Bahrain Center for Human Rights:
A group of female students and teachers were rounded up at a governmental high school, interrogated and beaten.
Message as received, names have been removed for the person's safety)
Dear Human rights defenders,
I am writing to you from Bahrain, where my heart has been bleeding from the brutal regime atrocious crimes which are being committed against Bahraini citizens.
I would like to report to you the story of my 17yr-old cousin's detention & assault. The events took place on Thursday, 21st of April at her school (Al Ahed Alzaher Secondary Girls School- Hamad Town Bahrain).
1- Police stormed and entered the school without any prior notice, and without any particular reason ( there were NO protests inside school, it was an ordinary school day).
2- The police entered my cousin`s class at 12 pm; they had two girls names, which they wanted; one of them was my cousin`s name & the other was another girl in her class.
3- The police (female police) took my cousin & her classmate and lead them to another classroom, where they found themselves with another girls & 3 teachers who were all facing the wall with more female police personnel there.
4- Inside this class, they began interrogating school girls; did you go the pearl roundabout? did you protest against the regime? are you a supporter of mushaimaa? and many other irrelevant questions & accusations for 16 & 17years old girls!
5- With each question, the police officer would slap the student being questioned (and slapped really hard), even when the students denied being a supporter for the "regime overthrow attempt" or denied going to the pearl roundabouts (as some of these girls (total 22 school girls) didnt even go to the pearl roundabout).
6- When they finished questioning, one of the female police officers ordered one of the students to slap her teacher on her face. The student was shaking & too scared, so she did give her teacher a light slap on her shoulder. But the female police officer yelled hard at this student and told her; "you dont know how to slap? I`ll teach you how to slap very well!" , with that the police officer slapped the teacher really hard on her face & then proceeded to force the student to repeat the slap, but this time; make it a "real, hard & painful slap"!!!
Remember all of this happened INSIDE SCHOOL CLASSES, students ordered to slap their teachers in front of other students!!
7- After this, the female police officers took all the girls & the 3 teachers who were in the class & took them to the nearby police station (hamad town police station).
8- My cousin & other girls where detained inside the police station for 2 hours. & they were subjected to the worst kind of insults and abuse:
- The police officers, would repeatedly slap & kick all the girls.
- The police brought a thick plastic hose and proceeded to lash & beat all the girls with this hose on different parts of their bodies (legs, arms, stomach, chest, etc..).
- My cousin`s head was smashed against the station cell wall several times until she bled; her nose bled & forehead & cheeks were all bleeding from the heard continuous smashing against the wall. The other girls were treated the same exact way.
9- But that wasnt all; during their horrific ordeal of physical abuse, my cousin & other teen girls were being subjected to the worst verbal abuse & humiliation. The female & then 2 men dressed in thoub video taped them & afterwards started calling them names; branded them "whores" "prostitutes" and other horrific sexual assault verbal abuses.
10- the female police officers kept yelling at the girls, telling them that "we do enjoy beating you & slapping you, because guess what? for every slap we give, for every kick, we get MONEY, we get paid to kick & beat you".
My cousin was beaten up & kept in detention for 3 hours, and was only released after my uncle went to the police station to take her. Note: my uncle went to pick my cousin from school, but when he didnt see her around, he went inside school, talked to the principle & her assistant, who told him that NOTHING was there is school; it was a regular day, police didnt even come to school & she even suggested that my cousin went to one of her friends houses!! My uncle was sick worried by then, because my cousin never did any of that, and because he got a call from my aunt telling him that they arrested few girls from my cousin`s school, so he went to the police station to check & yes he found her there, beaten up, bleeding & petrified.
Now my cousin`s body is all bruised up from the slaps, lashings and kicking she was subjected to. But worst, she is now psychologically traumatized, mentally withdrawn & too scared to go back to school on sunday for fear of repeated assault.
Schools in Bahrain were once a place where one`s children would get a decent education & was a SAFE place to be. However today, the schools are the WORST place for our children, we fear for their safety inside schools, we dont know when we kiss them goodbye in the morning whether they`ll return to home safe or NOT. They might be arrested, beaten up & be subjected to the worst physical & verbal abuse and humiliation at what was once the "most scared" place ever.
People in Bahrain are calling for international organizations to step in, to put an end to the terrifying human rights abuses going on in Bahrain. The brutal apartheid regime is terrorizing innocent children & teens (for the record, the government stormed other primary, intermediate & secondary schools, & worked to instill fear amongst bahrain children & youth).
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