Peaceful demonstrators fill streets of Manama after Security Forces brutalize Human Rights Defender

Bahrain: Rights Activist Attacked
13 January, 2012 – Human Rights Watch

The riot police’s assault on Nabeel Rajab and other peaceful demonstrators shows once again the government’s intolerance of peaceful assemblies. The authorities need to investigate this incident and hold those responsible for the attack to account. – Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

(Beirut) – Bahraini riot police beat a prominent human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, as he was leaving a peaceful protest on January 6, 2012, Human Rights Watch said today. The Bahraini authorities should immediately halt attacks on peaceful protesters, Human Rights Watch said.

The Interior Ministry said on its Twitter account that the police gave the protesters, who were calling for the release of detainees, a warning before dispersing them. Human Rights Watch talked to four participants in the demonstration who said that the riot police told them they would allow five minutes for the protesters to disperse on their own, but started firing sound bombs and teargas within one minute after the warning. While dispersing the demonstration the police assaulted at least three protesters in addition to Rajab.

“The riot police’s assault on Nabeel Rajab and other peaceful demonstrators shows once again the government’s intolerance of peaceful assemblies,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities need to investigate this incident and hold those responsible for the attack to account.”

Rajab, a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East Advisory Committee, told Human Rights Watch that the police attacked him using their fists and batons at about 8:30 p.m., as he was walking toward his car:

I noticed a number of riot police behind me. They were all in uniform. They started beating me and I fell on the ground. I told them that I was Nabeel Rajab, hoping that they would stop, but they kept beating and kicking me…. Then an officer showed up and stopped them. I don’t exactly know how many riot police attacked me because they came from behind but I think there were three or four.

The Interior Ministry stated on its Twitter account that riot police had found Rajab “lying on the ground” and transported him to the Salmaniya Medical Complex for treatment.

Rajab spent several hours in the hospital. He said that he still has difficulty walking because of back pain and has filed a complaint about the incident.

On January 9 Bahrain’s High Court of Appeals continued the trial of 20 medical staff who had been convicted by the National Safety Lower Court, a special military court, on September 29, 2011, following the government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in March 2011. The National Safety Lower Court found them guilty of charges that included forcibly taking over the Salmaniya Medical Complex and refusing treatment to patients based on sectarian affiliation. The court handed down sentences ranging from 5 years to 15 years in prison. On October 23, the Public Prosecution announced that in the appeals trial, they would not rely on the defendants’ confessions, many of which were allegedly extracted under torture, to prove their guilt.

However, at the January 9 session, the Public Prosecution declined to confirm before the court that it did not intend to introduce the doctors’ confessions into evidence, two of the defense lawyers, Jalila Said and Hameed al-Mulla, told Human Rights Watch. …source