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 Opinion: Why Younis Ashoori's Imprisonment Points to Repression Rather than Reform

Last Thursday, the US State Department's reaction to a Bahraini court's verdicts on 20 doctors and nurses --- "we are deeply disappointed" --- made headlines.

Beyond those headlines, however, that reaction appears to have had little impact on the regime. On Sunday, Younis Ashoori, a 61-year old hospital administrator, did not receive the final verdict in his trial. Instead, the hearing was postponed for a fortnight.

Ashoori, an administrator at Muharaq Maternity Hospital, has been held in prison for more than a year, serving a three-year sentence. The initial charge was "inciting hatred against the regime", but this has been dropped. His alleged crimes now are that he took oxygen cylinders to a medical tent and replaced pictures of Bahrain's leaders with Shia religious symbols.

Yesterday's postponment extends not only Ashoori's imprisonment, but also his physical suffering: he has been seriously ill with kidney stones and an enlarged prostate since he was seized by security forces last March. In his last court hearing, Ashoori stated that, following torture, he began urinating blood and was taken to a military hospital. When he told the doctor that it was his kidney causing him pain, the doctor allegedly responded by punching him in the spot. Today, he is in need of specialist treatment, but is only receiving basic painkillers and visits from a general doctor.

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Bahrain Video Special: A Tribute to Ahmed Ismail Hassan, Citizen Journalist of Salmabad

Ahmed Ismael Hassan AlSamadi, a 22-year-old man from Salmabad was shot and killed late Friday night by an unknown assailant who fired at him from a Toyota Land Cruiser. Ahmed's tragic death --- and the quest to bring his killer and any individual or institutional accomplices to justice --- will rightly dominate much discussion in Bahrain. One hopes also that his loved ones will be allowed to mourn, free from police harassment or attack.

Here, however, we want to pay tribute to a vital part of the legacy of Ahmed's life. It has been suggested that Ahmed was targeted by the gunman because he was known to be a citizen journalist in Salmabad, documenting events and distributing his work through social media.

Ahmed's work in documenting the Pearl Revolution goes back over a year. It is valuable for anybody seeking insight into events on the ground, particularly the police activities in Salmabad.

One of the first videos Ahmed uploaded captures a women's march to Pearl Roundabout, the iconic centre of the protests, on 4 March, 2011:

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Bahrain Document: "Targets of Retribution" --- The Regime's Attack on Medical Staff (Human Rights Watch)

Masked security personnel in effect turned the Salmaniya Medical Complex hospital and other health facilities into detention centers where many injured and sick persons, particularly those apparently wounded by security forces, feared to seek treatment for fear of ill-treatment and arrest and where many medical staff feared to work. Security forces forcibly moved patients, sometimes against medical advice, within and between hospitals and held them incommunicado. Medical staff and families of protesters injured and killed by the security forces were unable to learn the whereabouts of detained patients. In at least four cases, officials in hospitals or police stations later called families to inform them that their relatives had died and that the families should retrieve their bodies from the hospital.

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