Bahrain Silences Student Voices
June 20th, 2011 at 7:33 pm

University of Bahrain students — who now face expulsion if they don’t sign a loyalty pledge to the embattled regime of King Hamed ibn Isa Khalif — are appealing to human rights groups to take up their cause.

Not only does the university require students to sign the pledge — which states “I acknowledge that not signing this document means I do not wish to continue my education in the University of Bahrain” — but the kingdom’s Education Ministry has also adopted a “zero-tolerance policy” to any sort of political discussion or activism at the school.

The crackdowns on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly on the campus come on the heels of ongoing anti-government protests in Bahrain as well as escalating tensions between the Gulf state’s Sunni and Shiite Muslim populations.

Described by Human Rights Watch in 2005 as “a poster child for political reform in the Middle East”, Bahrain has grown increasingly intolerant of dissent since the civil unrest began earlier this year. Newspapers and the Internet are now being routinely censored by the regime and since February more than 60 journalists have been arrested, threatened or fired because of their work.

The loyalty pledges and the ban on student activism were introduced following a violent campus altercation between Shiite protestors and Sunnis in March.

“Many friends of mine had to drop the school because they could not sign this pledge,” said a source familiar with the University of Bahrain who spoke with FrumForum on condition of anonymity.

One student said his family wants him to sign the pledge because “’there are no other universities who will accept me if they kick me out.”

He went on to describe the consequences for refusing to sign the pledge: “If we decide to not sign it, they call us to go to the police station and we can’t get out from there except if we sign it. That has happened to some other students — they were at the police station seven hours until they signed.” ..more

Doctors in Bahrain splashed patients with blood, military court told
22/06/2011 – 12:48 am – Hugh Tomlinson Manama – Last updated June 21 2011 12:01AM

Doctors splashed bags of blood over patients to exaggerate their wounds, it was claimed at the trial of 48 medics accused of plotting to overthrow the monarchy in Bahrain.
They were also said to have used Salmaniya hospital as a terrorist base, taking hostages, hoarding guns and commandeering ambulances to run weapons to Pearl Square, which was the hub of the protests against the ruling regime in the capital in February and March.

The trial has prompted an international outcry amid accusations that detainees have been tortured and forced to sign false confessions.
Bahrain has been accused of staging show trials to justify its violence against anti-government protesters, which left more than 30 people dead. About 500 people have been arrested since the regime moved to crush the unrest in March. Those charged are now on trial before a military court.

Seven prosecution witnesses appeared yesterday to describe a collapse of control at Salmaniya, which bore the brunt of casualties when government troops first attacked Pearl Square on February 17 in a pre-dawn raid that killed four people. The witnesses told that the court that with the foreign press swarming around the hospital, the doctors played to the cameras.
“One of the women [accused] handed out blood bags to soak the patients and make their wounds look worse,” a detective for the Interior Ministry told the court.
The only evidence of this came from confessions signed by the defendants, and the testimony of “confidential witnesses”.

The medics all claim that they have been tortured in custody and forced to sign papers while blindfolded. Human rights groups have received allegations that detainees have been beaten with rubber hoses and wooden boards studded with nails. One doctor described to The Times how he was made to stand hooded for hours in a cold room before being handed unseen documents to sign. …more

Type : Report
Title : Do No Harm: A Call for Bahrain to End Systematic Attacks on Doctors and Patients
Source : Physicians for Human Rights
Date Added: 21-Jun-2011
Publication Date : 1-Apr-2011

Thousands of protesters in the small island Kingdom of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf took to the streets calling for government reform in February and March 2011. The Government’s response was brutal and systematic: shoot civilian protesters, detain and torture them, and erase all evidence. On the frontline, treating hundreds of these wounded civilians, doctors had first-hand knowledge of government atrocities.

This report details systematic and targeted attacks against medical personnel, as a result of their efforts to provide unbiased care for wounded protestors. The assault on healthcare workers and their patients constitutes extreme violations of the principle of medical neutrality and are grave breaches of international law.

While in Bahrain, PHR investigators spoke with several eyewitnesses of abducted physicians, some of whom were ripped from their homes in the middle of the night by masked security forces. For each doctor, nurse, or medic that the government disappears, many more civilians’ lives are impacted as patients go untreated.

Physicians for Human Rights uncovered egregious abuses against patients and detainees including torture, beating, verbal abuse, humiliation, and threats of rape and killing. Our report also includes documentation of other violations of medical neutrality including the beating, abuse, and threatening of six Shi’a physicians at Salmaniya Hospital; government security forces stealing ambulances and posing as medics; the militarization of hospitals and clinics that obstruct medical care, and rampant fear that prevents patients from seeking urgent medical treatment. see report here

WASHINGTON, June 21 (UPI) — Mercenaries from Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan are being recruited by officials in Bahrain to help restore security to the country, a Saudi scholar claimed.

Bahrain is under increasing scrutiny for the response by the Sunni minority leadership to a Shiite uprising in the country. Doctors without Borders claimed that Bahraini security officials were using hospitals as torture chambers as part of a crackdown.

Ali al-Ahmad, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, told Radio Australia’s Contact Asia program that the royal family was recruiting mercenaries from Asia to help with its crackdown.
Ahmad said there were no Shiites in the national security forces. Given the fact that Sunnis are in the minority, he said, the country has a “need to import mercenaries” from other places. He claimed “the majority of them” are coming from Pakistan, though he said he’s seen reports of some from countries such as Somalia, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Washington was criticized for its support for Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Bahrain, however, was recently added to the country’s list of human rights abusers.
…more

Bahrain: A program on Bahrain TV presents confessions of prisoners and targets opposition political leaders and human rights activists.
June 21st, 2011 – BYSHR

Every Monday at 9:30 pm, Bahrain TV (the governmental channel) presents a program entitled “Dialogue with Saeed Al-Hamad”. The program focuses on presenting confessions of prisoners sentenced by the Military Court, or individuals that have spoken to the media during the protests in Bahrain since the 14th of February. The program also targets prominent human rights activists due to their work in exposing the human rights violations and political opposition figures. …more

Updates about the trial of prominent oppositional leaders and Human Rights defenders

Update – 22 May 2011 – BCHR

At the hearing of the prominent 21 activists, Lieutenant Isa Sultan was brought as a witness. Isa Sultan is the person in charge of the case and investigations. According to people present at the hearing, he was sweating and appeared very nervous. He said that the defendants were working in coordination with Iran as they all followed Velayat-Al-Faqih and wanted an Islamic Republic. He also said that they received payments of “Khums” which is Islamic taxation. The lawyer asked him how he knew this if there were checks or such, and he responded that they received it all in cash and then used it to buy gas and car tires for the youth to burn on the streets. He then said that the defendants were receiving directions from Hezbullah who told them they must achieve a constitutional monarchy.

Two other witnesses were then questioned who were in charge of the arrest of AbdulJalil AlMuqdad and Hassan Mushaima. The first person was Nawaf Aldoseri and another person who said that they conducted the arrests in a legal manner. When they were about to question Bader Ghaith (the person in charge of Abdulhadi Alkhawaja’s arrest and named as a top torturer by several victims during previous cases) the lawyer asked that the other 3 witnesses be brought for questioning. Salah Alkhawaja’s wife immediately identified Bader AlGhaith as being the person who beat her when arresting her husband and sexually harassing her. The court was adjourned till Wednesday the 25th of this month.

During the last hearing the judge ordered that the detainees be taken out from solitary confinement, but many of them remain in solitary confinement. In the other cases, security personnel had brought a mattress into the cells of the detainees where they were held in solitary confinement and an Indian or Philipino prisoner who have criminal charges to stay in their cells with them. The detainees are not able to even communicate with them due to the language barrier.
[Read more →]

Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Update on Ayat
Posted on the Justice for Bahrain facebook group by Mohammed Sadiq today, 21/06/11

Ayat’s family went to visit her in prison this morning having been told that they could come, but when they arrived at the gates they were told that they can not see her because they didn’t register for the visit and the reason they called them was to register for the next visit. However, after her family protested, they manged to see her for 5 minutes only and were constantly accompanied by a prison guard. Her brother that the prison guard was listing to every word and kept interrupting in the conversation, so they could not ask her about her treatment in the prison she had recently moved to, especially that this prison is for criminals who serving sentences for murder, drugs, prostitution etc. Her brother also noted that his sister had lost a lot of weight.

Her brother stated, regarding the video featured yesterday on Bahrain TV showing Ayat apologizing for reading her poem, that it was recorded during her torture period. The video is actually 20 minutes long and the officials only showed 1 minute.

Ayat’s appeal is tomorrow. We urge you to pray for her and contact human right organisations to put pressure on the Bahraini government to release her as she should not even be in prison since she has committed NO crime.

Ayat was told her about the global support and solidarity for her case and she sends her salutes and thanks every one who helped in her campaign. …source

UN Human Rights Council: Double-standards tarnish positive initiatives at international rights body | 20/06/2011

International community fails to address human rights crisis in Bahrain

(Geneva – 17 June 2011) On Friday, the UN Human Rights Council wrapped up its 17th Session, adopting a series of positive resolutions on Libya, Yemen and other issues, but failed to address the grave and deteroirating human rights situation in Bahrain.

The human rights crisis in Bahrain has become increasingly severe since mid-March 2011, when the government violently put down pro-democracy and anti-government street protests. Government authorities have launched a harsh campaign of retributive repression against individuals who supported or participated in the protests that began in mid-February, including targeting demonstrators, opposition leaders, peaceful critics, rights activists, journalists, doctors, labour unionists, and students.

According to Laila Matar, UN representative of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), “Arbitrary detention, allegations of torture, extrajudicial killings and other serious rights violations have become routine in Bahrain, but the Human Rights Council continues to turn a blind eye, effectively abandoning the pro-democracy movement in the country.”

Saudi Arabia has lobbied hard behind the scenes at the Council to ensure no collective action is taken on Bahrain. “Member states of the “Western group,” including the United States, and other governments, have demonstrated blatant double-standards when dealing with various crackdowns in response to pro-democracy protests in the Arab region,” said Jeremie Smith, Director of the Geneva Office of CIHRS, “While Libya, Syria and Yemen have been dealt with by the Council through Special Sessions and strong joint statements, the situation in Bahrain has largely been ignored. This type of inconsistency does great damage to the credibility of this Council.” …more

250 people to participate in Bahrain’s National Dialogue
13:26, June 21, 2011

Bahrain’s National Dialogue would witness 250 representatives from political groups, unions, human rights societies and civil society organizations.

The dialogue headed by parliament chairman Khalifa Al Dhahrani will begin on July 1.

The National Democratic Action Society (NDAS) and Democratic Progressive Tribune, who are part of a seven-member alliance of opposition group, have confirmed their participation in the dialogue.

“We will participate in the National Dialogue , but certainly want our leader Ibrahim Sharif to be released before the process,” a NDAS spokesperson told Xinhua. Sharif is one of the 21 suspects standing on trial on charges of links with foreign power to overthrow the regime.

The largest opposition group, Al Wefaq National Islamic Society has not yet made its stance clear whether to participate in the dialogue. …more