Rights Watch report, released earlier this month, which concluded that Bahraini security officials engaged in torture and other abuses. To my surprise, many of the same Bahraini officials and parliamentarians who immediately condemned the US for its treatment of my Guantanamo clients, said just as quickly that the Human Rights Watch report should not be believed.
Why? Well, they claim the report is based solely on the accounts of political dissidents (suggesting that allegations by dissidents should automatically be discredited) and that nothing in the report corroborates the accounts.
It is disappointing, if sadly predictable, that those Bahrainis who were willing to accept the allegations of abuse made by their fellow citizens detained abroad, automatically reject the credibility of similar allegations made by their fellow citizens detained at home. Moreover, those who assert that the report lacks corroboration must not have read it. In addition to victim testimonies, the report, “Torture Redux: The Revival of Physical Coercion during Interrogations in Bahrain,” cites numerous documents created by Bahraini-government personnel, including medical examiners, that substantiate the accounts of torture we heard.
By way of just one example, a report by Ministry of Health doctors regarding detainees in the Karzakan case (one of those discussed in the report) found so many injuries consistent with allegations of abuse that the judge – a member of the ruling family – dismissed all charges against all defendants. By itself this is far more corroboration than anyone in Bahrain ever asked for in connection with my Guantanamo clients, and there are many similar examples in the report.
On the issue of corroboration, I often said that even if people thought all detainees were liars, US government documents proved that abuses occurred. Well, the same is true here. Even if you suspect that all of the individuals we interviewed offered false testimony – and we explained why we don’t believe this was the case – Bahraini government documents leave little doubt that abuses occurred.
Officials also complain that we did not address the Bahraini government’s responses to the allegations of torture. That complaint is false. We devoted an entire section in the report to oral statements made to us by Bahraini government officials who denied that anyone had been abused. The fact that the report included no additional responses was because government officials ignored letters we wrote in October and December 2009 requesting more detailed information.
In fact, it was only a day before we released the report that the Ministry of Interior provided a written response. What did it say? Mostly that Bahraini law prohibits torture (a point we don’t dispute) and that Bahrain is committed to ensuring that torture does not occur (we can only hope). It also spoke generally about the cases from which the accounts of torture that we heard arose. Strangely, the response said that one of the three cases we investigated, the al-Hujaira case, concerned two individuals with al Qaeda connections; in actuality, the case involved dozens of detainees supposedly sent to Syria for terrorist training by Bahraini opposition figures. This obvious mistake suggests that someone was asked to draft a response at the last minute.
The response also made several specific points that were demonstrably false. For example, it claimed that the decision of the court in the Karzakan case to dismiss all charges had nothing to do with physical abuse. Anyone who reads the court’s decision will see that issues of abuse were crucial. The response also said that doctors in the Jidhafs case (the third case discussed in the report) testified that certain injuries they found on detainees could have resulted from the normal use of handcuffs. Court minutes reflect that the doctors said the injuries they found would not have been so caused.
We recognize that others in the Bahraini government indicated that our report raised issues requiring additional attention and investigation. We hope that an impartial investigation is conducted and that its findings are shared with the Bahraini people. As for me, I will continue to advocate for those who have been abused, regardless of race or religion, and regardless of whether the abuses occur in Guantanamo or Bahrain.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/05/bahrain-end-torture-security-suspects