Sir, – Fifteen years in jail is the extraordinarily brutal sentence meted out by a special military court in Bahrain to medics (surgeons, nurse and paramedics), several of whom trained in Ireland and worked for years in Irish hospitals (World News, September 30th).
Every human rights organisation worldwide has unequivocally condemned these sentences as outrageous and unprecedented and an attack on the fundamental ethics of healthcare. They have also pointed out the total lack of due process involved in what can only be described as a travesty of the justice system, involving what the same human rights groups have judged to be manufactured, trumped-up charges.
Even before sentencing, during their incarceration over several months, there is compelling evidence from the medics involved and their families that they endured repeated brutalities, including blindfolding and beatings as well as many other forms of threatening, degrading and humiliating treatment. Many went on hunger strike as their only remaining form of protest in the face of what was essentially torture.
Now that the vengefulness of the Bahraini regime is evident for all the world to witness, it is morally incumbent on Irish citizens, and particularly anyone involved in healthcare, to add their voices to the increasing international clamour to secure the reversal of these 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 their international colleagues in condemning this victimisation of healthcare professionals who were doing their duty in treating the victims of civil strife. It would be shameful if we merely “note the sentences”, as the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland so disappointingly did in their current press release when commenting on the savage sentences inflicted on their own surgical graduates who had looked to them for help. But more than robust statements may be needed. Every other legitimate form of pressure must be exerted nationally and internationally to protest against a barbarous precedent that, in reality, constitutes an attack on all healthcare professionals trying to do their duty. – Yours, etc,