More than 30 Bahraini medical
workers have disappeared as the country’s security forces quelled
Shiite-led protests in the Gulf monarchy, Physicians for Human
Rights said.
“As doctors
in Bahrain treat protesters and wounded civilians, they have seen
evidence of the atrocities committed by the authorities,” the Massachusetts-based group said in an e-mailed report.
“This
knowledge has made them targets. At least 32 health care professionals
have been abducted over the past two months and are being held
incommunicado by security forces.”
Bahrain riot
police on March 16 drove protesters from their rallying point in Pearl
Roundabout in Manama a day after the government declared a three-month
state of emergency.
Saudi Arabia-led Gulf troops arrived in the country
to provide support as the monarchy crushed mainly Shiite demands for
democracy inspired by the toppling of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt this
year.
Bahrain
denied that security forces attacked hospitals and doctors, the official
Bahrain News Agency said today, citing a statement from Huda Nunu, the
country’s ambassador in Washington. Medical facilities are “operating
normally,” Nunu was cited as saying by the news service.
Oil prices
have gained 32 percent since unrest started in Bahrain on February 14. Crude
oil for June delivery rose 84 cents on April 21 to $112.29 a barrel on
the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest settlement since April 8.
“The
excessive use of force against unarmed civilians, patients in hospitals
and medical personnel that PHR’s investigators documented is extremely
troubling and is cause for an immediate international investigation,”
said Hans Hogrefe, Washington Director of Physicians for Human Rights.
Salmaniya
Medical Complex, where many injured Bahrainis were brought during
protests, had become a shelter for demonstrators during the unrest.
Doctors provided information on the number of dead and wounded they
treated after security forces broke up demonstrations.
There is
“hard evidence of systematic and coordinated attacks against medical
personnel because of their efforts to provide unbiased care for wounded
protesters,” the group said. “These attacks violate the principle of
‘medical neutrality’ and are grave breaches of international law.”
The report
documented the “beating, abuse and threatening” of physicians at
Salmaniya Hospital and abuses against patients and detainees “including
torture, beating, verbal abuse, humiliation, and threats of rape and
killing.”
The findings
of the report were based on a one-week investigation, which included 47
interviews with patients, physicians, nurses, medical technicians, and
other eyewitnesses to human rights violations, the group said.
Protests in
Bahrain threatened the country’s “security” and “economic viability”
after extremists with foreign ties hijacked the opposition protest
movement, the country’s monarch wrote in a Washington Times editorial on
April 20.
“We took
immediate action to stabilize the situation and at the same time
welcomed the entry of Gulf Cooperation Council troops,” King Hamad Bin
Isa Al Khalifa wrote in the newspaper. The “task was not to suppress the
protesters — as some of our neighbors have alleged — but to protect
the essential and crucial facilities and installations.”
The
crackdown killed at least 21 people, the Bahrain Human Rights Society
said March 22. Activists and opposition leaders, including Ebrahim
Sharif, a secular Sunni and head of the opposition National Democratic
Action Society, have been arrested.
Follow us on
