Bahrain Live Coverage: The Tortured Neurosurgeon

Democracy Now! with neurosurgeon Nabeel Hameed on his time in detention and the situation in the Kingdom (see 0740 GMT)

See also Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Conflict Renewed
Bahrain Live Coverage: Why Did Saudis Pour Cold Water on "Union"?

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2005 GMT: Nabeel Rajab, the detained head of the Bahrain Human Rights Center, appeared in court today and rejected the claim that he used Twitter to incite riots and violence against policemen:

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The charge against me is vindictive and is due to my rights activism. I only practiced my right to free expression. I did not commit a crime. The decision to arrest me and put me on trial was a political decision.

The judge adjourned the trial to Sunday. He ordered Rajab, who was arrested at Bahrain International Airport on 5 May, to remain in detention.

1805 GMT: The website of the Bahraini Police has been off-line all afternoon; however, a pro-regime activist has posted a copy of the press release, with photographs, of the 20 "terrorists" to be pursued for "bombings".

1532 GMT: Bahraini authorities have put out the photos of 20 "terrorists" whom they want to detain over "bombings" --- the initiative, as seen on Bahraini State TV:

One of the 20 men was acquitted in January 2011 of the attempted murder of a newspaper editor amidst claims that he had been tortured in detention.

1435 GMT: An EA correspondent reports:

Demanding freedom for detained women, revolutionaries from Manama closed the road in front of the main gate of the Ministry of Interior's headquarters this morning.

While a group was closing the road with burning tires, another placed an empty box with wires coming out of it, making it look like a bomb. Police brought in bomb experts to check the box, closing the road for hours.

The operation was very risky. Police forces tried to arrest the youths and chased them, but they managed to escape.

1335 GMT: Police raid houses Dar Kulaib on Tuesday night:

1320 GMT: Back from an extended academic break to find Al Jazeera English, in a lengthy article, offering new evidence on the death of 23-year-old Yousef Mowali on 11 January.

Mowali, a diagnosed schizophrenic, disappeared while on a morning walk. Police said they found his body floating in the water two days later in the Amwaj area, not far from his family's home in Muharraq. A state doctor reported the cause of death as drowning and ruled out signs of violence.

However, a second autopsy, performed by an independent forensic pathologist, concludes Mowali was electrically tortured and unconscious when he drowned.

Mowali's family filed a missing persons report on 11 January and were told that he was in the custody of the Criminal Investigation Department and would be released later that day. The family said they were surprised because Mowali had not been in demonstrations and was not interested in politics.

Two days later, the police said Mowali's body had been found, but refused to show it to the family. As a consequence, Mowali's father Ahmad refused to sign the death certificate. The next day, the police relented when he returned with a lawyer: "That's when we saw the body; we saw a lot of signs of torture."

The family's lawyer, after the rejection of a series of proposals for a second autopsy, was finally given verbal permission by the public prosecutor for the family to examine the body.

0740 GMT: We open with an interview of Dr Nabeel Hameed by Democracy Now!.

Hameed, one of the country's three neurosurgeons, was among dozens of medical staff arrested after the start of the mass protests in Feburary 2011. He spent three months in prison and claims he was abused and tortured.

Although he resumed work last month at Salmaniya Medical Center after a lengthy suspension, Hameed still fears detention. He asserts:

There is this silence, this deafening silence, from the world governments [about Bahrain]. There is a situation which is really getting worse and worse. And if you don’t really stop it here, it may get really, really bad in the future....You don’t have to wait until the violence propagates out of control.