Bahrain Interview: Activist Said Yousif on His Beating and Detention

Human rights defender Said Yousif AlMuhafdha speaks to protesters in Bilad Qadeem last Sunday. (©AP Photo/Hasan Jamal)

---

Wednesday was supposed to be a day of fun for Said Yousif and his young daughters. Instead, it turned into fright and tears.

"I was driving to Manama with my two daughters," Yousif told EA. The girls, 4 and 2 years old, wanted their father to take them to play at Magic Island in the capital. But Yousif is not just a loving parent, he's also Head of Monitoring and Follow Up at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR). So, even on a fun evening with his girls, he finds it an obligation to keep an eye out for human rights abuses. As they were driving out of their home village of Aali, Yousif noticed a police checkpoint on the road that had caused a traffic jam.

Such checkpoints have been routinely opened and closed at different times of the day throughout Bahrain, usually without announcement, since mass protests began in February 2011. They are manned by traffic officers as well as riot police and law enforcement agents in plainclothes, wearing masks.

These checkpoints have gained a reputation as people are stopped regularly, searched, and sometimes harassed. In some cases, witnesses have described to BCHR how they were robbed. Others say they have been verbally abused, beaten, and even arrested, especially if they have pictures or banners from protests.

Yousif decided to take pictures of the checkpoint as he drove by. However, as he turned on the highway to Manama, he noticed a police car tailing his vehicle. The officer ordered him to move to the side or the highway and turn off his engine. "I obliged and asked them why they wanted me to stop," Yousif recalls. He was told that the traffic police at the Aali checkpoint wanted to speak to him.

A few minutes later, two jeeps pulled up near his car. Yousif says, "Four members of the riot police suddenly opened the door of my car without saying anything and started beating me as I was still inside the car. I tried to get out, but they forced me back in and continued to beat me." Between the almost two dozen punches on his face, head, chest, and back, the officers kept asking him why he'd taken pictures of the Aali checkpoint. All the time, Yousif could hear his daughters crying.

When the hail of blows stopped, traffic police started searching his car and took his cell phone. One office found a protest banner in his car with a picture of detained BCHR director Nabeel Rajab, sentenced the next day to three years imprisonment for participation in protests.

The cop showed the banner to Yousif and asked him whose picture was on it. Yousif replied, "Nabeel Rajab," to which the policeman angrily responded, "No. I want you to say this is a whore!"

Yousif says, "I told him I wouldn't say that and that it was Nabeel."

So the officer punched him in the face, waited, then punched him again and asked who the man in the picture was. Yousif told him that it was Nabeel, but he was now worried that he could not hear them cry anymore. So the activist asked the officer to stop beating and interrogating him in front of his girls. "I told them they are children and they should not be seeing this."

Yousif tried to get out of the car in the hopes thtat, as a highly-visible activist, people on the highway would notice him and come to his aid or at least help calm the children down and take pictures for evidence. He was shoved back into the vehicle, with one of the officers taking the steering wheel. As the other police drove away in their jeeps with Yousif's banners, the officer with Yousif returned to Aali checkpoint. The activist tried to protest, "I told him this was kidnapping!" But he was told to shut up.

Yousif tried and failed to convince the cop to let him call his wife so she could pick the children up. "I told him I would go anywhere he wanted me to go, but not with the girls with me." He was ignored again.

At the checkpoint, the policeman approached one by one, hurling insults. One called Yousif an American spy. Others scorned him for talking to media about human rights abuses in Bahrain.

Even at twilight, it was extremely hot. Yousif's daughters in the car were sweating, uncomfortable, and very frightened. Afraid that they might get dehydrated due to the severe heat, he asked the police to give him his keys so he could turn on the air conditioner in the car. He was denied again. Fortunately, his wife had been informed of the situation and she soon arrived to take the girls home.

A plainclothes officer drove Yousif to a police station in Isa Town where he waited an hour for someone to speak to him. The policeman who finally showed up, sternly questioned Yousif about the pictures he took of the checkpoint.

Yousif explains, "I said that taking pictures is not a crime. It's not a military or army area. It's a public road and I can take pictures. They are doing something legal for the safety of the people. You have to be proud for this. Are you doing something wrong? Is that why you don't want pictures to be taken?"

The policeman softened and asked Yousif to write down what had happened on an official police document. A higher-ranking officer, who showed up after Yousif's picture had been taken, gave him his car keys and his cell phone , but his banners were kept. Yousif says, "I spent money on those banners. I tried to tell them it was not being used at a protest, but they again refused to listen."

The ordeal had lasted three hours. Yousif speaks of his daughters, "They were scared; shocked, but they were fine otherwise. They kept crying the whole night, but they were better the next day."

I didn't go to the hospital," he continues, "There were no marks on my body. Besides, this is a routine, every day thing for Bahrainis protesting for reform."

Bahraini officials have repeatedly denied that police have beaten and abused detainees.