Voices Growing Louder – Obama can’t ignore it or sweep it under the rug… we are not going away!

BAHRAIN: Report alleges torture, calls for Obama, U.S. leaders to help
May 17, 2011 | 3:12 pm

More than 800 people have been arrested in the Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain since mid-February. Most of the detainees have been Shiite Muslims who protested against the Sunni monarchy of King Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa.

According to a report Tuesday by New York based nonprofit Human Rights First, most of those detained since anti-government demonstrations began in Bahrain have been arrested without warrants and held at unknown locations, without access to lawyers or relatives.

Timeline: Repression in Bahrain

Those who have been released from detention, or family members who witnessed their arrest, told Human Rights First staffer Brian Dooley about how they or their relatives were snatched late at night by teams of masked men who ransacked their homes and robbed them. Released detainees said they were blindfolded for days, handcuffed and beaten, forced to sing the Bahraini national anthem or to chant pro-government slogans. Several said they had been forced to sign something they were not permitted to see.

Doctors and other healthcare providers have been particularly targeted by security forces, with dozens detained, human rights activists say, in part because medicine is a common career for Bahraini Shiites.

One female physician, who asked not to be named, was among those who spoke to Human Rights First, detailing her experience in detention:

“I was taken from the hospital where I was working during the middle of the day. Four masked men came and took me for an interrogation. They blindfolded me and took me to the investigations office. They were verbally abusing me, saying the doctors at the hospital were sectarian, only treating Shiite patients.
“Then they moved me to another room. I was blindfolded the whole time and a policewoman pushed me along the corridor for more questioning. They wanted me to say that doctors took injured people for operations unnecessarily, they had very minor injuries but doctors made these injuries worse and caused death on purpose in two cases. They said we wanted to make Bahrain look bad, to hurt its international reputation. I said no, patients were really bleeding badly, some from live ammunition wounds, and we didn’t make their wounds worse.

“The policewoman started to beat me and she said, ‘You have to go to the boss; they know how to get a confession out of you.’ They took me to another office. I was standing the whole time, about three hours. It was so terrifying, I was hoping I’d die. You don’t know how long it will continue, what they will do next. You’re blindfolded the whole time; they repeat the same questions over and over and if they don’t get the answer they want they beat you. …more