Bahraini Regime forces had injured a prominent activist after they’d beaten him as he was taking part in a peaceful anti-regime rally.
Bahraini Regime forces had injured a prominent activist after they’d beaten him as he was taking part in a peaceful anti-regime rally.
Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, has been brutally beaten and briefly detained by regime forces.
Rajab said that when the forces started to beat him he identified himself, telling them he was a rights activist. However when they knew his identity they beat him more.
"They said, 'Are you Nabeel Rajab?' I said 'Yes', then they beat me more", Rajb told al-Jazeera channel.
He also pointed that the forces who were beating him were foreigners.
"But the officer was Bahraini. When he saw them beating me, they stopped, because he knew it was too much and they called an ambulance."
At the hospital, Rajab said he was questioned about who had assaulted him, but he brushed off the attempt to find the culprits.
"I told them, 'You will not find the people who beat me. If you will find those people who killed 65 people so far, then you will find the people who beat me,'" said Rajab, referring to the regime who has been staging a brutal crackdown against peaceful protesters.
CONDEMNATIONS
For their part, human rights groups condemned the attack on Rajab, saying they hold Bahraini authorities “fully responsible” for his life and safety.
The Gulf Center for Human Rights, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said in a Friday joint statement that they hold the Al Khalifa regime responsible “for the life and safety of human Rights defender Nabeel Rajab.”
“We are deeply concerned that this latest attack comes as part of an increasingly hostile environment that human rights defenders in Bahrain are facing,” the statement said.
“We are gravely concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of Nabeel Rajab and hold the government of Bahrain responsible for his safety,” it added.
The human rights groups also expressed their concern over “the repression of peaceful demonstrations in the villages of Bahrain, the arbitrary arrest of nonviolent protesters on a daily basis, and the attacks and the intimidation of human rights defenders who are defending the people's rights in Bahrain.”
“He has an injury just below his right eye. He was then taken to Salmanyia hospital which is still controlled by a heavy security presence since last March,” the statement added.
According to the statement, Rajab's lawyer Mohammed Al-Jishi and other human rights activists were not allowed to meet him in the hospital, and he is being interrogated by security forces.
On the other hand, prominent opposition group, al-Wefaq, also condemned the attack on Rajab and asked the government to apologize.
Since the beginning of the popular uprising in February 2011, dozens of people have been martyred and thousands more have been arrested and put in jail or fired from their jobs in Bahrain.
In addition, many health workers, teachers, opposition figures and human rights activists in Bahrain are still facing trial or serving prison terms over participation in anti-government demonstrations.
