Bahrain Feature: The Underground Network of Doctors (Wellman)

Makeshift Clinic in BahrainIt is Friday night and Dr. Mohamed is on standby.

“It’s always the busiest day of the week for us,” he says as he holds out his cell phone to show a photo he received seconds earlier. The image is of a young man with birdshot embedded in his leg. It is a call for help.

“The government has been using a lot of birdshot on demonstrators lately,” he explains, “and the wounded come to us for treatment.”

Dr. Mohamed, who asked to have his full name withheld, is part of an underground network of medics in Bahrain who provide illegal care for anti-government protesters injured in nightly clashes with security forces. Most of those hurt refuse to go to either public or private hospitals, no matter how grave their wounds, fearing they will be arrested there.

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Bahrain Report: The Ongoing Assault on the Health System (Physicians for Human Rights)

In April 2011, two months after the start of mass protests and a month after the regime tried to crush them with security forces backed up by outside military forces, Physicians for Human Rights issued a report, "Do No Harm: A Call for Bahrain to End Systematic Attacks on Doctors and Patients". 

A year later, two PHR investigators, Holly Atkinson and Richard Sollom returned to the Kingdom to assess the situation. They conducted 102 in-depth interviews, including patients, doctors, and government officials,  examined medical records and radiographic images, visited Salmaniya Medical Center twice, and went to an “underground clinic".

Yesterday, PHR released the findings, "Under the Gun: Ongoing Assaults on Bahrain’s Health System", summarising the politics around medical care.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Watching an Explosion

Footage of the moment a bomb exploded in Damascus on Friday

See also Bahrain Interview: Nabeel Rajab - How Police Attacked the Manama March and Beat Me
Bahrain Feature: Dar Kulaib --- The Regime's "Sectarian" Tactics and A Village Under Assault
Saturday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Starting 2012 With a Bang

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2110 GMT: Richard Sollom, Deputy President of the U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights, has been denied entry into Bahrain despite the regime's pledge of transparency over its legal and political procedures.

Sollom, an American citizen, intended to observe Monday's hearing in civilian court in the case of 20 doctors and nurses who have been given prison sentences of 5 to 15 years by a military tribunal.

2010 GMT: Protesters march in Sitra in Bahrain today, chanting, "We have a right to defend ourselves" --- police subsequently fired tear gas at a group of demonstrators on the main highway:

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