Bahrain faces fresh torture claims over health workers’ trial

Bahrain faces fresh torture claims over health workers’ trial

Most of the medical staff facing trial work at Manama’s Salmaniya Medical Complex

The Bahraini authorities must independently investigate fresh claims that dozens of doctors and nurses on trial before a military court were tortured in detention and made to sign false confessions, Amnesty International said today.



Relatives of the accused have alleged to Amnesty International that security officials at Bahrain’s Criminal Investigations Directorate forced detainees to stand for long periods, deprived them of sleep, beat them with rubber hoses and wooden boards containing nails, and made them sign papers while blindfolded.

One of the detainees, who was bailed last month, was slapped in the face while blindfolded, insulted and threatened: “if you don’t confess I’ll take you to someone who will make you confess”.

The same detainee was forced to remain standing for hours, denied sleep and placed in front of a cold air conditioning unit all night and then interrogated again the next morning while still blindfolded.

“I was so tired that I kept quiet and only answered yes or no,” he told Amnesty International.

“After a while he gave me some papers and made me sign them while I was still blindfolded. I did not see what I signed, but I signed on eight or nine papers.”

The trial of the 48 medical staff, most of whom worked at the Salmaniya Medical Complex, opened at a military court in Manama on Monday but was adjourned until 13 June. Some of the defendants have been released on bail but others remain in prison.

The doctors and nurses face a range of charges arising from their involvement in treating people injured when security forces violently crushed mass pro-reform protests in February and March. They are accused of misusing their positions at Salmaniya hospital to make false allegations of security force violence, to have operated on some patients unnecessarily causing their deaths and to have denied medical treatment to others for sectarian reasons, as well as a string of related offences.

A relative of one of the accused who attended the court yesterday told Amnesty International that the prisoners’ heads had been shaved and most had lost a lot of weight since their arrest weeks ago. The men among them were made to stand in the hot sun for around 30 minutes before the session began: “They were blindfolded and handcuffed, and these were only removed when the session began.” …more