Accounts of torture and ill-treatment of doctors and medics at detention centers
To the left: Rula Alsafar(Chairman of Bahrain Nurse Society) and to the right Dr.Ali AlEkri (Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon) – Both detained.
6th June, 2011
Stephen Soldz, President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), stated recently, “We cannot be silent. Many of our members are health providers. The government of Bahrain has arrested nearly 50 doctors and other health providers, many of whom have been tortured. Their ‘crime’ is refusing to let injured protesters die and informing the world press about the abuses they witnessed. “[1]
The trial of 47 medical staff due to start today has been rescheduled until next week.[2] Scores of other doctors and nurses, however, were brought before courts on Monday and charged with various offences.[3]
Accounts of torture and ill-treatment of doctors and medics at detention centers
To the left: Rula Alsafar(Chairman of Bahrain Nurse Society) and to the right Dr.Ali AlEkri (Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon) – Both detained.
6th June, 2011
Stephen Soldz, President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), stated recently, “We cannot be silent. Many of our members are health providers. The government of Bahrain has arrested nearly 50 doctors and other health providers, many of whom have been tortured. Their ‘crime’ is refusing to let injured protesters die and informing the world press about the abuses they witnessed. “[1]
The trial of 47 medical staff due to start today has been rescheduled until next week.[2] Scores of other doctors and nurses, however, were brought before courts on Monday and charged with various offences.[3]
The Bahraini government justified the firing of many people connected with the protest movement in the following way:
“A government official said around 1,200 people had been dismissed in total but several hundred had been reinstated after complaints to the Labour Ministry.” He said 23 doctors and 24 nurses would be tried before a military court. “They abused their profession and prevented some people from entering the Salmaniya hospital,” said Abdul-Aziz bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, Senior International Counselor at the Information Affairs Authority.[4]
Both the government and opposition claim that the Salmaniya hospital has become a site of sectarian tension. However, it is quite clear that it was the presence of military and police inside the hospital which sparked this tension, with security forces interfering with the doctors’ work. It is not credible that doctors would refuse treatment for Sunnis, because the reform protests have been deliberately non-sectarian. It is the government which is trying to heighten the sectarian nature of the conflict, in order to frighten the Sunni minority into supporting its repressive policies.
This CBS report from April shows that doctors have been targeted from the start of the protests:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTTVNFV9qdU
The regime is afraid of these medical workers because they reflect the non-sectarian nature of the protests. Their Hippocratic oath means they have to treat patients regardless of politics or religion. They are a symbol of the unity of the majority against the oppression of the government and its cronies, and therefore they are dangerous. As long as the Al-Khalifa can keep the people divided, they can retain power, which is why they reacted particularly strongly to protestors campaigning with the slogan “No Sunni, No Shi’a, just Bahraini”.[5]
BCHR believes that one of the main reasons behind targeting doctors is because they are the most important witnesses of the crimes committed against protesters. They have seen the dead and wounded, they have the experience and knowledge to report what they have seen, and if any international human rights delegation came to Bahrain (the UN OHCHR mission for example) they would want to speak to the doctors. If the regime manages to either silence the doctors through torture, or to discredit them through show-trials, then there will be no more witnesses. We must not let the government get away with these crimes.
Many doctors are afraid to speak out about abuses they have seen or suffered for fear of further persecution. Some medical workers have spoken anonymously to the international media, such as the woman interviewed by PBS recently.[6]
Many more have spoken to international journalists about the abuse suffered, especially by female doctors, while being interrogated by police.[7] The result of this abuse of doctors and the politicization of the neutral-zones of hospital care, especially Salmaniya, means that injured protestors are now afraid to go to get medical attention for fear of being arrested and tortured. This makes it difficult to estimate now how many people are being injured by the security forces, as they will prefer to find private medical care, which could lead to avoidable deaths.
The aggression and strength of the government crackdown can be seen in the experiences of groups such as doctors, journalists, human rights defenders and even sportspeople. Bahrain has had the highest per capita arrests and second highest per capita deaths of any Arab country since the protests began in February. The US has been trying to ignore the problem, and Obama reserved his weakest criticism for the Al-Khalifa regime, urging them only to begin dialogue with the opposition. Henry Kissinger has admitted recently that the US views the revolution in Bahrain as contrary to its interest in Sunni-dominated stability in the Arabian Peninsula.[8] If we cannot expect the US to intervene or even verbally censure the Bahrain government, it is up to international public opinion to bring the government to the discussion table and release all political prisoners.
John Lubbock
Advocacy Officer, Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, London, 6 June, 2011
Accounts of torture and ill-treatment of doctors and medics at detention centers:
Bahraini female doctors recount detention ‘horror’
“I advise you that we will get you to say whatever we want, either by you saying it willingly, or we will beat you like a donkey and torture you until you say it,” one female doctor said, citing her interrogator.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/art..
Blindfolded, beaten and tortured: grim new testimony reveals fate of Bahrain’s persecuted doctors
Details of the assaults, collected by the families of those detained and passed to The Independent, show that at least 40 medical staff were arrested in nine health centres between 10 April and 27 April. Dr Ahmed Jamal, president of the Bahrain Medical Society, was arrested at his clinic on 2 May.
Among 11 female doctors and nurses arrested, eight were released on 4 May but three remain detained, including Rula Jasim al-Saffar, 49, president of the Bahrain Nursing Society who has been held in custody for five weeks.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middl..
‘They beat and slapped me and called me whore and dirty Shia’
Bahrain: a doctor’s story
One consultant and family physician described in an email how she had been beaten, abused and humiliated and left with a black eye and bruises on her back during a seven-hour detention at the Central Province Police centre. Fearing for the safety of her children, she asked to remain anonymous.
http://www.independent.co.uk/..
Bahrain medics claim confession under torture
“We were blindfolded for about 10 hours. Only at the time when [we] were videotaped did they take the blindfolds off. When we started to talk, if they didn’t like the things that we were saying they stopped us and told us again that we should say this this and this.”
Video – http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/20..
One experienced Shia doctor, whose identity we agreed to hide, said she treated all her regular hospital patients by day and demonstrators at the roundabout at night.
“And during the interrogation, whenever I said something which they don’t like it, they will slap me again. And I was beaten also by a hose on my hands and my thighs. When I finished, they took me back to the other room, and they came to me later on. In the dark while my — still I was blindfolded, they gave me the paper of confession to sign it and thumb — thumbprint without knowing what is there in that paper.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world..
Dr. Farida Al-Dalal spoke in an interview to Aljazeera, of being subjected to ill-treatment and torture, after she was detained for a day, whereas the bruises and the marks of beating were clear on her face.
she was beaten, slapped on the face, hit by a heavy hose on the forearms and legs and kicked in her back. They covered her eyes with other detainees and commanded them to run to slam into the walls. Moreover, they ordered them to dance, and insulted them verbally by calling them “Dirty Shiites”, “Whore” and “Idiots who do not deserve wearing the white coat.”
Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNko6i8qrLA
A doctor who has been released but does not know if charges will be pressed said she was threatened with rape.
“They said ‘We are 14 guys in this room, do you know what we can do to you? It’s the emergency law and we’re free to do what we want’,” she said.
http://www.reuters.com/article..
others:
Al-Jazeera : Bahraini medics recount hospital horror
Video, 15 March 2011 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pr6rbhv80c
CNN – Bahrain security forces torture doctors, medics and patients
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ_iJI1FJ2I
The Independent – Bahrain medical staff ‘tortured for confessions’
Doctors and nurses put on trial in Bahrain yesterday told relatives they were beaten with hoses and wooden boards embedded with nails and made to eat faeces. They also had to stand without moving for hours, or even days, and were deprived of sleep in order to force them to sign false confessions.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bahr..
References
[2]http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WOR..
[3]http://english.aljazeera.net/news/mid..
[4]http://www.reuters.com/artic..
[5]http://bahrainipolitics.blogspo..
[6]http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/worl..
[7]http://www.google.com/hostednews..
[8]http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-ne..