Bahraini-Canadian HR activist: They Videotaped Me on Similar Chair Shown in Al-Arabiya Footage

The Bahraini-Canadian human rights activist Nasser Al-Ras revealed some of the confessions he made while videotaped "by masked professional photographers" and held by the National Security Guard during the 2011 State of Emergency in an underground chamber in the Interior Ministry building in the Bahraini capital Manama.

Al-Ras's statement came as a response to the film aired by Al-Arabiya channel recently and prepared by its reporter Mohammad Al-Arab, entitled "February Black Box", in which it showed confessions made by detained opposition leaders (Sheikh Mohammed Habib Al-Miqdad, Mr. Hasan Mushaima' and Mr. Abdulwahab Hussein). Al-Ras stressed that this shows they were "involved", wondering "if Al-Arab was among the masked reporters who videotaped our confessions?"

Al-Ras confirmed that the the chair he sat on "was similar to the chair Mr. Mushaima' and Sheikh Al-Miqdad were sitting on," adding that "all the photographer were wearing masks as gangsters" in reference to masked Interior Ministry forces who go on duty in civilian clothing.

The opposition figure further stated that they used autocue during his interrogation forcing him to confess against people he didn't even know and this is an "issue that the BICI is aware of."

"During the interrogation, the photographers participated in the torture," he stressed.

"The torture that was practiced against the figures wasn't ordinary. It was a monstrous retaliation performed at the hands of torture experts linked to the regime. I used to hear the screams of the figures and recognize them, like that of Sheikh Al-Miqdad, Mr. Mushaima', Sheikh Mirza Al-Mahrous and others who suffered from the brutal torture practiced only to satisfy the king's desire for revenge," he further explained.

"Days before my release and after the martyrdom of Abdulkarim Fakhrawi in the same "dungeon" where the other figures were tortured, the prison officers forced the prisoners to make fabricated videotaped confessions and I was one of them. I was placed on a similar chair to that Mr. Mushaima' and Sheikh Al-Miqdad sat on," Al-Ras said.

Al-Ras noted that "the recordings and confessions according to the law are not a "journalistic source" but rather part of a torture process. Whoever videotaped and leaked the confessions has made Mohammad Al-Arab and high-rank Bahraini security officials accomplices of this crime, because according to the BICI report, torture was practiced."

Al-Ras concluded his statement by addressing the National Security Guard saying: "You cannot evade punishment. You have locked yourselves and your foolish reporter up in the "February Black Box" which you will never escape from."




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