Interview with Maryam Abu Deeb, whose father Mahdi Abu Deeb is in prison in Bahrain. He is president of the Bahrain Teachers Association and was punished for organizing teachers to join in the peaceful protests at Pearl Square in Bahrain in February and March 2011.

The day we had chosen to go with a medic to Boori village was a special religious day for Shia Muslims; 13th Jamada Thani 1428 A.H. – the anniversary of the death of Hazrat Fatima bint-e-Hazm bin Khalid (also known as Umm-ul-Baneen) – the wife of Imam Ali (a.s.) and mother of Hazrat Abbas (a.s.) which meant than the streets were fairly quiet in comparison to a regular night in a Manama village since 14th of February 2011. The streets were still blocked around the village to slow down possible riot police troops entering the village, but there was no night protest as usual, only an earlier one that took place at 4 pm. People in the streets were singing a traditional song for funerals while synchronically clapping their chest with one hand.

We drove to one of the homes in the village were the medic would later show up. At first there were three injured people and a group of very young guys waiting with their injured friend. As the rumor spread that there was an international in the house documenting cases of injury from protests, more people came; but there was no way I could cover all of the stories and cases of those who came in one night.

As we waited for the medic, I began speaking to 15-year-old Ali. He had been shot all over his body with birdshot pellets while attending a peaceful protest the day before (see photo). When the medic later showed up he told me that when demonstrators had brought the boy to the house the day before, he had been completely covered in blood and almost unconscious.

I used to be a substitute school teacher in primary and secondary schools and young Ali really reminded me of the boys I used to teach, who having done something really cool or special, are excited to tell the rest of the class about it. He was a bit shy at first, being the only one speaking in a room full of his friends and other much older protesters, as well as the family of the house. He didn’t give out any details except for the ones I specifically asked for. But then he opened up more.

The protest involved a little over 100 people, both woman and men, old and young. After the march around the village ended, about 60 people remained outside; that’s when the riot police attacked. They began shooting teargas, aiming directly at the villagers. Some protesters grabbed the teargas canisters with their hands just after they hit the ground and threw them back in the direction of the riot police. The whole center of the village became covered in teargas the boy told me, lifting his eyebrows and his brown eyes wide open, indicating that he was overwhelmed by the details of his own story.

Ali was one of the people picking up teargas canisters to throw them back at the police who were dressed in full riot gear, with helmets, masks and padding protecting their entire bodies.

Then the riot police began shooting birdshot at the crowd of people. They seemed to be randomly firing at the whole crowd, but of course Ali couldn’t tell what their exact strategy was. At least five police officers dressed as civilians also entered the crowd with shotguns and started chasing and shooting at people. He was one of the worst injured people in Boori that night. His body was completely covered in wounds from shots when I spoke to him. In total there were 38 people reportedly injured from birdshot pellets that night throughout Bahrain. Ali was shot around 12:15 at night and taken to a private home in the village were a medic could treat him shortly afterwards.

As I have asked injured protesters before, I asked Ali what the goal from protesting was and if he had changed his views or if his enthusiasm had waned after being injured? He replied (translated from Arabic): “I want a complete change of the regime; I’m not afraid of anything; I’m just proud to serve my country.”

When the medic had arrived Ali got up and sat down in a chair next to him ready to start the process of extracting more bullets from his body. It looked extremely painful and a lot of blood came out while the medic was digging for the bullets. Sometimes small peeps of pain escaped the young boy’s mouth, but in general he bravely endured the process remaining calm and quiet.

Next I spoke to 27-year-old Ammar. He had been shot with birdshot pellets all over his back and his scalp. Some of the bullets were lodged in very dangerous places in his head, the medic told me, and he could not tell if it was possible to remove them due to the swelling.

Ammar was injured on the 1st of May, also in Boori Village. Around 300 people had attended the protest on that evening. At first the riot police fired tear gas all over the center of Boori, just like the night Ali was injured. Then, when the demonstrators dispersed, the police chased people into the village, hiding in different places in an attempt to catch protesters, either to arrest them or hurt them. Ammar and another young man were both being chased when the other guy tried to jump a wall. As he was doing so, he was directly hit with a teargas canister and fell to the ground. After he was down, the police turned their attention on Ammar, shooting him in his back and head, then leaving him wounded on the ground. Covered in blood, Ammar managed to get up and walk to a random private home from where the family helped him get to the house that was serving as a makeshift clinic. A total of 16 bullets were found in his body and at the time of this interview, nine bullets still remained.

Salman, another wounded protester, has been injured several times within the past month. He came to the house only able to walk on one foot, and with scars from tear gas canisters and a sound bomb on one hand and one ear. Another was 21-year-old Abdallah, who was now completely blind in his left eye from a birdshot pellet fired directly into a protesting crowd.

As I didn’t have time to go through all the injured people who had gathered at the house, I only did a couple more short interviews, but made sure to thank everyone for coming to share their experiences. The last person I spoke to was another young man named Ali, 17-years-old. The other guys pushed him towards the chair next to me where the other interviewed people had been sitting and I realized there was something about this case that everyone in the room thought was extremely funny. My translator had to try hard to pull himself together so as to not burst out laughing. Even Ali himself had a big smile on his face and his voice was almost cracking while he explained what happened. When my translator relayed the story I found out that what everyone thought was so funny was that Ali was shot in his butt cheeks. Normally I wouldn’t consider someone getting shot anywhere as a funny story, but the light atmosphere and positive vibrations that filled the room while he was telling his story put me in a good mood, even under these rather sad circumstances. Ali allowed me to photograph part of his back but obviously not the more private parts of his injured body.

After I completed the interviews, the host family brought in a very nice meal with soft drinks for everyone and the whole evening strangely turned into a very nice local gathering with a lot of chatter & laughter. All the while the medic kept removing the bullets from the injured protesters’ bodies. What a night.

Nawal’s photographs:


See Demotix for more photos

‏Nawal has been active since the beginning of the revolution, taking photos and documenting the situation for the international community. Her family is not only a mixture of Sunni and Shia but also of politically aware and active people and those who really don’t seem to care. The whole family meets every week at her Sunni maternal grandmother’s house for lunch or dinner. Before February 24th 2011 she really enjoyed sharing thoughts about politics with her family at these gatherings, but since the revolution things have changed.

‏Nawal’s uncle (her aunt’s husband) holds a very high position in the Bahrain military. Soon after protests at the Pearl Roundabout began last year, pictures of King Hamed suddenly began adorning the walls in her aunt’s house and the family spoke a lot about how Shia Muslims did things wrong and how bad for the country the protesters were. This was the first time in Nawal’s life she ever felt any difference between the Shia and the Sunni part of her family. She and the rest of the Shia part of the family slowly began to feel less welcome in her aunt’s house, she told me with a bit of frustration in her big brown eyes. The family gatherings still continued but things became even more complicated.

‏One of Nawal’s cousins started spreading rumors about her and threatening her on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The more “rational people” of the family, as she called them, tried to calm things down but he was so hostile towards her because of her enthusiasm regarding the revolution that he would not let it go at first. He published her full name and a lot of personal information about her such as her address and photos to identify her. He also threatened her by reminding her how much he knew about her. “I even know the size of your clothes – don’t forget,” was one of the things he wrote to her. She had to close the accounts in her original name to end the harassment from him and open new accounts using an alias.

‏The weekly family gatherings have changed a lot now. They’re not something she looks forward to at all as before. The cousin who was harassing her has stopped his direct offensive behavior but he ignores her. No one talks about politics anymore and the atmosphere is very tense. Nawal considers politics a very important topic for discussion especially because of what is currently going on in Bahrain, and it is very unnatural to her that they can’t talk about these things at family gatherings anymore. “I don’t think things will ever be the same again in my family” she said sadly taking a deep breath. “It’s so obvious to me. Anyone should be able to understand that what the government is doing to people is wrong”. She completely disagrees with the government’s official analysis stating that the uprising has to do with religious indifferences between Sunni and Shia. “The first one who was arrested in relation to this revolution was a Sunni Member of the Parliament. His name is Mohamed Albuflasa (click for more information). He was pro-democracy and put to prison. Claiming that this has anything to do with Sunni and Shia conflicts is just ridiculous,” she said breathing heavily as if just the thought of that argument exhausted her.

‏Nawal tells me that the government has such an intense control on people that one can be fired for disseminating news unfavorable to the government’s views on social media. In her own case there is a little less to worry about in terms of losing her job because she works at an international bank, which would not accept having to fire people for their political opinion. In fact, one of her colleagues had made a list of people in the company who he thought supported the revolution, calling them traitors, in order to spread it and cause them negative repercussions; when the head of the company found out, it was the guy that was immediately fired. For this reason Nawal feels safe in her current job, but unfortunately she has to look for another one due to the international economic crisis. She was offered another place in the same company but that involved some changes to her position in addition to having to move out of the country. Nawal turned it down and will now be unemployed when her contract expires.

‏”Getting a job, especially as a Shia Muslim, is not easy these days” she said. “The current government won’t permit Shia Muslims to have a good career and most companies prefer hiring someone from outside than a Shia Muslim so as to not have problems with the system here.”

‏Despite the fact that her economic security is uncertain and that the political situation is not in her favor, Nawal looked positively towards the future. “We will keep fighting for our rights until we get them. And one day those who have mistreated us will claim that they agreed with us all along, only not with our methods,” she said referring to the pro-government camp who she was convinced would eventually turn around and support a government chosen by the people. “As long as the government is chosen by the people they can be Sunni or Shia, black or white we don’t care.”

Meeting with a Bahraini medic who voluntarily treats injured protesters, mostly in private homes.

The medic who agreed to meet me worked for Bahrain TV as a monitor assistant, before the 14th of February ’11 revolution started. When things got hectic someone from Salmanya Hospital (the main public hospital of Manama) called out in all the Gulf countries for urgent medic volunteers to treat people in need. That’s when his life took a drastic change. He quit his job and chose to become a medic working for the revolution.

He is a very energetic person and very enthusiastic to talk about his work too. When we were introduced to each other by one of my contacts he asked me if I smoked and I replied “ahianan” (“sometimes”; Arabic). “ahhh – today you will smoke with me I think” he assured me. After watching only half of his photos of badly injured people and dead bodies the sometimes indeed was the time for me to smoke a cigarette with him as he had predicted.

He started explaining to me how his work functioned due to the many restrictions to a medic’s work, and due to the great danger in his job of getting put in prison, injured or even killed by the Regime forces. As I have been told many times; patients who need treatment because of accidents as a result protests or anything related to the police can’t go to the hospitals for fear of being targeted by the Regime.

He used to live in a 2 room flat with 11 other medic volunteers from the newly founded “medics community” (the authentic name is anonymous). But since the martial law (15th of March – 31th of May ’11**) they have had to work under more secret circumstances and still must maintain this secrecy despite the fact that matial law is not officially in effect. the dates of the martial law is informed to me by the medic and not confirmed from elsewhere) His house had been raided several times, and when he went to stay at his brother’s house that was raided as well. “The police shot at the house. They came in and took everything. They completely cleared the house – even the fridge and the onions from the kitchen table”.

The community is paying all the medical expenses out of their own money and sometimes donations. When they know that there is going to be a protest in a village they wait in an apartment until the village starts sending the injured people to them. Sometimes the injuries are so bad that they have to choose between letting the patient die or send them to a public hospital from where the patient will almost definitely get sent to the police and thus prison. He always chose saving the live.

He told me that so many doctors and medics have gotten arrested or injured in Bahrain that’s it’s becoming a problem to find qualified people to do complicated operations even for patients who are not injured as a result of police brutality. Eye, brain and nerve surgery is especially a lot more difficult go get in Bahrain now. He told me about a 21 year old man who lost his life in a car accident because the hospital he came to no longer had doctors specialized in the type of brain surgery that he needed (see photo).

The medic had a slideshow of photographs showing injured protesters that we watched at the café where we had our meeting. We made sure to leave the screen of the laptop pointing to the wall in the corner behind us, so that it did not show the other café guests the photos. Regardless, I think my facial expressions gave a clear impression that we were not watching pleasant vacation photos. I’ve worked in war zones and seen injuries before but the cold hearted way these people were injured was brutal. I think I smoked 5-7 cigarettes since he started showing me the photos while explaining how each incident happened, how it was treated and in many cases how the patient was doing today. I felt really uncomfortable. A strong sadness planted itself in my chest. It’s possible to imagine why a government is trying to keep down an uprising, and why police officers, who might be scared, do brutal things in a desperate situation, but the way some of these cases looked, even children, it was rough. The whole time I was writing down the details in my little notebook. When a meeting is in English I normally write my notes in English too to avoid spending time on translation and to get the quotes exact, but I suddenly realized that I had begun writing in my mother tongue. The medic looked at me and smiled “I am used to this now”.

We finally watched all the photos and he burned me a cd for my blog. They invited me for a sandwich or an ice cream somewhere but the thought of eating was not very tempting at that moment and I had a lot to write. I gave my farewell and we arranged for me to go with him on a working day as soon as it was suitable for both of us. As I walked to the place I’m staying the warm breeze of the Bahraini April night sort of cleared my thoughts from all the sadness and I got my mind straight for work again.

** Source for dates of martial law:

• http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,HRW,,BHR,,4d82fa481e,0.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/world/middleeast/02bahrain.html

Wafi Al-Majed

Interview with Wafi Kamel Al-Majed, husband of imprisoned human rights activist, Zainab al-Khawaja 

In the hall of Wafi’s father’s house, where Wafi is staying with his 2-year-old daughter Jude, there were two big photos decorating the wall, one of Zainab, and one of Wafi on their graduation day. They both wore huge smiles, looking like any other new, young graduates with bright and promising futures ahead of them…

I asked Wafi about his wife’s current condition and the visit he had to the prison where Zainab is being held. It was just the day before, on Sunday 29 April at 12:30, that he had been allowed his first visit since Zainab’s arrest a week before. He and little Jude, two of Zainab’s sisters, and Zainab’s mother, Khadija, had gone together. A prison guard brought Zainab into the little visiting room and stayed in the room for the duration of the half-hour visit. Zainab told her family how she had been beaten by the police during her arrest. Riot police surrounded her as she kneeled on the ground, and proceeded to kick her with their boots and jab her with their police batons. Although the police filmed her arrest, the camera focused on her face and upper body, while police aimed their attacks at her lower body. Other protesters had also told Wafi that the police filmed the arrest, but not from the ground when Zainab was being abused. Zainab shouted at them, “why are you treating us like dogs” to which a police woman responded by putting her baton to Zainab’s neck and choking her.

“[Zainab] is a very strong woman. I think I was the weakest one at that point,” said Wafi. “I’m not too worried about her when she is in prison because I know how strong she is. I’m more worried about how our daughter will cope with this later in her life, having had both her mother and father in prison at different times during her childhood.” Wafi had been arrested at the same time as his father-in-law, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, and spent 10 months in prison.

During the visit they spoke freely, despite the presence of the prison guard. The newly acquired news about Abdulhadi al-Khawaja – that he was still alive and doing okay was, at that moment, almost as good news to the whole family as if he would have been released. For the previous six days, Abdelhadi had been considered missing, the government not allowing anyone, not even the Danish ambassador (since Abdelhadi is also a citizen of Denmark) or his lawyer to have any contact with him. Fears had spread that perhaps Abdelhadi had died. Zainab had been especially worried, locked up not knowing anything; both she and her mother became emotional talking about him, Wafi explained.

Wafi has a very good relationship with his father-in-law. He told me about when they had been prisoners together in Juw prison. They had not been allowed to see each other from April 2011, when they were first arrested, until their first meeting in prison in December 2011. “That moment was a moment of celebration for us. We hadn’t seen each other since the day we both got arrested and we finally got a chance to exchange the stories of what had happened since and what news we knew about the situation in Bahrain. Al-Khawaja is a very impressive man.”

Wafi chose not to go deep into detail about his time in prison, but he did recall the first visit he had been allowed from his wife two months after he had been captured. Wafi finds it easier for to be the one inside prison than to be the one outside worrying about how a loved one is doing locked up inside. “I didn’t cry then. I needed to be strong so as to not get people on the outside too worried about me” he explained.

I asked him for his thoughts on the future of Bahrain and about his hopes.

“How much does freedom cost?” he asked, and then he replied to his own question: “a lot, but it seems that we have to pay more. Throughout the history of mankind, no ruler has been able to overrule his own people. Eventually the oppressor falls. The story only differs in how long of a time it will take and how high a cost must be paid.”

He told me that the Arab Spring gave the Bahrainis a lot of strength; particularly Egypt since no one had ever thought the fall of Mubarak was near.

“There is nothing they can do to silence us now and make us forget our rights. Everything already happened to us. Worst-case scenario, they will send F16s over us… but we don’t care anymore. We are not afraid. We want our freedom.”

As for Wafi’s hopes for “when the revolution has succeeded,” as he put it. “I don’t care if we become a Constitutional Monarchy or whatever – as long as the people can choose who’s in power. Even if they choose Al-Khalifa,” he smiled, almost laughing, and added, “though I don’t think his chances would be very high now.”

What did he think of the role of the international community in general, and what kind of international reaction would he wish for?

“We neither want nor need the international society to interfere with any of this. We just need them to stop supporting the dictatorship that is killing and torturing us and treating us worse than animals. The Americans could stop this whole thing right now if they just made one phone call to tell the Khalifa family that relations would be suspended until a government had been democratically elected. But they don’t do that.” 

After the interview, Jude, came into the room where we were sitting. She was a bit frightened by us strangers in the house and it didn’t help much that we wanted to get a picture of her. After about five to ten minutes she relaxed in our presence and started to laugh loudly when her father teased her. I hope that one day on a wall here in Bahrain, there will be a photo of sweet little Jude on her graduation day, with a big smile on her face, looking forward to a bright and promising future.

Khadija Al-Mousawi (@tublani2010), wife of Bahraini hunger striker Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja and mother of leading activist Zainab Al-Khawaja (@angryarabiya) gives press conference to discuss her visit to her husband in hospital and daughter in prison. Additionally, Ms. Al-Mousawi discusses the latest legal developments in Abdulhadi’s case in which the Bahraini court declared a retrial without releasing her husband.

Jalila is one of the many Shia Bahraini teachers who have been imprisoned for her political views. Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations affirm that her only “crime” is her views and her nonviolent actions to spread them, she told me. When I asked her what she was specifically accused of she began laughing and had to ask in order to be reminded. There were 12 charges against her. “The charges are very silly, that’s why I don’t remember,” she said still chuckling. “Using force is one of them; but we have only our pen and our paper – this is our force – and I’m proud to use it.”

In February 2011, Jalila and other teachers asked for a 3-day strike to protest the violence practiced by the regime in their crackdown on peaceful demonstrators. They were permitted the strike and the Minister of Education, Majid Bin Ali Al-Nuaimi put a call out for substitutes to fill in during the teachers’ strike. When the teachers returned to work, all of their colleagues and even the school kids had changed their behavior towards them. Other teachers didn’t address Jalila respectfully anymore and many of the students seemed to show signs of being intentionally turned against them. Jalila recalled how one first grade student said to her: “You don’t love us since you could leave us for 3 days.”

Jalila strongly feels that the system abuses its power to discriminate against people who don’t share its views. Following the teachers’ strike , many teachers were suspended. Also, the government distributed fliers in schools asking Sunni Muslims to join a demonstration led by Sheikh Abdul Latif al-Mahmoud, who heads a pro-government group/party.

The President of the Teachers Association, Mahdi Abu Deeb, has been in prison since April 2011; one of the charges against him is based on the speeches he gave at the Pearl Roundabout on behalf of all the teachers. “Those speeches were not his words only. They were the words of all of us, and therefore they have to punish all of us if there is going to be punishment. But they want a few people to demonize so it doesn’t look as if the message is coming from the people,” Jalila explained. On their protest tent at the Pearl Roundabout they wrote “TEACHERS TENT,” and they had joined the protests as teachers spreading knowledge, which they view as their duty. But the persecution of teachers in Bahrain hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. Jalila explained, “if we had gathered together as the medics have done, we would have gotten as much attention in the international media as they did, but our cases have been viewed as if they were isolated from each other and so there has been a lack of attention”(…)”Many teachers are afraid to lose their jobs and their positions. That’s why they don’t gather with us as teachers when they go to protests. They blend in with the regular protesters not to be seen.”

Jalila explained that the teachers who are facing criminal charges cannot ever advance professionally. No matter what educational background they had when they were accused of the crime or what education they might later attain, they can never hope for a “good career as teachers.” The around 500 teachers who faced or are facing charges are never allowed to be promoted, unless the government undergoes serious reforms, that is.

As I’ve heard numerous times when talking to people here, Jalila told me that international pressure is needed to help save Bahrain. The government is “too cold” and someone needs to make sure there are consequences to the government continuing these injustices.

Jalila was especially disappointed about the lack of reaction from UNESCO. “Abu Deeb is the representative in the whole region. He is being held in prison for his political views and still we haven’t heard a single word from UNESCO” (…) “I have a request for all the humans who have a heart: please hear us, and please let the world know what is happening in Bahrain.”

Jalila has been arrested twice and has been tortured in prison. She told me how prison guards made her stand for 10 days with no sleep, no food and without being able to use the toilet. She has been put in a freezer for several hours while in light clothing and subjected to other very cruel treatment. She spoke about all of this in a calm voice as if she was at ease with her current unfortunate situation – facing criminal charges and denied the right to work by the very system that put her through these dehumanizing experiences.

Having been to other conflict areas, what amazes me the most about people I’ve met who have experienced torture is that I feel no hatred in them. How does a person go through something like that and come out still loving the world? To me, a person who is capable of remaining calm and maintaining dignity in such situations, has such a strong and beautiful soul, that s/he is already free. Now the rest of the country just has to follow…

Towards the end of the interview Jalila wanted to stress a few points:

Again, international pressure is so important. By international pressure she does not only mean a boycott of the current government. An end to all the political benefits, as she calls it, is important as well.
International pressure should first focus on freeing the political prisoners. If people are not afraid to go to prison for speaking their mind a lot of progress will happen fast.
Throughout the interview Jalila was as concerned about being a good host as she was with providing me with the details of her experiences and the situation in Bahrain. She kept asking if I needed more tea, and was very worried that I was getting too depressing an image of Bahrain. “Please go have some fun as well while you are here. Bahrain is not only war. Don’t forget”

As she bid me farewell, “Ma’salaama” (go in peace), her whole face was still covered in her big smile; even her eyes were smiling. What I can’t forget is her warmth and her ability to smile despite her predicament. And I will pass on her message to the outside world as best I can as I know I am one of her few witnesses.

Rula Al-Saffar

She arrived at our meeting place with a big smile and comforting calmness about her. I knew that she had come straight from a demonstration protesting the Bahrain government’s violations of the Geneva Convention guaranteeing protections for medical personnel. Specifically, Article 10(1) of Protocol II Additional to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts states: “Under no circumstances shall any person be punished for having carried out medical activities compatible with medical ethics, regardless of the person benefiting therefrom.”

Rula al-Saffar is one of the medics who has been treating protesters since February of last year, and is facing a 15 year sentence by the military court for this.

There had been around 100 people at the protest, which is not many she said, but it was primarily a protest of medics showing solidarity with their persecuted colleagues.

Medics with varied ethnic and religious backgrounds, both Sunni and Shia, have been treating injured protesters, but the punishment has been far more intense towards those who are Shia. “The government is too desperate, that’s why they are trying to create this idea of a sectarian conflict in the country; but it will not work for them. I have many Sunni friends and I love them and the people of Bahrain; they know what’s going on” she told me. “We need the international society to take action – especially the United States and Britain. If they watch silently while violations of medical neutrality happen here in Bahrain, it will spread. This is not only an issue for Bahrainis”.

Rula has prior experience treating people in times of crisis and war, both in Gaza and Lebanon. In fact, when she came home from Gaza, the Bahraini government honored her for her work. Now she is serving her own people in her own country, as she believes is her duty as a medic, and the government is punishing her and will most likely put her through many years of prison. This is what hurts her the most…that the government is during this to its own people.

Twenty of the medics now awaiting trial for treating protesters are facing felony charges (considered criminals by the regime) and 28 are charged with misdemeanors. They are all Shia Muslims and they have all had their medical licenses taken away. “This is another big problem for Bahrain” says Rula. “They worked hard on making us so specialized and now we can’t work anymore! If this country is invaded – who are they expecting to be at the military hospitals – not us of course,” she assured me.

As Rula continued to fill me in on the trials of the medical workers, I was stunned to learn that all of their lawyers are working voluntarily for no salary at all. “Most of them only sleep four hours a night because they have to work on our cases and still work their normal jobs to make money.” Rula believes that the judges use this circumstance to make the work of the lawyers even more difficult, postponing things for random reasons to further exhaust the lawyers. Rula gave another example of the regime making the work of the medics’ lawyers more difficult. While in custody, due to the brutal and humiliating treatment she was put through, she had to be taken to the hospital three times. However, Rula’s lawyers are not allowed to see the files from her treatment there. The type of torture she and her colleagues went through was systematic, involving blindfolding, being degraded and insulted verbally, being sexually harassed both verbally and physically, and even being threatened with rape.

Electric shocks and beatings were also used on them. Rula used to have long hair but it was cut off as part of a humiliation strategy to break her down. The men were made to walk naked up and down a hall while dogs were let loose amongst them and had to endure other cruel and degrading treatment. For the first 17 days of their captivity, until the 6th of June, no one knew where any of the arrested medics were, not even their family members. And it was only after 3 months of this living hell that they were informed of the accusations against them.

Rula spoke about all of this with the same calm and positive demeanor as when she entered our meeting place. She filled the room with a feeling of safety even under these very unsafe circumstances. I was truly impressed by this strong woman and her courage. Even several hours later, as I am sitting here writing this, I can still feel her energy in the air.

Throughout the interview Rula kept repeating how important international awareness is. “Without it, who is going to stop this? If it weren’t for Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other such organizations, I don’t know how our message would have gotten out.” She referred to the government’s severe restrictions on who can come into the country; No journalists or NGOs without special permission that is hard to come by. “The trial of the medics shows the injustice of the government. The issue of medical neutrality is a concern for all in this world, and what has the WHO (World Health Organisation) been doing about it? What has the International Council of Nursing been doing about it? The international community needs to wake up.”

As the interview was coming to an end she added that she thought the Khalifas could end this whole mess and even still be in power if they had the courage to do the things that need to be done, and of course she added a few suggestion as to what some of these things were:

• Free the political prisoners, especially Abdulhadi al-Khawaja;
• Sit with the opposition;
• Rebuild the Pearl Roundabout;
• Acknowledge the martyrs of this crisis (as she called it). They could, for example, build statues to honor them;

I asked her what she thought would be left of their credibility and legitimacy as a government in the international community as well as in Bahrain if they admitted all this and followed all of her suggestions? She smiled and said to me: “I said they could if they had the courage.”

First, please tell me a bit about the group of protesters you belong to, I asked after a bit of small talk and jokes with the three girls who were able to meet with me today – Zainab, Zainab & Iman.

One of the two named Zainab began to explain that they were a core group of 11 people who meet at every demonstration and who sometimes arrange special actions like the one they carried out at Formula 1 that led to eight of them being arrested.

It’s our tradition to dress a dead body of a person in white for burial. Therefore we all wore white clothes under our black hijabs, in order to show everyone we knew that we would die for the cause, Zainab told me. The other girls joined in with details from the protest.

They had hidden banners in their bras to lower the risk of someone finding them when they had to go through the security at the Formula One Circuit. The banners read: “We want democracy”, “We want justice”, “Free political prisoners” and similar messages. The idea of protesting at Formula One was to try to show the international community that something is not right in Bahrain. The girls explained that the reason the regime chose not to cancel the Formula One is that it was desperate to project Bahrain as a nice clean country with respect for international law.

T-shirts worn by the activists

For a week prior to Formula One, the police were all over my home village, Dar Kulaib, with shotguns, rubber bullets, and teargas to try to make us stay away from protesting near any international presence. I was shot with a rubber bullet once just for the “crime” of leaving my home. But they can’t keep the protesters away now. It’s too late – they want to get out of the villages and show the outside world what kind of kingdom Bahrain really is.

The girls had two demands for the international community:

• A trial against the Khalifa family for numerous violations of Human Rights.
• A boycott of all negotiations with the current government of Bahrain until it has been replaced with a democratically elected one.

“Why does Syria get all this attention in the international media when Bahrain doesn’t?” they asked. They didn’t disagree with the media focus on the brutality of the Syrian regime, they just wondered about the lack of attention on Bahrain. The girls are concerned about human rights in general, not just when they are violated in Bahrain. For example, Zainab was on the boat “Maryam” that in the summer of 2010 had attempted to sail to Gaza from Lebanon in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza.

When I asked the girls what things in Bahraini society they wanted to change they told me that there is a lot of corruption in Bahrain. No one can get a high position in society unless they are either from the Khalifa family or “slaves of the Khalifa family” as such people were nicknamed by the girls – people who are 100 percent loyal to them. Shia Muslims can’t get important positions either, they told me, all the while making it very clear to me that this is not a question of sectarian issues, it was not a sectarian struggle. This is about a lack of respect for human rights and the lack of democracy and equality in society.

When the girls got into the Circuit they waited with their banners hidden until the race was over and the winners were receiving their greetings. Then they pulled out the banners, revealed their white clothes and began shouting “Free all political prisoners!” “Free al-Khawaja!” “We want justice!” Instantly the police came after them. Zainab had her arm injured during the arrest (see photo) and her ears still hurt from the police officers slapping her. The girls were screaming loud enough to make sure that a lot of internationals heard them and they even showed me a video that one of their friends posted on Twitter of internationals running after them and the police who were arresting them to see where they were taken.

The police tore Iman’s shirt off leaving her in her bra in front of everyone. This would be extremely disrespectful and traumatic treatment for any woman, but probably more so for Iman as she normally wears hijab in public. Their friend by the name Masuma, went all the way up next to the body guards of Nasser bin-Hamad so that she got the chance to show him her t-shirt with a picture of the recently martyred Ahmed Farhan; she shouted: “Look you are killing us.” Nasser is one of King Hamad al-Khalifa’s two sons from his second wife. Zainab addad that her uncle was tortured in prison by Nasser’s brother, Khaled.

The girls were taken to a room inside the Formula One Circuit and made to stand close up against the wall to be away from the windows where people from outside could see them. After some hours in there they were taken to the police station. During the entire time in detention the police were insulting and degrading them verbally and generally mistreating them. After a total of about 9 hours they were finally released. Before releasing them the police insisted on taking their photographs for their police files. In the photos each held up one hand showing the victory sign to let the police know that this was not going to stop them from continuing to protest for their rights.

We set out walking from a house in his family’s village of Albilad Alqadeem to the house where his body was being prepared for burial. As we walked it started raining and one of the local bus drivers stopped to invite anyone on the street to ride for free. Everyone on our route was going to the funeral. There was an atmosphere of both sadness and solidarity. When we got to a little square (or maybe just 3 streets meeting in front of the local Mosque) the streets were already full of people. I could see the wagon where the body would later be. I thought that would then be the end of the crowd, which would have put us at about 400 people in the square. I later realized we were only at the very beginning. One journalist reporting from rooftop estimated there may have been around 200,000 of us there.

Many people posed for my camera as they noticed I was a foreigner. The lack of foreign presence was very obvious. I spoke to a German journalist on Sunday who told me that they were only given a 72 our visa for the Formula 1 and that they were being watched carefully.

As I moved towards to closely packed crowd to get a glimpse of the body and its condition people immediately moved to clear the way for me. If someone in front of me happened not to see me, other Bahrainis would kindly touch their shoulder to make them notice and make way. They guided me all the way to the room where Salah’s body was laying on a white blanket. When I came in it was only the doctors, the body, a few journalists who looked local, and one other foreigner. The body was in a very bad condition. They were struggling to keep it together and to keep the blood inside it. I felt very weird to have been let in today ahead of his loved ones just because the people here are desperate for international presence and attention to their plight. After a short while all the men came in, and the room filled with loud shouting and crying, mostly crying. The sadness was intense. The men were almost on top of each other, clamoring to get a chance to kiss Salah’s forehead goodbye. I don’t know how people can make themselves just shoot a man like that, leaving behind such a large and loud space of sadness, longing, and most likely anger.

After the men were hustled out, the woman came in. The crying and shouting of Salah’s name was equally intense and heartbreaking. I kept taking photos even though I felt I shouldn’t be there. But they had wanted me to be.

My contact told me that in many cases the families of those killed by the police during protests are asked to sign a document saying that it happened in a car accident or in some other way, absolving the government of responsibility. This family had refused. Therefore they didn’t get the body until 3 days after Salah’s death, after the Formula 1 had ended, so that the funeral couldn’t be held while internationals were in the country. This is extremely provocative since according to tradition, a body should be buried on the same day or as soon as possible. Therefore it was important to document this — to send a message to the outside world, a reminder, or to make it aware of the outrageous injustices taking place in Bahrain.

After the women said goodbye, the doctors carefully wrapped his body in the white blanket and put in a coffin. The coffin was then put onto the wagon, which began its procession down the long road, accompanied by thousands and thousands of people showing their solidarity with Salah and his family.

I located my contacts and we walked together with the crowd. Everyone around me was singing in unison, and sometimes shouting together. One of the Arabic sentences that I understood to be shouted was “Down King Hamed”. Many people held banners and signs with pictures of political prisoners and martyrs. When they saw me they wanted me to take photos.

Since the bus driver had taken us to the funeral the rain had stopped and it had been fairly sunny. As we now walked with the still growing number of people, it started to rain heavily again. One of my contacts and I impulsively, and almost at the same time, said to each other, “even the sky is crying”.

Salah Abbas Habib may have paid his life in the struggle for freedom and rights in his country, but from what I saw at his funeral I can only imagine that he has lit a fire in another thousand souls.

Note: The author is a human rights volunteer from Denmark and requested their identity remain anonymous for security purposes.