Originally posted to The Guardian website, 22 June 2021
Authorities deny reports that inmates were beaten after a 10-day sit-in over concerns about virus spread and lack of medical care
In early April, inmates at Bahrain’s Jau prison crowded into the corridors to protest. They were angry about a lack of medical treatment and fearing for their lives after the death of another inmate. Their sit-in at building 13 lasted 10 days, and spread to other blocks in Jau, an infamous prison complex in the south of the kingdom.
Inmates claim authorities regularly delay or deny vital medical care to prisoners – especially prisoners of conscience. The concern has grown since late March when Covid-19 began to tear through the prison system. Prisoners and rights groups claim authorities failed to prevent the outbreak and have denied some inmates their choice of vaccine.
The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird) provided data, seen by the Guardian, seeming to show that at least 138 inmates in Jau have been infected with Covid since 22 March.
In addition, Bird estimates that the total number of Covid cases in both Jau and the Dry Dock Detention Centre – which houses prisoners in pre-trial detention or awaiting court hearings – has far exceeded 200 cases since March.
Bahrain boasts the presence of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet and has deep political ties to the UK; Boris Johnson last week welcomed Bahraini crown prince and Prime Minister Salman Bin Hamad al-Khalifa to Downing Street. Yet the island kingdom also has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita of any country in the Middle East, and almost 60% of prisoners are political detainees.
Asked about Covid in the prison system, a government spokesperson said Bahrain was taking steps to “reduce active cases in the prison population while providing rapid and adequate treatment”. The authorities’ only public admission that there are cases within the prison system was in late March, when they said three cases had been discovered and isolated.
The inmates’ protest inside Jau spread to three buildings, all housing political prisoners, before a fierce crackdown on 17 April. Prison authorities, backed by anti-riot police, charged into building 13, throwing stun grenades and allegedly beating inmates with batons to force them back inside their overcrowded cells.
CCTV footage shows inmates in one cell throwing objects out the door in an attempt to keep out the security forces. The footage provided to the Guardian does not show security forces beating inmates, yet the inmates, their family members, and rights groups claimed that forces had entered cells to beat inmates with their batons. One prisoner, Saeed Abdulemam, said he was beaten so badly on his head that he still had blurred vision two and a half weeks later. Other inmates told their families they were beaten with metal rods and shoes.
“Everyone was beaten badly,” Hassan Ali Sheikh told his mother on the phone. Other inmates later told Bird that security forces had dragged the bodies of those they had beaten unconscious through the corridor, leaving a trail of blood.
On 24 May an early day motion was tabled in the UK House of Commons, stating that about 60 inmates were taken to solitary confinement cells where they were held for 19 days without access to daylight, phone calls or their lawyers. The UN high commissioner for human rights said: “We are disturbed by the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force by police special forces to dismantle a peaceful sit-in.”
Most of the prisoners put in solitary confinement claimed they received no medical treatment for their wounds. Only Abdulemam was taken briefly to a military hospital and then returned to solitary confinement. The rest remained in the dark, handcuffed in cells without beds.
“You eat, pray, go to the bathroom with the cuffs. Everything with the cuffs,” one inmate called Ali Alzaki told his family on the phone later. “For 10 days we didn’t change our clothes or take a shower.” When Ali Mohammed Hassan Buhameed called his family a month later, he held up his wrists to show scars caused by handcuffs.
In early May, diplomats including the British ambassador and the American chargé d’affairs visited Jau. The British ambassador Roddy Drummond tweeted: “We were shown a well-run facility.”
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, who heads Bird, said he was “shocked to my core”, by the testimonies of prisoners about the crackdown on 17 April. He said the authorities’ response to the sit-in “amounts to torture”.
When contacted for comment, the Bahraini authorities said the Jau sit-in was a “violent” demonstration and said “prison staff took proportionate measures in line with prison policy, necessary to protect staff, other inmates and the delivery of essential health services”. They said those detained after the crackdown had been moved to newer facilities at Jau. They could not explain why detainees did not contact their families during this period.
The Bahraini authorities also provided the edited CCTV footage which they said backed up their claims.
However, inmates in Bahrain have raised concerns about how the authorities’ lack of care risked spreading Covid. Speaking from inside the Dry Dock Detention Centre, inmate Ali Al Hajee said: “Most prisoners are mistreated, physically and mentally. It’s always the same thing – torture and a lack of proper medical care.”
A Bahraini government spokesperson insisted that every prisoner who registered for their Covid vaccine had received it, and that 70% of Jau inmates have been vaccinated. Al Hajee contests this. “I’m still not vaccinated,” he said. “In February, I selected the AstraZeneca vaccine, but then they offered me Sinopharm. I said from the beginning I chose AstraZeneca.” He is still waiting.
Al Hajee is now in the eighth year of a decade-long sentence after organising pro-democracy protests, and grew concerned about medical care after an outbreak of scabies last year. On 9 June, a second inmate from Jau died, 48-year-old political prisoner Husain Barakat, this time from suspected Covid complications. His death sparked rare protests in the village of Diah.
“Many times we’ve said they need to spread prisoners out and educate them about Covid,” Al Hajee said. “No one is listening.”
Link to the original post: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jun/22/bahraini-prisoners-allege-brutal-crackdown-in-response-to-covid-protest
