King Hamad’s legacy of operating Bahrain as a “torture state”

Torture is back in the repertoire of Bahrain’s security services. The return of torture is especially distressing since Bahrain showed the political will a decade ago to end this scourge.

Bahrain: End Torture of Security Suspects
8 February, 2010 – Joe Stork – Human Rights Watch

(Manama) – Bahrain needs to take urgent steps to end torture and ill-treatment of security suspects during interrogation, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government should promptly investigate all torture allegations and prosecute security officials suspected of abusing detainees.

The 89-page report, “Torture Redux: The Revival of Physical Coercion during Interrogations in Bahrain,” is based on interviews with former detainees and a review of forensic medical reports and court documents. It concludes that since the end of 2007, officials have repeatedly resorted to torture for the apparent purpose of securing confessions from security suspects.

“Torture is back in the repertoire of Bahrain’s security services,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The return of torture is especially distressing since Bahrain showed the political will a decade ago to end this scourge.”

Bahrain’s reversion to these discredited practices has come with rising political tensions. Street demonstrations by young men from the country’s majority Shia Muslim population protesting alleged discrimination by the Sunni-dominated government have deteriorated with increasing regularity into violent confrontations with security forces. Arrests have often followed. Security officials appear to be using painful physical techniques to elicit confessions from many of those arrested.

These techniques include electro-shock devices, suspension in painful positions, and beatings. Some of those who were detained reported that security officials threatened to kill or rape them or members of their families. Many were subjected to more than one of these practices.

The use of these techniques, separately and in combination, violates Bahrain’s own laws as well as its obligations as a state party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) and other international treaties.

“The government should promptly investigate all torture allegations and prosecute offenders according to international fair trial standards,” Stork said. “Authorities should also suspend immediately any security official if credible evidence exists that he ordered, carried out, or acquiesced in acts of torture.”

Officials with the Ministry of Interior and the Public Prosecution Office, in separate meetings with Human Rights Watch, denied that security forces employed torture. They said the consistency in the accounts of the former detainees was evidence that the allegations had been fabricated. …more

see full Report HERE