(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - "What are you doing in my house?" Fairooz's wife screamed as the men, some in military uniforms, flooded into the front hall. One pointed a submachine gun at her head. "Where is Jawad?" he demanded.
Fairooz, 49, a graduate of the University of Texas-El Paso, had been elected to the Bahraini parliament in 2006 and again in November 2010, but he resigned in February to protest police violence against peaceful demonstrators who were demanding democratic reform, Bahrain's response to the Arab Spring toppling of dictatorial regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.
Now he was about to feel the brutal force of Bahrain's crackdown on the opposition.
Fairooz is one of about a dozen prominent opposition leaders and human rights advocates behind bars in the island kingdom, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. President Barack Obama referred to them in his speech last week on the Middle East, in which he pointedly told Bahrain that "you can't have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail."
A detailed examination of Bahrain's arrest and treatment of the dissidents shows widespread and systematic abuse that raises questions about whether the country's Sunni Muslim government has crossed a line beyond which it can't restore social peace in the predominantly Shiite Muslim country.
Interviews and email exchanges with relatives of four of the jailed politicians yielded startlingly similar stories of dramatic and humiliating middle-of-the-night raids by 30 to 40 masked gunmen, followed by weeks of beatings and abuse in custody. None of the men has been charged with a crime.
Exactly what happened after his arrest is known only to his captors and to Fairooz, who hasn't been able to communicate with his family. All they know is that he wound up in Bahrain's military hospital at 10 the next morning.
"People who saw him said that he was in bad shape," said a close relative, who couldn't be further identified for his own safety.
Mattar Ebrahim Mattar, 35, who also resigned in protest from parliament in February, was seized within minutes of Fairooz.
Mattar's family also has had no direct contact with him. But a witness said he'd heard Mattar screaming while being severely beaten during his "interrogation" at the same facility. Mattar was limping, looked weak, was blindfolded and in handcuffs, his clothes covered with sweat and blood, said the witness, who couldn't be identified for his own safety.
One of the most distinguished opposition leaders now in detention is a Sunni: Ebrahim Sharif, a 53-year-old politician, former candidate for parliament and businessman who's the secretary-general of Waad, a moderate secular political grouping that's also known as the National Democratic Action Society.
Around 40 masked security personnel, most in civilian clothes, surrounded Sharif's house at 2 a.m. March 17, as the island-wide crackdown began. Two men in traditional white Bahraini gowns supervised as a pair of young police officers vaulted over the outer wall of the house, one to press the electric garage door opener as the other approached Sharif and pointed a gun at him.
It was a full week before he was allowed to contact his wife, and the call was cut seconds after it began. Later the family learned that he'd suffered severe beatings during the first two weeks he was held and had lost 45 pounds.
Hassan Mushaima also has been painted as a radical. Secretary-general of the Haq party, he favors abolishing the monarchy and establishing a modern parliamentary democracy.
For years, Mushaima had lived in exile in Britain. But when the protests began, he decided to return to his homeland.
Mushaima, 64, who has had cancer treatment in the United States, was arrested the same day as Sharif.
His captors arrived in 10 police vehicles at about 4 a.m. As in the other cases, they wore masks and were armed.
He told one member of his family that he had been subjected to severe abuse.
"I couldn't sleep since I was arrested," he said. "I never sleep at night. I hear other people being beaten," the family member quoted him as saying.
He, too, has been charged with plotting to overthrow the monarchy.
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