Manama, April 04: An ailing Bahraini anti-government protester has reportedly died in the custody of security forces due the lack of medical care.
The victim, named Hassan Jassim Mohammed Maki, died on Sunday, while afflicted with sickle cell anemia, Xinhua reported.
The 39-year-old had been arrested on March 28 on charge of, what Manama calls, rioting and vandalism.
“Other detainees witnessed that he fell unconscious at 10:30 a. m.,” said General Inspector Major-General Ibrahim Habib Ghaith, alleging that “an ambulance was immediately asked to come and found him dead.”
The regime has launched a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests since February 14, when the public staged a popular revolution against the Al Khalifa rule.
In March, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait deployed their troops to Bahrain to help Manama in its crackdown.
The Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that it had documented several cases in which the forces had “severely harassed or beaten” the patients who were under medical care in the country’s Salmaniya hospital in the capital Manama, Reuters reported.
“These people who need treatment are facing this difficult choice, and many choose not to go to the hospital,” said HRW’s Bahrain researcher Faraz Saneif.
——–Agencies