Bahrain: Medics Describe Torture in Detention

Bahrain: Medics Describe Torture in Detention
October 21, 2011 – BCHR

Ill-Treatment, Torture in Detention

Authorities arrested Dr. Rula al-Saffar, 48, head of the Bahrain Nursing Society, on the evening of April 4 after summoning her to the Ministry of Interior’s Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID). She told Human Rights Watch:

I was handcuffed and blindfolded [and] interrogated for seven days. The interrogations started at 3:30 pm and went on until 5 or 6 a.m. the next day. I was electrocuted in my face and my head. They said, “We are going to rape you.” I was held in a very cold cell. They turned on the air conditioner, which made the cell even colder and I had no blanket. They forced me to stand and sit for long hours on the dirty floor.

Al-Saffar said interrogators forced her to sign a confession that she encouraged people to protest, refused treatment to Sunni patients, and stole blood from the blood bank so that protesters could simulate wounds. After 17 days, authorities transferred her to the Women’s Detention Center in Isa Town, where she was held until her release on bail on August 21. Al-Saffar said that during more than four months in detention she was allowed to speak with her family only once, for three minutes, and to meet with them another time for one hour. The special military court sentenced her to 15 years in prison.

Fatima Haji, a rheumatologist sentenced to five years in prison, was arrested on April 17 and held for 22 days. She said interrogators forced her to sign a document saying she had not been tortured and that she would not talk to the international media. She has written about her time in detention on doctorsinchains.org.

[The men started] asking me the size of my underwear, and the size of my bra. [One of them] kept asking me and I [was] not answering and he was hitting my head. My eyes were [in tears] … Then they started making fun and joking about my breast size. Then one of them asked me, “When [was] the last time you saw your husband?” I said, “Two or three days ago.” He said, “So you didn’t have sex for the last two or three days, it seems you want someone to do it with you right now.”

Dr. Ali al-Ekri, 44, told Human Rights Watch that men in military uniforms arrested him on March 17, while he was in the Salmaniya operating room. The special military court sentenced al-Ekri to 15 years on charges of possessing weapons and forming an organization to topple the regime. “I spent 14 days in solitary confinement,” he told Human Rights Watch.” I was constantly beaten by cables, hoses, and fists. One time I was forced to stand up for 24 hours.”

Dr. Ghassan Dhaif, 45, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon at Salmaniya, was arrested on March 19 at Bahrain International Airport while attempting to travel to the United Kingdom with his wife, Dr. Zahra al-Sammak, and their three children. He told Human Rights Watch that he was taken to a room at the airport where masked men in civilian clothes beat him. They then transferred him to the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID), where he was blindfolded and handcuffed from behind for 21 days.

I spent seven days in a solitary confinement [cell] that was 6 feet by 5 feet. I was blindfolded and handcuffed from behind and was sleep-deprived … I was not allowed to go to the toilet, that is why I had to pee in my pants. I was not allowed to sit or sleep. I collapsed several times. I was beaten every hour … what really hurt was [when] they would cover my ear, temple, and my neck then they would hit me with their hands.

On April 8, Dhaif said, authorities interrogated him for 10 hours uninterruptedly, during which they severely beat him. “I was not allowed to sit or drink water,” he said. “At one point, I was asked to sit down facing the wall. All of a sudden someone kicked my back. I felt like my back was broken.” The same day, after he was hospitalized for a few hours for his back pain, he was forced to sign a confession about 40 pages long.

Dr. Basim Dhaif, 47, brother of Ghassan Dhaif, was arrested at his home on the evening of March 19 by security forces. He told Human Rights Watch:

I was insulted and beaten in front of my wife and children at my home. In detention I was forced to stand for more than 12 days except [when] eating. I was blindfolded and handcuffed from behind … in total I was tortured for 26 days in CID. Eventually I was forced to sign confession papers under threat that they will hurt my family. I didn’t know what the contents [of these papers were].

Zahra Al-Sammak, 45, an anesthesiologist at Salmaniya sentenced to 5 years in prison, and Nada Dhaif, a dentist sentenced to 15 years, also told Human Rights Watch that they were ill-treated in detention.

On September 7, the authorities released al-Ekri and the other medics still in detention on bail, including Ghassan and Basim Dhaif. …source