The subtle deceptions and ambiguities of the BICI “do not pass unnoticed”

Treatment of medics in Bahrain
The Irish Times – December 6, 2011

Sir, – Prof Eoin O’Brien states that the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) is ambiguous in its assessment of events at Salmaniya Medical Complex where the doctors treated the injured pro-democracy demonstrators (Opinion, November 29th). I disagree. There are two unambiguous strands to the findings of the report, one positive, the other negative.

On the positive side, the BICI report stated that no evidence was found to support the most serious charges made against the doctors, thus vindicating what they had always maintained: 1. They did not take over the hospital. 2. They did not use or supply weapons to demonstrators. 3. They did not misappropriate medical supplies. 4. They did not refuse treatment to any injured or sick person on the basis of their religion.

Nevertheless, despite these findings by the BICI Commission, there are serious question-marks about the prospect of the doctors receiving any kind of justice or fair trial in Bahrain. On November 28th, at the second appeal hearing against their convictions, prosecutors for the state presented boxes of weapons to the court that included 168 bullets, four ammunition cartridges, three Molotov cocktails and a host of other weapons which they claimed were confiscated by Bahraini police at Salmaniya Medical Complex.

Lawyers for the doctors protested that the weapons, had they existed, should have been produced to the military court which originally convicted the doctors and they demanded that the court not accept this “evidence” – but the judge refused their request.

Given this kind of “justice” there is no doubt that the negative findings of the BICI report will be grist to the prosecutors’ mill. The report contains two ominous statements that can be used to harm the doctors in their appeal against their convictions which has been postponed, yet again, until January 9th, 2012. …more