Torture of political detainees, a Royal family affair in Bahrain

Austrian daily: King Hamad’s relatives torture Bahraini revolutionaries
ABNA – 22 May, 2012

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – An Austrian daily quoted Bahraini revolutionary poetess Ayat Al-Ghermezi in its Monday edition as saying relatives of Bahraini King Hamad were among the torturers of arrested protesters in her country.

Ms. Ghermezi who is in Vienna, in an interview with Courier daily seriously criticized the inhumane behavior observed against Bahraini revolutionaries in prisons of Ale-Khalifa clan.

The daily wrote: This twenty-year old Arab poetess has been among the renowned political activists during her country’s more than a year long revolution. She has therefore been tortured and kept in solitary cell.

The Courier reporter has asked Ayat, “You have been reciting your poems for the Bahraini demonstrators for more than a year. What experience do you have respectively?”

The young revolutionary Bahraini lady replied, “After reciting my poems for the demonstrators and getting home my family members suggested that I had better move to a relative’s home and begin living in hiding. On March 20th, 2011 a large number of police forces invaded our home, beat up my brother black and blue, and threatened my entire family members that they would kill everyone, beginning with my four brothers. They also warned that they would come back to find Ayat, but next time they would not be as nice as this time! My father finally gave up and summoned me home where they were.”

She added, “They arrested me and their harsh behavior began right inside the vehicle in which I was being carried to prison. I was imprisoned in Manama. Getting beaten up was in my daily schedule. I was never even permitted to sit down, or to lie down on the floor. At nights I had to lean against a wall when I was dead tired. I was forced to swallow my food portion which was extremely polluted and I was beaten up more severely if I refused to eat, and their argument was: if you want to die you had better die outside this prison.”

The Bahraini revolutionary added, “I was kept in a solitary cell all alone. I was there without ever being taken to a court, and therefore I knew I must be there temporarily. Although no one had ever asked me a single question the prison keepers were always swearing at me, using very indecent words. They said that I was a blot against the reputation of my country, because I was a Shi’a. They forced me to belittle myself and my other family members along with them using very shameful literature. On the eighth day they took me to a room as they had blindfolded me. The piece of cloth with which they had shut my eyes slipped down for a few seconds and I saw the woman who was beating me. She was one of the close relatives of King Hamad. Her name is Noor al-Khalifa. She is a close relative of the king’s wife. In that room she tortured me for a long period using electric shock till I lost conscience.”

Ayat Al-Ghermezi added, “In the prison they threatened that they would severe my tongue. They hit me severely on the head using a long and wide wooden object and many of them used to spit in my mouth.”

She said, “In June, 2011 I was finally taken to a court and sentenced to a year behind the bars, but a month later due to the pressure of the world public opinion and the insistence of the Bahraini protesters I was freed and put under house arrest. I was told to forget all I had seen and heard and threatened that otherwise they would come back and take me to the same hell! …more