A leading Bahraini activist has disputed claims by the country’s interior ministry that the hunger strikes in the country’s jails are subsiding.
On Sunday 14 leading political prisoners began refusing food after reporting systematic abuses in Bahrain’s jails, including beatings, torture and the use of tear gas.
Since then the number of confirmed strikers had risen to nearly 200, with detainees demanding fair access to legal proceedings and respect for human rights.
A Bahraini official on Wednesday claimed that the jail protest was beginning to fade as the numbers on strike were decreasing.
Major General Ibrahim al-Ghaith, an official in the interior ministry, told AFP: "Today, the number of prisoners on hunger strike has dropped to around 100. Yesterday there were 180."
Ghaith denied claims of abuse inside prisons and said the accusation that tear gas was used against prisoners was a "false allegation."
But Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, rebuked Ghaith and estimated that more than 250 prisoners were now refusing food.
“There are hundreds of them, it is not correct that the number is falling. We have a history of the interior ministry misleading people and giving out false information,” he told Al-Akhbar.
“Nobody in Bahrain believes anything coming out of this ministry.”
Many of those detained have been held since protests in the country were crushed in mid-March 2011.
A government-established commission of inquiry found evidence of systematic abuses of power by the security forces, including the use of torture.
Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa vowed to stamp out abuse of detainees, but opposition figure Mattar Ebrahim told Al-Akhbar last week that authorities have new tactics that allow them to torture protesters without accountability.
"The new policy is trying to minimize torture inside prisons, but the alternative is that they torture in other places, such as construction sites," Ebrahim, a member of the opposition Al-Wefaq party, said.
Ebrahim was commenting on the death of 18-year-old Mohamed Ibrahim Yaaqoub, who allegedly died last Wednesday from torture at the hands of Bahraini security forces.
Yaaqoub was reportedly tortured in a yard opposite a police station in the town of Sitra.
Elsewhere in the country there has been increased tension in recent weeks, with activists continuing to demand democratic reform.
Rajab has called on Bahrainis to protest in Manama on Wednesday evening, with thousands expected to attend.
“It is tense, more tense than a few weeks ago. There are more people on the streets, we are seeing more protests,” he said.
“Tomorrow night I have called for a protest calling for the release of the political prisoners, last time over 10,000 people attended.”
Pro-democracy protests in Bahrain erupted last year following similar uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
But Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states sent troops into the tiny island state in March 2011 to crush the uprising.
Protests have again surfaced, testing Gulf monarchies that have led efforts to thwart the popular Arab Spring from bringing democracy to the region.
