Lord Avebury: Vice Chairman of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group: I am particularly concerned about developments in Bahrain over the past few months where the situation has become worse than ever before. Even in the dark days of the middle 90s we didn’t have troops on the streets shooting at people, we didn’t have mass torture and people being taken into custody. We didn’t have show trials like the ones which are going on at the moment.
Although I see now that the king is trying to retreat from the hard line that has been taken up until now it has gone beyond the point of no return. The people can never have confidence in the assurances that the government wishes to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the differences that exist because they are too fundamental now to be resolved, particularly when you consider the inequality of the forces on both sides.
If you want to have a conversation with somebody to reach a sensible amicable agreement you don’t start by beating them up and tying their hands behind their back and muzzling their spokespeople on their streets.
Therefore I don’t believe that the current initiatives to have talks between the government and the opposition are a starter and I noticed that before the talks began there had been protests in the streets against the very idea of holding discussions under the current circumstances.
I had a letter from the foreign secretary to whom I wrote the other day asking for much more robust action by the government in the light of the present circumstances. I have to say it is extremely disappointing to find that yet again ministers are taking about reinvigorating a national dialogue that leads to meaningful reform and addresses the legitimate concerns of the people of Bahrain.
If that is what the government had wanted they would have restricted the Al Khalifa’s from inflicting torture and repression on their citizens and at the same time depriving them of any economic basis that exists for them to make a living and to obtain some kind of equality with the ruling classes. Professionals – the doctors, the engineers and one major lawyer who is defending the major opposition members has himself been taken into custody and is still behind bars.
To cut a long story short, talking about the crown prince as an intermediary between the government and the people is complete nonsense and is just not going to work. I don’t know how we can impress this on the government but perhaps we will have an opportunity during the course of this discussion making the views of the opposition clear.
I hope we can now talk to Nabeel Rajab of the Bahrain Centre for human rights via skype.
Saeed Shehabi, London representative of the Bahrain Freedom Movement: This is Nabeel Rajab. He is going to talk to us from Bahrain. He is the President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights which has documented what has been taking place in the country for the past few years and has been renowned for its accuracy in reporting the events and the crimes against humanity in the country.
Nabeel Rajab (via skype): Thank you. As Dr Saeed mentioned I am the President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights as well as the deputy secretary general for the International Federation for Human Rights. I hope I can continue talking for ten minutes without my internet being disconnected. The government has slowed down my internet as always and that could disconnect the line.
As you know the Bahrain government has witnessed a lot of crimes against humanity in the past four years. In the past few months we have had people detained, systematically tortured and thousands of people have been fired from work. Thousands of students have been fired from their universities, fired from their schools, teachers unionists, doctors, nurses, bloggers and athletes were targeted as well either by firing them or by preventing them from working.
The Bahrain government is practising sectarian cleansing towards the Shia majority by targeting them in all their levels of life: their income, their studies, their jobs, their education, their worshiping places. As you all know mosques have been demolished and worshipping places have been destroyed. The houses of the Shias have been looted by security institutions. Villages were raided by the security institution.
The government of Bahrain does not depend on its own people for the security institutions but it depends on some tribes from Pakistan, Syria, Jordan and Yemen. We came to know that in the past few weeks there were continuous flights coming from Pakistan and from Yemen bringing more soldiers who are serving as mercenaries to help the government with the crackdown on the local people.
In this country you will not find a single Shia family which has not been targeted either through detention or by being fired from their jobs. At the same time from the other side the government has been talking about dialogue for the past few weeks and we have seen government attempts to mislead international public opinion as well as the people inside Bahrain.
We do not see this as a credible dialogue process especially as the government is not represented in the dialogue. The dialogue should be between two sides who have differences with each other but in this dialogue the government is not represented. It is made up mostly of groups, committees and organisations which were created by the government in the past weeks months or years to look like human rights groups or political groups and the representation of the opposition groups is not more than 15 percent.
Their ability to influence or change anything is almost zero. We don’t think any positive outcome will come out of this dialogue. The king of Bahrain has formed a committee of investigation for a fact finding mission to investigate all the human rights violations committed during the past few months…..(inaudible)
Lord Avebury: My guess is that when he went indistinct it was due to a limitation on his broadband. The government wants to stop him from communicating with the outside world and that is one of the ways in which they are doing it. Trying to communicate with the outside world via the internet is subject to continuous interference.
While we are waiting for the call to be re-established can I just mention that the committee which has been established at the instigation of the king to investigate the allegations of torture and of unlawful detention is making its first visit to Bahrain in July and it does comprise of some very distinguished human rights experts including Professor Nigel Rodney, Professor of Human Rights at the University of Essex and a former United Nations Rapporteur on Torture and also Mohammed Bassiouni who has held distinguished human rights appointments. I am told by one of the members that they have been guaranteed total access to the prisons and agreement by the government that there will be no interference with their discussions with the alleged victims of torture. They have been promised complete and unmonitored ability to hold discussions with the victims and their lawyers. They can go anywhere in Bahrain and they will not be monitored by the security forces. I find that very difficult to believe but I also think that the quality of the people on the committee is such that if there is any interference with their activity they will immediately make it clear to the outside world.
I am told that on a previous occasion when some of them were involved in a similar exercise and the guarantees they had been given were not honoured they resigned en masse and returned to their countries. So this is high stakes game. The king is obviously playing for time. It may well be that these visits will not come off at all. There was a previous incident when two members of this house: Lord Ramsbottom and Baroness Stern were invited to come and make an investigation themselves of the victims and allegations of torture in detention and they had greatly difficulty pulling the wool over the eyes of those two people. Lord Ramsbottom was chief inspector of prisons and was unexpectedly tough. He had been appointed by the Conservative government before 1997 and he was a distinguished military officer who may have been expected to soft peddle any violations of the rights of prisoners that he found. The reverse was true and he was one of the most active and robust chief inspectors of prisons that we have ever had. I think that if he and Baroness Stern had been able to go to Bahrain, visit the prisons, talk to the detainees and investigate the allegations of torture a great deal would have come out.
Nabeel Rajab: I am very sorry I am using my other device now. As you know the committee was formed by the king. We think it is an attempt by the king of Bahrain to distance himself from the responsibility and the accountability. The king is the one who declared the state of emergency. We do not know if they are going to contact us. We see the head of the committee meeting the king and several officials. We will be happy to deal with the committee and update it with all the information and all the cases that we have and we look forward to their report. So far they have not contacted us.
The government has not shown that it is serious about dialogue. The human rights violations are continuing. They are not stopping. People are being arrested and fired from their work. They are being systematically tortured. There are more allegations of torture, firing and dismissals from employment and universities and schools.
We have not see any indications so far that the government is serious about stopping all these violations. We don’t know for how long this will continue. The people of Bahrain are witnessing the most dangerous crackdown targeting people. Houses have been raided to arrest somebody and there has been looting. Tens of thousands of dinars were stolen, gold, watches, everything – you name it, it has been stolen by the security institutions which includes mercenaries who were recruited from other countries. We do not know where they take all this money. Is it an order from their officers? Hundreds of houses have been looted and some have been demolished. Places of worship were destroyed. Religious places were raided. We are witnessing this until today continuously with the existence of the committee. There is no indication that the government is serious in solving this problem. I will stop here and look forward to your questions.
Lord Avebury: I spoke to one of the members of the committee who was appointed by the king and he was given an assurance that they would be given complete access to the detained prisoners, that they would be allowed to investigate allegations of torture, accept medical examinations of the people who were victims and that this would be done in complete privacy and there would be no interference by the security forces. Do you believe the assurances that are being given by the authorities or do you think that they will try and interfere with the activities of the committee?
Nabeel Rajab: Historically speaking I don’t think the government of Bahrain will be open to the committee, number one. Number two I think they are misleading public opinion. During the past three days we have seen a lot of differences. New mattresses were taken to the prison where most of the people are detained. All the families were called last night to bring new shoes, new shirts, new pants for the detainees and to bring some food. During the past three days Bahraini tv has changed and they are using different language. The Ministry of the Interior explained why peaceful protesters had been attacked. We know they are trying to mislead this committee because they are near now. Every time somebody comes to Bahrain, a committee or a human rights group, you see things like that happen. Once they leave the whole thing changes. I don’t think the government will be very co-operative but lets wait and see.
Saeed Shehabi: If the ruling family is serious about giving what Lord Avebury has been told by one of the members of the committee why didn’t they allow Navi Pilai to send her fact finding mission as she had requested.
Nabeel Rajab: Many people think that the investigation committee and the fact-finding mission has been created as an obstacle to the group coming from United Nations. But I say it is too early to judge. Lets give them time Many human rights groups have been to Bahrain during the past few months. And they have seen how much violation has been happening. I don’t think this committee will come out with a report saying those organisations were wrong and everything is normal. I think that a lot of the crimes committed by the government cannot be hidden anyway. So lets give it time and wait and watch for the report that will be produced by this committee.
Comment: I have a follow up on the ICHR.. I spoke to somebody from ICHR yesterday and they said they have been asked to postpone the visit of their delegation until the royal commission has reported. They have been given an assurance that they will be able to return in September.
Saeed Shehabi: So they have been asked to postpone their visit? John is saying that he called the ICHR and they told him that their delegation could not go until this committee has finished this work.
Nabeel Rajab: That is what I understand and thanks for your work.
Jaffar Al Hasabi: Yesterday we met the former ambassador of Bahrain. He said we have not reached the same situation as Libya in Bahrain so I think we have to have more dialogue with the people. Do you think the dialogue has what they call the base or the ground to reach the demands of the people.
Nabeel Rajab: They have put a time frame for it. They started and they are going to end up with something in 20 days time. This is the fastest dialogue process for the longest political dispute. I don’t know how they are going to come out with solutions to a problem which has been there for 200 years in 25 days. Let us see what happens in 20 days. I don’t think they will be able to solve the political crisis. I am saying let us wait and see. But the people in the street are not confident with this process. That’s why thousands of people are protesting in the streets. We may see more of it, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. This shows the people have no confidence in the dialogue or the promises made by the government. I think an international appeal is important at this point in time. The gap is much bigger now between the ruling family and the people of Bahrain.
I think a mediator is very important now because there is a lack of trust between the royal family and I don’t think that will be solved in 20 days.
Saeed Shehabi: Thank you very munch Nabeel.
Lord Avebury: We are now going to hear from Finnian Cunningham an Irish journalist who was expelled from Bahrain.
Saeed Shehabi: This journalist was expelled from Bahrain. He worked for the Irish Times. He was in Bahrain for three years but he was expelled two weeks ago. He has his own experience to share with us. Finnian, you are now speaking to the people so can you please tell them about your personal experiences in Bahrain.
Finnian Cunningham (via skype) Greetings Saeed and everybody. It is a pleasure to talk to you. I was working in Bahrain as a journalist for three years. Initially I was working on a staff job but the contract expired and I continued as a freelance journalist. When the uprising began on February 14th I was able to witness the initial protests and the way in which the state reacted in a very bloody ruthless way, killing seven people in the first week.
I saw terrible injuries of hundreds of unarmed civilians in Sulamaniya hospital and the trauma that everybody had experienced: the chaos, the bedlam, the human rights situation was just extreme. The doctors and nurses, and paramedics were fantastic. In my view they were totally committed to administering treatment to anybody and everybody who was admitted to hospital.
This legal process which is going at the moment where the medics are accused of exaggerating the wounds of patients and discriminating on the grounds of religion or ethnicity is just preposterous. It is just a tissue of lies. What I saw was the complete reverse where doctors were rallying heroically to the Hippocratic oath and humanitarian values.
After the Saudi invasion force came to Bahrain on March 14th I also witnessed on March 16th their attacks on the civilian protesters at the Pearl Monument. They commandeered Sulmaniya hospital. During the next few days I actually saw the Saudi military tanks and people in ski masks with heavy machine guns commandeering this hospital. They commandeered all the exit doors and forced members of staff and patients out of the hospital in single file. Those deemed to be protesters judging from the shot gun wounds were put on a bus and taken to a military hospital.
We are supposed to be at the end of the state of an emergency and back to a normal situation, dialogue is proceeding from July 2nd. Alongside that I am getting reports from my contacts in Bahrain that the repression is continuing. It is repressive business as usual.
Something like a thousand university students have been expelled from their courses. One hundred and fifty to 170 of those students have been arrested, they are still in detention. I was talking to one family from Bedeyah from the east of Bahrain. Their brother a 21-year old university student has been in detention for 70 days. He has not been charged. He has been tortured. His family has met him on two occasions. For most of the 70 days this guy has been detained. They don’t know where he has been held or what conditions he has been held under.
There are dozens like this guy and his family verified that this guy is totally innocent. He was not involved in any criminal activity. He may have shared the aspirations of the pro democracy movement but that is a given democratic right and for this 170 students have been arrested and a thousand expelled from their university courses.
Nabeel Rajab for whom I have the utmost respect said that these students will probably have to leave Bahrain in order to continue their studies or pursue some kind of livelihood. Combine that with all the workers who have been sacked, 3,000 of them. We are taking of exile. These people will probably have to leave Bahrain to seek some kind of livelihood or to continue their studies.
This is a form of social engineering. The regime is engineering a demographic shift in the population. For the past few decades they have been bringing in nationals from Syria, Yemen , Pakistan all pro-regime Sunni people. They were given passports. This repression, the consequence of students being expelled, their studies being terminated, the workers having their livelihoods ripped from them. There are thousands of Bahraini Shia people who will probably have to flee from Bahrain in order to salvage some kind of livelihood. The consequences of this repressions are horrendous.
Saeed Shehabi: Can I ask you from your own experience and your own expertise about freedom of expression and whether there is official control of the media. We will have an eye witness who was at Sulemainyah hospital.
Finnian Cunningham: I was expelled from Bahrain on June 18th. I was called by the Ministry of the Interior and told that I had to leave Bahrain because my visa was cancelled. I had to leave in 48. I think this was a result of an interview I gave to an American Radio station in which I outlined my analysis of the situation at the end of the state of emergency, and the national dialogue. I argued with cogent evidence and viewpoints that this was just a public relations exercise to try and salvage the international image. The American and the British government have endorsed this and have joined in with what in my view is a charade. Repressive business as usual is going on. I do believe that that interview was very unsettling to the regime. They did not want this kind of discordant view. My hunch is that this is what brought me to the attention of the authorities.
Previous to that I was working for the Irish Times and also for an American website called Global Research. I was writing quite critical news reports. I never felt that anybody was watching me or following me. I did not have any brush with the authorities but I was very critical in my reporting of incidents of repression like the death of Ahmed Farhad, a 31-one year old man from Sitra. According to my eyewitness contacts he was killed by Saudi troops, shot when he was at a petrol station. Sitra is a very prominent Shia area with a very ardent pro democracy community. The intervention forces seemed to target that village and Ahmed Farhad was shot on March 15 in a very brutal way. He was shot when he was on the ground after receiving gunshot wounds to the back. On the ground he was shot in the head. I saw his body that night in the morgue and it as very disturbing to see the condition his body was in. I reported that in a very critical way.
I must say at that point when I was reporting I did not feel any inhibition or prohibition on me but the point where I did seem to run up against the regime was the interview in early June when I critiqued the whole national dialogue. From the regime’s point of view this was not what they wanted the world to hear. They are very much in the process of trying to convince the world that everything is back to normal, the dialogue is proceeding.
Rodney Shakespeare: You mentioned something about the nurses making the wounds worse as an allegation that has been made. If the wounds are of such an extent the regime wants to accuse people of making the wounds worse, the question is whether dum dum bullets have been used by the regime. They enlarge wounds. Do you believe that this allegation of the nurses ripping the wounds apart can only be explained by the extraordinary severity of the wounds which may be due to dum dum bullets.
Finnian Cunningham: That is a very good point Rodney. My hunch is that you are right. The allegation is preposterous and outrageous and an insult to these medics. Certainly in the case of Ahmed Farhan, the surgeon felt that the way his brain was evacuated from his skull due to the use of some kind of special ammunition.
There was also another man, I don’t remember his name, he died in the first week of the protests, he had an awful head wound and again that could have been due to that criminal ammunition.
I also witnessed during the protests the use of nerve agent . It was definitely a nerve agent because of the symptoms. The antidote they used was to treat the effects of a nerve agent. It is nothing like tear gas. There is a war crime in that alone, the Convention Against Chemical Warfare Agents of 1993. On that score alone a war crime has been committed.
Saeed Shehabi: How important a role did the outside media play in exposing what is going on in the country especially as the local and regional media did not take much interest in Bahrain.
Finnian Cunningham: That is a very interesting question. I would like to talk to you for a long time about it. The coverage of the Iranian channel press tv was excellent with people like Rodney Shakespeare and Rolf Shulfman. Their coverage was excellent. The way in which Press TV detailed the coverage of the violence was excellent. I did not watch Al Jazeera but I am aware that a lot of the young people in Bahrain were very critical of the coverage of Al Jazeera.
Another very important international media development was the American based Physicians for Human Rights. My colleague Rolf Schulfman in California gave them the information about the torture and detention of medics. Their campaigning and testimonies led to Bahrain being investigated and they testified to congress. That had a major influence on the British media coverage but there was greater coverage in the American media. Physicians for Human Rights provided vital information which helped to turn the media tide and put a critical focus on the regime. Hopefully it brought attention to the human rights violations which are going on in Bahrain against innocent civilians. That was an important development in bringing pressure to bear on the regime and its Western allies.
Saeed Shehabi: That you for your information Finnian.
Lord Avebury: We must also mention that there have been efforts by the doctors here to throw light on what is going on. There was a move at the British Medical Association conference in Cardiff to raise an emergency motion about the treatment of doctors and nurses which was not taken up by the BMA. There was also a move with the Royal College of Surgeons to raise the matter internationally. Many of the surgeons in Bahrain were trained in this country, there are professors and retired professors who know them well and would like to make much more noise internationally on their behalf.
What was particularly disgusting to me was the way in which surgeons were interrupted when they were in the middle of operations. That is just so bestial that it is hard to imagine. The public in this country would be disgusted if they were aware of the appalling treatment of doctors and nurses, the arrest of very large numbers of doctors and their expulsion from their posts. Not only doctors but engineers and people from other professions have been expelled and this is going to have vast repercussions over the whole region because if these people can’t be employed in their own profession in Bahrain they will have to leave and look for work somewhere else. We will not be surprised if you find a lot of them here because of the links between Britain and Bahrain. The next thing that we will find will be the UK Border Agency receiving a flood of applications from people who can’t work in their own country including some of the many thousand odd university students who were expelled from their courses and who need to continue their education somewhere else. There is a lot more work to be done here to make sure we pay attention to these factors and our media is aware of what is happening in Bahrain and the repercussions it will have on the region and the rest of the world.
We will now hear from an eye witness to the events which occurred during the past few months. I have pleasure in calling on Noura fom Sweden to address us.
Noura: I was working in the Salmaniya medical complex as a volunteer from February 14th to March 17th. What I saw was a major discrimination. It was not necessary to give medication such as valium to the Shia who were badly wounded. We gave them eva drops and we had to beg for medication. They were hiding the medication from us. I was begging the doctors as I needed valium. We need to make blood status to see the condition.
They were putting patients in wheel chairs and taking them outside. I told the doctors we cannot do this. Who will come and pick them up. They said call the family but their was no family to call. They were falling down outside the hospital and I brought them back to Ward E which was for discharge patients who were badly wounded without help.
Starting from March there were two different sites in Salmaniya. There were doctors who had disappeared. Maybe they had left the country. There were nurses who were crying all the time because we could not help the patients. And who gave these orders? Where did these orders come from? This is a question I have for the government in Bahrain.
I was married to Khalil Al Khawaja. He has a trial today in Bahrain. We were still living together with his sisters and a niece and we left the house and just weeks after we left they came to the house and took him to prison. He was badly beaten and tortured. The whole house is a mess and we do what we can to have freedom for all the prisoners from 14th February. Freedom – that is what we know about. The foreigners say that Bahrain is a country of freedom. I would like to know where the freedom is in Bahrain. When you see Bahrain with Western eyes you think freedom is night clubs. You have shops for alcohol and you have prostitution which is very big in Bahrain. Is that freedom? If you turn the page you will see what Bahrainis call freedom. I have been there and I have seen a lot of things: the suffering of the families whose children were expelled from school before the clashes, their grades dropped but they are very intelligent and very good students.
Saeed Shehabi: You were working there. It is claimed that the doctors did not offer treatment to the Sunnis for example.
Noura: We treated the Sunis very well. I was working many times with students who come, the Sunni students. We offered them private rooms. They had guards even. And we were taking care of them. They gave me their telephone number because they were so happy. The students wanted to stay in the hospital but their parents did not allow them to be in Salmaniya but they had to be discharged to another hospital to continue their treatment.
Saeed Shehabi: Their parents did not want them to stay?
Noura: Yes, but the studenst were very happy. They said everything is fine here.
Question: The doctors and nurses have been accused of encouraging a sectarian attitude by shouting slogans against the king. They were going around with petitions against the king or shouting slogans against the royal family.
Noura: I did not see that inside the hospital. I spent of most of my time inside the hospital. I know a lot of things happened outside. I wish Khalil Al Khawaja was here because he knows about what happened outside. They never came to me to sign anything. Even my colleagues, I know that they have not signed anything.
Shabir Razawi: You said you left Salmaniya on 17th March. I was there on 11th March after the demonstration at the palace and went to Ali hospital. There was no access at Ali hospital therefore we drove to Salmaniya hospital and again no access to visitors was available on March 11th. So I was rather curious as to why no one from outside was allowed to witness what was happening in the two hospitals. Was it because there were too many wounded people on that particular day or was it from the Ministry of Health because they did not want eye witnesses to what was going on that particular day?
Noura: I think it was from the government side because we allowed peoples’ families and relatives to visit the hospital. But it was very critical. There were 1,351 wounded in 24 hours and there was no space. We were working day and night to care for these people.
Saeed Shehabi: Would you expect an international outcry about the medics, that the regime would release them or would it still continue to hold them?
Noura: I think it will take a very long time to release them because they have the truth.
Saeed Shehabi: They don’t want to release them because they will speak out. They know too much.
Noura: Yes.
Saeed Shehabi: So because they know too much they are unlikely to be released soon?
Question: We know that the minister of health resigned during the first week because of the way the Saudi troops treated him. There are also a lot of stories about the medical body, nurses in Salminiya hospital and doctors who have been beaten by Saudi troops. Have you seen any cases. Did you meet any of them?
Noura: I met Dr Sadiq who was at the roundabout. He was taken out of the ambulance and was badly beaten. They also threatened to rape him. I met him in Salminiya.
Saeed Shehabi: He is in jail.
Noura: I did not know about that. I visited him every day in the hospital to see how he was recovering. The doctors and their families have been taken into custody. They continue to arrest the families of the doctors. Women who have husbands from Salminiya have been raped and have been forced to have oral sex by the Saudi soldiers.
Saeed Shehabi: How authentic are these claims?
Noura: This is what they have told me.
Saeed Shehabi: The nurses told you.
Noura: Yes.
Lord Avebury: Do you have particular cases that you know of women who have been raped. I am not asking you to give the names.
Noura: Yes I have.
Lord Avebury: Would you be able to give the names in confidence to the committee which is going to visit Bahrain and investigate these matters?
Noura: I will try. If I can. I have to get their permission. They are very afraid.
Lord Avebury: You can assure them that confidentiality will be maintained and no names will be given to the authorities then ask them through me and I will make sure that the committee has them. When committee members go there they will see if it is possible to interview these women.
Noura: I will do my best.
Saeed Shehabi: We will now watch a short clip. [Video of demonstrations and repression by the security forces]. We have a comment about what Nabeel has said and what our friend from Ireland has said. You must understand today we have somebody from Ireland, somebody from Bahrain and our sister from Sweden and we will have our friend from America talking.
