The doctors say they became unwitting participants in a series of events that rapidly overtook them, writes MARTIN CHULOV
DR ALI al-Akri sits at home in Bahrain waiting for the jailer to call. When it happens, probably within days, the veteran physician will pack his bag, kiss his family goodbye and go to the prison he will probably call home for the next 15 years.
“I’ll do what I have to do,” he says, “if that means that Bahrain will be a better place. And all of the doctors convicted with me will do the same.” The 20 Bahraini medics who were sentenced on Thursday to prison terms of between five and 15 years remain on bail in Manama, but all are sure that their fate has been sealed by the military court that convicted them of a range of subversive crimes, some of which the government claims amount to acts of terrorism.
The sentences have drawn widespread international condemnation and refocused attention on the uprising in the tiny Gulf state that faded away as the rest of the region boiled. When nobody was looking, Bahrain’s revolution died.
“And this is what happens now,” said Hussein al-Musawi, a protester who ran an information tent at the now defunct Pearl Square roundabout, which was the main protest hub. “We’re in a grieving period for a stillborn promise.” The plight of the medics – 18 doctors and two paramedics – continued to attract criticism yesterday, with the US saying it was deeply disturbed by the sentences and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights saying it had “severe concerns”.
Several of the doctors said their ordeal during the six months since they were arrested in Bahrain’s main hospital – the Salmaniya medical centre – has left them crushed and dispirited.
In February they were catapulted to the vanguard of a protest movement that shook the foundations of the kingdom. The doctors say they became unwitting participants in a series of events that rapidly overtook them.
As protesters were chased away from Pearl Square they began regrouping in the grounds of the hospital. It was the only place they said they felt safe from security forces. And that, according to al-Akri, is when the trouble started for the medics. “We knew right from the beginning that our issue was about politics,” he said, one day after being sentenced on various charges of committing crimes against the state.
“We were as far away from politics as you could be but we found ourselves in the centre of it because were were treating the victims.” The doctors were the highest-profile group to be convicted over the past six months, which has seen many hundreds of arrests and a purge of suspected protesters from government jobs.
The ruling al-Khalifa family has pledged reforms in the Sunni-led state that rules over a large Shia majority, which it accuses of having ties to Iran. “It’s all lies,” said al-Akri. “We have nothing to do with Iran and we want nothing to do with Iran. There is not a single incident that they could point to that would reinforce the view that Bahrain’s Shias are carrying out an Iranian agenda.”
Matar Matar, a former opposition lawmaker from the al-Wefaq party, is also on bail, accused of offences against the state. He said little he has seen has given him reason to think things will change. “The situation has gone from bad to worse. They are ignoring change and trying to deny that there is a movement for reform. But they are under a lot of pressure too. The economic situation here is very bad and they don’t have anything on the horizon. They can no longer convince Saudi businessmen to come here.”
Saudi Arabia remains firmly in Bahrain’s camp, seemingly convinced that the crackdown it helped lead has saved the tiny kingdom from peril, and spared its own country from an uprising that it continues to see through a sectarian prism. Bahraini officials released more details yesterday on the alleged activities of the doctors. They included using the hospital as a political platform, preventing some patients from receiving treatment, inviting foreign media and other non-medics into trauma areas, and storing weapons in the hospital, where an AK-47 and some bladed weapons were reportedly found.
The doctors say they had no role in stopping ambulances, but admitted joining political rallies.
"It was the security forces who [stopped the ambulances] and that was proven during the trial," said al-Akri. – ( Guardianservice)