MANAMA – Three non-governmental groups said Bahrain must halt human rights violations and a crackdown on hospitals, where doctors and patients suspected of having joined pro-democracy protests were being arrested.
Last month, the Sunni-led Gulf Arab kingdom crushed mainly Shia protests by declaring martial law, inviting in troops from Sunni neighbours such as Saudi Arabia and arresting hundreds of people, many of them activists or doctors.
Hundreds have been sacked from state jobs, rights and opposition groups say. Bahrain says it targets only those who committed crimes during unrest in March.
London-based Amnesty International called on Bahrain’s western partners to urge Manama to end arrests of medical staff and opposition activists.
It accused western governments of staying silent because of Bahrain’s strategic location as home of the US Fifth Fleet and its importance as a Gulf trade partner.
“North American and European governments, so vocal recently in espousing the cause of human rights in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, need also to speak out loudly about what is going on in Bahrain,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Paris-based Médecins sans Frontiéres (Doctors without Borders) yesterday said Bahrain had turned hospitals into “places to be feared”, where both doctors and patients suspected of having a role in the protests were detained.
“Wounds are used to identify demonstrators, restricted access to healthcare is being used to deter people from protesting, and those who dare to seek treatment in health facilities are being arrested,” the aid group said. Some doctors were too afraid to treat patients wounded during the unrest for fear of arrest, it said.
“The police, military and intelligence services must stop using the health system as a way to crack down on the protesters,” the group said. It also called on the opposition not to use the Salmaniya hospital as a rallying point. Before the crackdown, many protesters had camped outside.
Amnesty accused both the government and some protesters of violating Salmaniya’s medical neutrality. Bahrain has accused doctors in the hospital of failing to treat patients during unrest.
US-based rights group Physicians for Human Rights said doctors were disappearing as part of systematic action.