Manama, May 31: Bahraini female doctors have detailed the humiliations and beatings they suffered after being arrested on suspicion of supporting anti-government protests.
Recently freed from prison but in fear of being rearrested, the doctors said they were released only after they agreed to sign every confession papers they were given after days of brutal torture and being subjected to verbal abuse, AFP reported.
They were also forced to sign many pledges, including not to take part in any protests and not to talk to the media.
Although medics usually enjoy protection in conflicts by virtue of their profession, Bahraini security authorities arrested many doctors and nurses as part of the government crackdown on anti-regime protesters, accusing them of abusing their jobs and helping those trying to topple the monarchy — a reference to anti-government protesters.
Medical staff at Manama’s Salmaniya hospital were also accused of lying and exaggerating on satellite channels to tarnish the international image of the country.
“I advise you that we will get you to say whatever we want, either by you saying it willingly, or we will beat you like a donkey and torture you until you say it,” AFP quoted a female doctor as saying, citing her interrogator.
Another female doctor, who spent over 20 days in detention, said she was severely beaten by her interrogators after she refused to sign a confession paper reading that doctors themselves killed two anti-government protesters while trying to “expand (their) wounds in order to make them look bad,” for cameras.
Manama officials claim that the two protesters had arrived at the hospital suffering only minor injuries.
“I couldn’t tell on which side of my head the slaps would land,” said the doctor adding that she was made to stand blindfolded in the interrogation room, where she claimed she was repeatedly called a “wh**e.”
Another doctor said she was forced to testify against some male doctors and accusing them of mobilizing medics to join anti-regime protests.
She said her interrogators also ordered her to say that she served medicines “only to one sect of people who wanted to topple the regime.”
Bahraini authorities have also accused a number of medical staff of “stealing blood units to splash on the wounded” to exaggerate their injuries for television.
The freed doctors are barred from leaving the country and remain suspended from work with salaries unpaid since March.
The freed women doctors have also expressed fears over the fate of the male doctors and the condition of the female head of nursing at Salmaniya hospital, Rola al-Safar, who remain in custody.
“If the women have been treated in such a [harsh] way, what would the situation be with the men!” one doctor said.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have bitterly criticized the Persian Gulf sheikhdom’s government for its brutal crackdown on civilians, doctors, nurses, lawyers and journalists who have voiced support for the protest movement.
——–Agencies