Pro Democracy protests in Bahrain | News & Discussions

[Syrian Lion]

'I was sexually assaulted and tortured to extract false confession' - Bahraini medic
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Dr. Fatima Haji reacts after hearing the verdict announced by a court in Manama June 14, 2012. A Bahrain appeals court convicted nine medics on Thursday for their role in last year's pro-democracy uprising, and acquitted nine others, in a controversial case that has drawn international criticism of the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state. Haji was acquitted of the charges she faced.
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Fatima Haji, one of a group of Bahraini doctors who faced five years in jail but was acquitted in June 2012, told RT about the physical and psychological torture she experienced while in police custody.

She explained that she was arrested from her own apartment along with 19 other doctors who disappeared from their homes, hospitals and operating theatres.

None of them were allowed contact with lawyers or their family during interrogation and they were forced to sign false confessions, blindly without being able to read what they were signing.

“These confessions were extracted under severe torture and I mean physical and psychological torture, we’d been denied sleep for days and had been standing for days. We were not given food or fluids and were hardly allowed to go the toilet,” Haji said.

She added that they were beaten with wooden sticks and hollow pipes, were electrocuted, sexually harassed and threatened with death and rape in order to get them to sign a confession.

The confession they were forced to sign said that they possessed weapons in the hospital where they worked and were trying to overthrow the monarchy.

“The current regime has been manipulating the judicial system to use as a political tool,” Jawad Fairooz, former member of Bahraini Parliament has told RT arguing that the medics have been released for political gain, as others, with a similar list of offenses, have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms.

At the beginning of her ordeal Fatima did not know what her charges were, but found herself at a military court where they read out charges that had been fabricated against her that she had stolen 100 bags of blood, which she gave to protesters so that they could spill it on themselves, so that it looked as if they had been assaulted by police.

She said that it was never formally put to her that all she did was treat protesters, but instead the fact that the medics were just doing their job was turned into political accusations that they were trying to overthrow the government, had stolen blood and drugs from the hospital and were participating in an illegal gathering.

The reason behind such detention is that

“there is no specific independent judiciary system that you can depend on,” Fairooz added stating that it is not only a human rights issue but more of political crisis in the country.

'I was sexually assaulted and tortured to extract false confession' - Bahraini medic ? RT Op-Edge

 

[Ceylal]

Cheikh Khaled Ben Ahmed Ben Mohamed Al-Khalifa during his visit to Algeria, asked, during a press conference Algiers to mediate between Bahrein and Iran.

 

[al-Hasani]

Why is Iran meddling in internal Arab affairs? Then they wonder why 90 percent of Arabs dislike them and the sect they are aggressively promoting. The Arab world was, is and never will be the business of Iran.

If anything Bahrain (surprise), then fellow Arab countries and lastly the international community should deal with this problem. It is really simple.

Anyway I am in favor of KSA annexing all the small sheikdoms such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and UAE. I also predict that we will one day merge besides the GCC and form a entity much alike that seen in the UK. Moreover Oman should merge with Yemen since Omanis are basically Yemenis in disguise. Then you would have 2 strong Arab countries.

Well GCC already acts and often functions as one entity anyway so it might be a waste of time. Insha'Allah Yemen will be accepted soon as a member once things stabilizes there and there.

 

[Doritos11]

Why is Iran meddling in internal Arab affairs? Then they wonder why 90 percent of Arabs dislike them and the sect they are aggressively promoting. The Arab world was, is and never will be the business of Iran.

If anything Bahrain (surprise), then fellow Arab countries and lastly the international community should deal with this problem. It is really simple.

Anyway I am in favor of KSA annexing all the small sheikdoms such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and UAE. I also predict that we will one day merge besides the GCC and form a entity much alike that seen in the UK. Moreover Oman should merge with Yemen since Omanis are basically Yemenis in disguise. Then you would have 2 strong Arab countries.

Well GCC already acts and often functions as one entity anyway so it might be a waste of time. Insha'Allah Yemen will be accepted soon as a member once things stabilizes there and there.

Same reason as why Turkey is meddling in Internal Arab affairs.

Btw, Kuwait = Part of Iraq.

 

[al-Hasani]

The Turkish meddling only happens in Syria and Iraq because this is their only Arab neighbors. The "meddling" is extremely positive in Syria. They are helping hundred of thousands civilian Syrian Arabs. They are supporting the Sunnis as fellow Sunnis. Their actions in North Iraq (Kurdistan) are indeed kind of hypocritical but that is because of Al-Maliki and his close ties to Iran. Erdogan also probably dislikes Al-Maliki as many other leaders (personally).

Most Kuwaitis are from Najd. A smaller minority are Arabs from Southern Iraq. They are Arabs anyway.

We cannot attack a sovereign country and steal their land as Iraq did in the 1990's without a reaction from the world. The Kuwaiti leaders have ruled parts of Kuwait for 300 years. Let the Kuwaitis decide what they want. Maybe one day they will merge with either of KSA or Iraq if their people wish for this.

We can only blame the British for dividing the Arab world/Middle East and creating artificial borders in Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait etc. if we are brutally honest.

Also those guys once ruled the area of Kuwait/Southern Iraq.

& -

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

i hope i dont offend anyone here, but historically speaking -- Saddam wasn't incorrect about Kuwait or the oil fields. It actually did belong to Iraq.

Iran and the GCC should set aside their rivalries. The leaderships of GCC are Arab kings but ethnically 65-70% of Gulf are Iranian origin -- that includes Kuwait, Bahrain etc.

if the GCC and Iran cooperated and pooled their resources so they could leverage influence then imagine how strong they'd be. However it's in the nature of these 2 parties to backstab eachother constantly

 

[al-Hasani]

i hope i dont offend anyone here, but historically speaking -- Saddam wasn't incorrect about Kuwait or the oil fields. It actually did belong to Iraq.

Iran and the GCC should set aside their rivalries. The leaderships of GCC are Arab kings but ethnically 65-70% of Gulf are Iranian origin -- that includes Kuwait, Bahrain etc.

if the GCC and Iran cooperated and pooled their resources so they could leverage influence then imagine how strong they'd be. However it's in the nature of these 2 parties to backstab eachother constantly

That's complete and utter nonsense, no offense. 60-70 percent ethnically Iranian? From where did you pull this outrageous claim out from? Pakistanis and Indians who live as non-nationals in the Gulf are not Iranian. Nor those in Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Eastern KSA or Bahrain (the Gulf region) who are all Arabs (the locals = nationals). The Arabian Peninsula is exclusively inhabited by Arabs if the temporary workers are excluded. And they don't have any citizenship and are thus not nationals but only temporary workers/inhabitants. Those temporary workers are not from Iran aside from a tiny minority. This goes for the whole Arabian Peninsula were there never was any Iranian presence at all. Only in Bahrain there is a small community but they are very few in numbers and recent immigrants. Just like there traditionally lived Arabs in the coastal regions of Iran that border the Gulf. Some still do.

Kuwait never belonged to Iraq because neither Kuwait nor Iraq existed as countries before both were formed. Both were part of the Ottoman Empire. So that's not correct either. The borders of both Kuwait and Iraq were drawn by the British and both are former British colonies.

Moreover the majority of Kuwaitis are from Najd originally. Ask any Kuwaiti.

 

[Doritos11]

Kuwait belongs to Iraq, it was part of each other for thousands of years since the ancient history of Iraq which is one of the oldest in the middle east.
Kuwait was Iraq's seaport, I don't care if todays kuwaitis are from Nejd, good for them the land belongs to Iraq though.

Enough with the Iraq never existed, Saudi arabia never existed
Borders changed a little that doesn't mean anything, countries change names, get conquered and get free that does not mean they have no history.
Since Britain carved Kuwait off Iraq Iraq's leaders have held claim to it fromthe monarchy to the republic all leaders did.

You can have your own opinion, history shows this though, Iraqis claim it.

 

[Doritos11]

For every empire since ancient history where the capital lies in current day Iraq Kuwait was part of it, never it was seperated from Iraq until 1962

 

[MooshMoosh]

The Safavids/Rafidas will make the Suuni Arabs forget about Iraq, Syria and Iran if they took over Bahrain. Inshallah it will never happen and ya'rab we hope the Iranian regime collapse after Assad falls.

The protesters in Bahrain are sick...

 

[ResurgentIran]

al-Khalifa regime is heading down the toilet.

 

[ResurgentIran]

Another video of peaceful mass demonstration. Shiites AND Sunnis walking hand in hand. In fact its obvious there is no Shia vs Sunni, only Bahrainis. Al-Khafesho your time is up

 

[MooshMoosh]

Serious question, is the royals still gonna let the Grand Prix in Bahrain while Shias protesting? I have a feeling they are gonna cause chaos in this event.

 

[AlexAli7]

Well in Syria you have the rebels which are made up of over 40 different nationalities and massive outside support from the west as well as Israel and the Arab gulf kings.
In Bahrain, no one is actually fuelling the protesters, instead, Saudi Arabia sent its army there to help the Al-Khalifa regime.
See what im getting at?

Bahraini protesters are sick? At the start of the Syrian uprising, there were police and military casualties than there were protester or should i say armed mob casualties.

 

[mahatir]

Bahrain revolution simply failed because it was a sectarian one . Bahrain is better off under a secular regime rather than a fucked up mulla regime in iran or a wahabi shithole regime like the one in saudi arabia .

i hope i dont offend anyone here, but historically speaking -- Saddam wasn't incorrect about Kuwait or the oil fields. It actually did belong to Iraq.

Iran and the GCC should set aside their rivalries. The leaderships of GCC are Arab kings but ethnically 65-70% of Gulf are Iranian origin -- that includes Kuwait, Bahrain etc.

if the GCC and Iran cooperated and pooled their resources so they could leverage influence then imagine how strong they'd be. However it's in the nature of these 2 parties to backstab eachother constantly

Cooperation can only happen when the 2 regimes of Iran and Saudi Arabia are replaced with modern civilized systems not driven by sectarian hatred .