Bahrain Educator on Hunger Strike while imprisoned in Bahrain Hospitalized

Female Teacher on Hunger Strike in Bahrain Hospitalized
8-17-2011 – By Human Rights Defenders Program – Human Rights First

In July, Human Rights First profiled Jalila al-Salman, a Bahraini teacher who has been detained since March for her alleged role in coordinating a teachers’ strike. We are very concerned to hear from local human rights defenders that Jalila was hospitalized today for chest pains following 10 days on hunger strike. Among the handful of women still in detention in Bahrain, Jalila and fellow prisoner, Roula Al Saffar, the Head of the Bahrain Nursing Society, have undergone a joint hunger strike to protest their continued detention and ill treatment. There are reports that Jalila has been severely tortured.

While there were hopes that the women detainees would be released pending a transfer to civilian courts at the start of Ramadan, so far there have been no improvements to their situation.

Another female detainee told HRF staff in Bahrain what happened to her, Her account is consistent with what has happened to other female detainees:

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. …more