The 27-year-old woman, identified as Zahra Saleh, was injured in the forehead by an iron rod hurled by Saudi-backed Bahraini troops during an anti-regime protest in the village of Daih on November 18.

The young protester, who had been hospitalized with serious injuries, died early on Wednesday. Some reports suggest that she was not participating in the protest and that she was a passerby when regime troops attacked protesters.

Bahraini officials have denied reports blaming security forces for her death, saying that the iron rod was hurled by a vandal. Rights activists, however, say they have a video showing security forces carrying rods during the crackdown in Daih.

A day before the Universal children’s day, 19 November 2011, Ali Yousif Baddah, of 16 years, was purposely run over by Bahrain security force while suppressing a peaceful protest in Juffair[5] . MOI confirmed the cause of death[6] . Photos of Ali after being hit are very graphics due to severity of injuries. Ali’s funeral procession and mourners were attacked by rubber bullets and teargas, more injuries were caused.

To date, no one has been held accountable for the death of Ali or other children, although an investigation has been conducted but no action taken against the responsible parties in the government.

The Shia group Al-Wefaq declares the death of one of its prominent leaders after a police force attack, one of many aggressions committed by the Sunni regime against the opposition Shiite. The elderly father of the second in command of Bahrain‘s largest Shiite opposition group Al-Wefaq died of his injuries on Thursday after riot police attacked him a day earlier, the organisation said. “Ali Hasan al-Dehi, 70, was attacked by riot police forces Wednesday evening,” and died early Thursday, Al-Wefaq’s website reported.

His son, Hussein al-Dehi, is deputy head of Al-Wefaq. The statement said the elder Dehi had told one of his sons, who had arrived home to find him on the floor, that “he had been beaten by riot police.” Al-Wefaq member and former MP Sayed Hadi Moussaoui told AFP police were dispersing a protest in the western village of Dehi, when the man was attacked. Moussaoui said members of Dehi household were harassed several times by the authorities, adding that the dead man’s wife had been “insulted” in the past without giving further details.

Earlier this year, Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy crushed pro-democracy protests, spearheaded by the majority Shiites, with the help of troops from other Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia. Twenty-four people died during the crackdown between mid-February and mid-March, according to official figures from Manama. Four protesters have since died in custody. The Gulf kingdom is awaiting a report by an independent commission of inquiry into the crackdown, which is expected on November 23. Though mass protests have ended, tensions remain high as the trials of dozens of opposition figures and protesters continue in the capital.

Source: bahrainrights.org

The Bahraini Center for Human Rights has expressed grave concerns about the increased use of torture against the political detainees in the country.

There is no doubt about the government’s official supervision over the torture. Even some members of the ruling family personally take part in torturing detainees. Now it is also revealed that most of Paksitani police force are torturing jailed prisoners, despite being unawareee of the Arabic language. They continue torturing innocent shia prisoners in torture cells.

Some detainees have been killed under torture. Beating and electronic shocks are the most common methods of torturing in Bahrain’s prisoners.

One of jailed prisoners, Munir Al-Sheikh said that he was subjected to torture by Khalid a Pakistani policeman because of his Surname Al-Sheikh.

Pakistan had dispatched mercenaries to Bahrain to help Al Khalifa regime’s crackdown on anti-government protesters in the Persian Gulf state.  According to agreement 2500 Pakistani were deployed in Bahrain. This agreement was signed during the one day visit of President  of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari on 17 August 2011.

Iran has already warned Pakistan that diplomatic relations between the two neighbors would be effected if Islamabad fails to stop recruiting Pakistani military forces in aid of Bahraini army crackdowns.

Bahrain’s Sunni-dominated government has arrested hundreds of Shia activists since mid-August, ahead of last month’s parliamentary elections, accusing them of having links to terrorists and conspiring to overthrow the Bahraini government.

According to human rights groups, the Shia detainees have been mistreated and tortured during interrogations. They also were forced to make false confessions.

MANAMA, Bahrain — Empowered by a six-week-old state of emergency, the Sunni minority government of Bahrain has arrested scores of Shiite women teachers and schoolgirls, held them for days in prison and subjected them to physical and verbal abuse, according to victims, human rights advocates and a former member of parliament.

In the fast-expanding catalogue of widespread and systematic mistreatment of Shiites here, some observers say the red line will be the sexual abuse of women detainees, a step that if taken could provoke violence between the two Muslim sects. The security forces appear to be at the brink of crossing it.

At least 150 women have been arrested, and at least 17 remain in custody, according to al Wefaq, the moderate Shiite political organization. Nabeel Rajab, president of the independent Bahrain Center for Human Rights, thinks the number is a lot higher, but he said late last week that there were no reports of sexual molestation “as of this moment.”

Yasmeen, age 16 — McClatchy is withholding her real name to protect her from retribution — was ordered from her school on April 26 and held three days along with four other teenage girls. She told McClatchy that on the drive to police headquarters, police threatened to rape them and insulted them as not being true Muslims.

At the stationhouse, “they beat me on the head with a black rubber hose,” she told McClatchy in an interview. “They threw me against the wall. The policeman ordered me to remove my headscarf. He took my head and pulled my hair, pushed me against the wall, injuring my head,” she said.

They asked her if she’d been at the anti-government rallies at Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout. She had been, but said she didn’t take an active part in the demonstrations. That was about the only serious question.

Yasmeen, who is slight of frame and wears a black abayah (a long robe-like dress) and headscarf, was interviewed at the offices of al Wefaq. The Shiite political organization had 18 of its members elected to the 40-member parliament. They quit, however, to protest the current crackdown.

One crude threat to Yasmeen referred to Hassan Mushaima, a militant opponent of the monarchy, whom the government, to the surprise of many observers, allowed back in the country at the height of protests last February. “We are going to do to you what Hassan Mushaima did to you in a tent,” the police interrogator said, Yasmeen remembered. He also accused her of being a “muta,” or “temporary wife” and of walking on a picture of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the Sunni king of this small Gulf island state.

They “played with our psychology,” Yasmeen said. She said that they threatened to turn the girls over to the Saudi military, which now has 1,500 troops on the island. “They will manage your case,” she recalled her captors saying. “We were under stress. I fainted,” she recounted. “I could not imagine I would be taken there.”

According to Mattar al Mattar, one of the Shiite members of parliament, there were at least seven or eight cases in which police rounded up schoolchildren. The authorities arrested Mattar on May 1 and are holding him on unknown charges.

A schoolteacher from a village near Manama told McClatchy that nine teachers in her school had been hauled out of their classrooms in mid-April and held for at least nine days. Security authorities charged that they’d shouted “Down with Hamad.” They, too, were beaten with black rubber hoses. “They had to stand for more than 10 hours, facing the wall,” she said. McClatchy is withholding the identity of the schoolteacher to protect her from retaliation.

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment specifically on the treatment of women. But the State Department provided a statement to McClatchy expressing concern: “We remain extremely troubled by reports of ongoing human rights abuses and violations of medical neutrality in Bahrain, and think that these actions only exacerbate frictions in Bahraini society. As we have said many times, we do not believe that security measures will resolve the challenges faced by Bahrain. We also continue to urge the Bahraini government to take steps to facilitate the return to serious engagement with all sectors of society on a political dialogue.”

For Yasmeen, those are just words. Despite what she’s been through, or perhaps because of it, she’s angry. “After I was released, I was proud. If there is a chance for another demonstration, I would go. All of us came out stronger,” she said.

MANAMA, Bahrain — Empowered by a six-week-old state of emergency, the Sunni minority government of Bahrain has arrested scores of Shiite women teachers and schoolgirls, held them for days in prison and subjected them to physical and verbal abuse, according to victims, human rights advocates and a former member of parliament.

In the fast-expanding systematic mistreatment of Shiites here, some observers say the red line will be the sexual abuse of women detainees, a step that if taken could provoke violence between the Muslim sects. The security forces appear to be at the brink of crossing it.

At least 150 women have been arrested, and at least 17 remain in custody, according to al-Wefaq, the moderate Shiite political organization that had 18 of its members elected to the 40-member parliament. They quit, however, to protest the current crackdown.

Meanwhile, Bahrain’s king set a fast-track timetable to end martial law-style rule in a bid to display confidence that authorities have smothered a pro-reform uprising, even as rights groups denounce the measures. The announcement to lift emergency rule two weeks early on June 1 came hours after the start of a closed-door trial accusing activists of plotting to overthrow the gulf state’s rulers.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — During more than two months in a Bahrain prison, the routine rarely varied: Alleged abuses by day such as beatings with a rubber hose, and then being blindfolded and dragged into a corridor at night to lie on cold tiles with others arrested in the Gulf kingdom’s crackdown on pro-reform protests.

The account — recounted to The Associated Press by a surgeon from Bahrain’s main state-run hospital — is among many claims of rights violations as authorities crushed the Gulf’s main Arab Spring uprising. It also shows the huge challenges for Bahrain’s Western-backed rulers to rebuild their image and lead reconciliation talks that began this month.

The allegations by the surgeon and other medical personnel remain some of the most politically sensitive between Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy and the majority Shiites seeking a greater political voice in the strategic island nation, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

“They insulted us as ‘Shiite traitors,’” said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals and worries about jeopardizing his defense in court. “They kept saying we were ungrateful to the (Sunni) king and what he did for us. ‘You don’t deserve to stay in Bahrain,’ they said.”

The state hospital became contested ground after the uprising began in February as it was flooded with injured protesters — some wounded by live ammunition — and authorities conducted arrest sweeps in the wards. A total of 48 Shiite doctors and nurses, including the surgeon, still face a range of charges from supporting the protests to trying to overthrow the state.

But the claims of abuses while in custody could bring further international scrutiny on Bahrain’s harsh tactics against demonstrators and are among the many bitter and unresolved tensions that could unravel the U.S.-encouraged talks between the leadership and opposition.

Bahraini officials did not immediately respond to an email request for comment on the doctor’s allegations. The office of the country’s information authority, which deals with foreign media, did not answer calls to their office.

The doctor’s story cannot be independently verified, but the accusations of abuse have been repeated by detainees’ defense lawyers and by political opposition groups.

“I was forced to say that people who were seriously injured and we operated on them to save their lives were not injured by the army or police during protests, but in the hospital by us doctors,” the doctor told the AP from Bahrain by Skype to avoid possible mobile phone monitoring by authorities.

He was among 28 health professionals released from custody two weeks ago as they await trial on charges of aiding the protesters and issuing “false news” — widely considered a reference to speaking to foreign journalists. Twenty other doctors and nurses from the Salmaniya medical center face charges of trying to topple the government and remain in custody.

The doctor said he was first summoned by police in April, just weeks after Bahrain imposed temporary martial law-style rules and received military support from a Saudi-led force. He claimed he was beaten and questioned for hours before being forced to sign a confession — while blindfolded — saying that he inflicted injuries on patients and was responsible for the deaths of protesters.

He believes the documents will be used to shift the responsibility of deaths and injuries away from security forces.

At least 32 people have been killed since February, including four who died in custody. Hundreds of protesters, activists and Shiite professionals such as doctors and lawyers were detained; hundreds of other suspected opposition supporters were purged from jobs and universities.

For 75 days in custody, the doctor said he was often blindfolded and handcuffed and held in one of 12 cells in a hallway inside a prison in Muharraq, north of the capital Manama. Bloggers, protesters, nurses, doctors and activists were among other inmates.

Almost every night, the doctor said guards would drag them from their cells and cram them into a hallway. They sometimes stayed for hours on the tiled floors, blindfolded and their hands bound behind their backs, the doctor said.

By day, he claimed there were beaten with “a large rubber hose,” chained to the ceiling and forced to stand for extended periods. During interrogations, the detainees from the hospital were spat on, kicked and punched, the doctor said.

“You are Shiite dogs and you are treated like dogs here,” the doctor said the guards shouted at them.

Later, he said they cranked up the volume of chants about killing Shiites with swords and cutting them to pieces, the doctor said.

“It was extremely loud and they played it again and again and again,” the doctor said. “They had no evidence … and, under torture, they make you confess.”

Bahrain’s Shiites account for about 70 percent of the kingdom’s population, but they claim systematic discrimination including being effectively blocked from top military and political posts. Their protests in February — inspired by wider Arab uprisings — have been by far the biggest challenge to any Gulf ruler in decades.

The Salmaniya hospital has been a political hotspot since protests began. The mostly Shiite personnel was seen by Sunni authorities as protest sympathizers, although the staff claim they treated all who need care.

For many Shiites, the sprawling complex — sitting between fancy shopping malls and Western-style cafes in central Manama — is now as much a symbol of the rebellion as the city’s Pearl Square, which protesters occupied for a month and the military overran in March and later destroyed the square’s landmark 300-foot (90-meter) pearl monument.

Hours after marital law was declared on March 17 the army surrounded the Salmaniya hospital, set up military checkpoints and deployed commando-style troops in army green coveralls and black ski masks to patrol the outside walls. Soldiers and policemen roamed the hospital wards, storming into rooms and operating theater during surgery, hunting for wanted doctors and patients, interrogating them and detaining seriously injured patients.

In April, the group Physicians for Human Rights said in a report that the military attacked physicians, medical staff and patients in the Salmaniya complex “with weapons, beatings and tear gas as retaliation to the protests being held there.” The U.S.-based group said the “brutal government crackdown casts doubt on the legitimacy of the charges against doctors.”

Several of defendants’ families reported “the disturbing allegations that their relatives are being tortured and forced to sign false confessions while in custody,” said Richard Sollom, the group’s deputy director.

Many protesters injured in recent clashes have avoided Salmaniya hospital — the only facility with extensive trauma care — out of fears they could be arrested on the spot.

By Associated Press, Published on washingtonpost.com July 9