Human Rights Watch has urged the Bahraini authorities to halt what it said was a “systematic campaign” to intimidate doctors and other medical staff suspected of sympathising with recent anti-government protests.
The New York-based rights group said on Monday that more than 70 medics have been arrested since March in a crackdown that followed unrest in Bahrain. Forty-eight medical staff are currently on trial, charged with inciting attempts to overthrow the ruling Al Khalifa family and other offences under Bahraini law.
“The Bahraini government’s violent campaign of intimidation against the medical community and its interference in the provision of vital medical assistance to injured protesters is one of the most egregious aspects of its brutal repression,” Human Rights Watch said in a report and open letter to the government.
The Bahraini authorities have denied that they are targeting members of the medical community. However, at the time of the unrest the authorities accused doctors and others treating demonstrators, drawn mainly from Bahrain’s majority Shia community, of deliberately inflicting additional wounds.
The government responded to the youth-driven protests by forcibly clearing the Pearl roundabout, the rallying point of the demonstrations. About 30 people died as a result of the violent unrest in February and March. Nearby Salmaniya hospital, where many of the medics now on trial worked, was another focal point of the unrest.
The protests by the Shia enraged the island’s large Sunni minority, which has rallied more fiercely than ever around hardliners in the monarchy and is even less willing for the Shia to be granted more rights
The Human Rights Watch report was released after Wefaq, Bahrain’s largest Shia opposition group, said on Sunday it was withdrawing from a national dialogue set up by the government in an attempt to defuse lingering tensions. Wefaq said that it was under-represented in the council which is conducting the national dialogue.
Troops from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council remain in the country after they were sent to maintain security, although a state of emergency has been lifted. Protests have largely subsided, but a government crackdown against suspected sympathisers has continued.
Facing international pressure, King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa last month formed an independent commission to investigate the violent unrest. Officials said the five-strong commission will be headed by Cherif Bassiouni, a US-based UN war crimes expert and law professor nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The king will be sent the commission’s public report by October 30.
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