Bahrain

[Shahab3]

Unjust treatment of Bahraini medics
September 15, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment
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We had ample time to consider all evidence given to us. We had time to meet over 30 doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and medical students and their wives and children and listen to their testimonies. These were not vague suggestions of abuse. These were detailed statements from respected doctors and nurses and paramedics about their own personal abduction and torture, sexual molestation and humiliation at the hands of a brutal regime.

We had time to meet editors of suppressed newspapers and members of human rights organisations; time to meet visiting European ambassadors; time to meet the Minister for Health and Human Rights and the public prosecutor; time to meet the Deputy Foreign Minister and numerous other officials.

We had time to visit Salmaniya medical complex and speak to some of the remaining medical staff; time to see armed militia and armoured tanks within its gates.

We did not have a press conference. We arranged to give a press briefing to a small number of journalists, but our meeting was disrupted.

At time of writing (September 5, 2011), Dr Ali Al-Ekri, Dr Bassim Dhaif and his brother Gassan, and all of the remaining detained medics are entering their second week of hunger strike. Gassan’s 10-year-old son is on hunger strike in support of his father, who is medicated for suicidal intent, but now is refusing medication.

Dr Tublani, a diabetic, and Dr Bassim, who has chronic compartment syndrome and is at risk of clots, have been transferred to the prison clinic. Five others have also been commenced on intravenous fluids. They are weakening and potentially close to death.

The Bahraini regime continues to employ lobbyists like Joe Trippi and PR companies like Qorvis in Washington and Bell Pottinger in London.
A pro-democracy Bahraini station, Lualua TV, based in London, is understood to be actively jammed from Bahrain via a European satellite, while all internal electronic communications in Bahrain are monitored by ‘spy gear’ provided by Western companies.

Since March, more than 1,400 protesters have been detained, 180 civilians have been sentenced in military courts, 32 people have been killed, over 60 journalists have been targeted or ejected and at least 22 opposition websites are censored — in a country which would call itself democratic and peaceful.

I am not a diplomat and have no knowledge of their protocols. I am, however, a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon and occasionally have reason to treat children abused and occasionally fatally injured by parents or family members. These children are victims of a crime. They are defenceless, vulnerable, terrified and confused.
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I know the victims and I know the perpetrators. The illusion of normality, of civility, of peaceful tranquillity is broken in Bahrain and all the King’s horses and all the King’s men can never put that illusion together again.

Prof Damian McCormack FRCS Orth,
The Children’s University Teaching Hospital,
Temple St, Dublin.

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