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ABC: Arrested Bahraini doctor speaks out about torture at detention

by Courtesy

ABC: Arrested Bahraini doctor speaks out about torture at detention
Tanya Nolan reported this story on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 12:22:00 – ABC

ELEANOR HALL: Yesterday we brought you an interview with Human Rights Watch on its report accusing the government in Bahrain of engaging in a concerted attack on the country’s medical community.

The report documents the cases of 48 medical staff who were arrested after treating protesters injured in the uprisings earlier this year.

This morning The World Today spoke to one of the doctors charged. The doctor asked that the voice be disguised to protect their identity.

Tanya Nolan reports.

TANYA NOLAN: A doctor that served the kingdom of Bahrain for 16 years describes the moment the regime turned against them.

BAHRAINI DOCTOR: I was kidnapped from my house. I wouldn’t call it arrest because they present at my house 3am in the morning with civilian clothes, civilian cars, no identities were shown.

They were like militias or thugs. We didn’t know that they were security forces.

TANYA NOLAN: It was late March and this doctor’s first thought was that they were being rounded up for treating protesters involved in the anti-government uprisings earlier in the year.

The doctor was taken to a place they later identified as the central intelligence building in the capital Manama.

Despite knowing of other doctors and nurses also rounded up this doctor couldn’t believe their own government could be behind the secretive detention and questioning about alleged links to Iran and terrorist groups.

BAHRAINI DOCTOR: They were asking me about weapons and where do we hide the weapons.

They tried – they tried to link me to Iran and to Hezbollah and they were asking who from the United States supporting you – very weird questions. I thought it had zero relation to me.

TANYA NOLAN: Why do you think you were being held?

BAHRAINI DOCTOR: Definitely for helping treating protesters.

TANYA NOLAN: And you know this because some of your colleagues were treated in the same way? Arrested and detained without any charge?

BAHRAINI DOCTOR: Yes. Actually all of us, we were detained, arrested in the same way.

We were tortured and I think we were targeted basically because we were the first line of witnesses who witnessed the crimes of the regime and the brutality of the regime against the protesters. …more