THE GOVERNMENT is contacting Bahraini authorities to express its “deep concern” at the long prison sentences given to 20 medics, including six associated with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).
The United Nations yesterday condemned the sentences of between five and 15 years given on Thursday to nurses, doctors and paramedics who treated protesters during pro-democracy unrest in the Gulf Arab state.
A UN spokesman expressed “severe concerns” over “such harsh sentences” given to civilians in a military court with “serious due process irregularities”.
The Government was communicating its “deep concern about the very long sentences” to the Bahraini authorities through the Irish Embassy in Riyadh, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore said yesterday.
Mr Gilmore was concerned that the medics would be rearrested before their appeal and was appealing to the Bahraini authorities on this matter. Mr Gilmore is to raise the issue at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers.
Writing in today’s issue of The Lancet medical journal, Prof Eoin O’Brien of UCD’s Conway Institute, who was part of an Irish delegation that visited Bahrain in July to offer support to those detained, said: “At the end of our visit we were in no doubt that doctors and medical personnel had been subjected to human rights abuses, including kidnapping, detention without trial in solitary confinement and the extraction of confessions under torture.”
Doctors and nurses have expressed shock at the sentences and have urged the Government to intervene to have the medics freed.
There has been criticism of the response to the sentencing by the RCSI. Sheila Dickson, president of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, said there was “no justification” for the treatment and sentences of the medics.
The Government, EU and UN must mobilise immediately to right this wrong, she said.
“They must seek the freedom and pardon for these dedicated health professionals who simply cared for those in need without any regard for their own health and wellbeing.”
A former dean of the medical faculty at University College Dublin, Prof Muiris Fitzgerald, criticised the response of the RCSI in merely “noting” the sentences.
“It is particularly important that all medical, nursing and paramedical professional organisations in Ireland declare in the most vigorous manner that they abhor the actions of the Bahraini regime and join with their international colleagues in condemning this victimisation of healthcare professionals doing their duty,” he said.
The RCSI has invested €60 million in a medical school campus in Bahrain. It said yesterday it had no further comment to add.
The Irish Medical Organisation’s president Dr Ronan Boland said “all healthcare personnel must be protected and supported in their moral, ethical and professional responsibilities to provide care for the sick and injured”.