{"id":10610,"date":"2012-07-03T16:04:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T23:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10610"},"modified":"2012-07-03T16:04:08","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T23:04:08","slug":"if-you-loved-the-king-nothing-bad-would-happen-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10610","title":{"rendered":"If you loved the king, nothing bad would happen to you"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you loved the king, nothing bad would happen to you<\/strong>
\nby Witness Bahrain – 3 July – 2012 <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone here has a story,\u201d I\u2019ve been told repeatedly. \u201cThere are too many stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here is one.<\/p>\n

L. came to meet me in the evening; an effusive woman with a round face, warm eyes and soft brown hair, covered by a scarf of shades of brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere can we sit?\u201d she asked me, looking around the house for a private corner. She did not want to tell me her story in front of her young children.<\/p>\n

L. worked for the Ministry of Health, in Human Resources. On April 18, 2011, a month after what is known as \u201cthe crackdown\u201d began, hundreds of armed \u201cspecial forces\u201d surrounded the Ministry of Health compound. It was difficult know who comprised this armed force, L. told me, it seemed to be a mixture of army and police, some uniformed, some in civilian clothing, and almost all wearing masks. L. had never seen such a collection of various weapons outside of an American action flick. The armed operatives went from floor to floor. They knew precisely which employees they were looking for, and where their offices were located.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey must have had help from the Sunni employees to have this much information,\u201d L. said, then hesitated. \u201cI feel bad talking about Sunni\/Shi\u2019a,\u201d she added. \u201cBut that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several of the armed forces identified L. in her office, with the assistance of her manager, who observed all that ensued. Whatever comments she had made about the situation to her colleagues in the past months was documented on a sheet that her assailants read from.<\/p>\n

The first punishment facing L. and her colleagues was humiliation. Prayer mats were thrown into the garbage. Insults were liberally slung. \u201cYou\u2019re a bunch of stupid Shi\u2019a.\u201d<\/p>\n

Insinuations of support for Hezbollah were made. \u201cWho is Hassan Nasrallah?\u201d they asked. \u201cDo you like him?\u201d<\/p>\n

They demanded that L. hand over her iPhone \u2014 they knew that she had one. Fortunately, L., having a premonition that the attack might happen, had left it at home.<\/p>\n

One man took her to her manager\u2019s office and led the questioning. \u201cI\u2019m just like your father, and you are my daughter,\u201d he began, gently. \u201cTell me what you know and I\u2019ll try to help you.\u201d He began to ask about her party affiliations and whether she supported the opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a mother, an employee, and I\u2019m not political,\u201d L. insisted resolutely. \u201cThe only thing I care about is my kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

He questioned her about her family \u2013 where did her husband, father and brothers work? She told her interrogator that they were all small business owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like you,\u201d he said, beginning to turn nasty. \u201cI don\u2019t like you at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

L. thought she understood the subtext of the man\u2019s comment: You have money \u2014 why are you against the government?<\/p>\n

L. tried not to focus on the sounds of her colleagues being beaten and crying on the other side of the room, as her questioning continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you go to Pearl Roundabout at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d L. lied.<\/p>\n

He asked her next about her educational background.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more educated you are, the more trouble we get from you,\u201d her interrogator sneered. L. remained silent. \u201cI don\u2019t like you at all, and because you\u2019re not cooperating, I\u2019ll get someone to beat you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two dark-skinned women security forces, Bahrainis but perhaps of African descent L. thought, were brought in. Blows from their fists rained down on L.\u2019s face, shoulders and back. Sharp kicks were delivered, and face-slapping to further humiliate. They dragged her back to her office, and several people began to open her office drawers, and opened her emails on her computer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to see how much is your salary,\u201d one of them demanded. L. showed them a document on her computer. \u201cYou receive three times our wage, and you still hate your government?\u201d They began to hit L. again, repeatedly, pulling her out in front of her colleagues as they punched her in the mouth, neck and shoulders. She could hear cries coming from every corner of the office, but L. was in too deep a state of shock to cry.<\/p>\n

Two of her assailants grabbed her from under her arms and began to drag her down the steps to the 2nd floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop hitting this cute girl, I like her,\u201d one masked man leered. He put his arm around her to lead her downstairs himself, fondling her breast as he did.<\/p>\n

On the 2nd floor, L. saw one of her fellow employees pushed against the wall as a large woman in a mask ripped off her abaya and tore her clothes so that her skin was exposed. \u201cCome here and look at the white Shi\u2019a meat!\u201d the masked woman called out.<\/p>\n

L. watched in horror as another fellow employee was dragged in front of her and pushed down the flight of stairs to the first floor \u2014 rolling the whole way down \u2014 and then pushed down another flight to the ground floor. When L. made it down to the ground floor herself, her colleague\u2019s face was swollen and bloody beyond recognition.<\/p>\n

Eleven women employees were gathered on one side of the entry foyer and around 35 men on the other \u2014 all Shi\u2019a, most of whom worked in the Human Resources department. L. surmised that Shi\u2019a in the HR department were specifically targeted because they had access to information about all the ministry departments.<\/p>\n

The women sat on the ground of the entry way \u2014 \u201cYou don\u2019t deserve to sit on government chairs!\u201d \u2013 while the men on the other end of the foyer were forced to sit facing the wall, with their hands cuffed behind their backs. Dogs were brought in to sniff everybody. L. could see blood seeping through the white thobes of some of her male colleagues.<\/p>\n

One man\u2019s ghetra (the white head covering worn in traditional Gulf dress) was wrapped around his neck and used as a leash, forcing the man to crawl on all fours like a dog. \u201cStand up and dance!\u201d he was ordered. He did so.<\/p>\n

The assailants commanded the men to hang photos of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on the wall and to kiss them. The women were forced to hold photos of the king, prime minister and crown prince above their heads while shouting \u201cAash!\u201d, long live the king.<\/p>\n

\u201cSing the national anthem!\u201d they were commanded, as they stood with the pictures above their heads. Anyone who stumbled over the words or forgot them was slapped or punched in the face.<\/p>\n

******<\/p>\n

I had a meeting to run to, so L. was not able to finish the story, though I knew it involved spending the night at the police station, and being sacked from her job along with half of the Ministry of Health\u2019s Human Resources department.<\/p>\n

As I packed up my notebook, L. related one more detail of her ordeal. One policewoman had approached her repeatedly in the foyer of the Ministry of Health. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you love the king?\u201d she asked L. \u201cIf you loved him, nothing bad would happen to you.\u201d …source<\/a><\/p>\n

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If you loved the king, nothing bad would happen to you by Witness Bahrain – 3 July – 2012 \u201cEveryone here has a story,\u201d I\u2019ve been told repeatedly. \u201cThere are too many stories.\u201d Here is one. L. came to meet me in the evening; an effusive woman with a round face, warm eyes and soft more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1441],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10611,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610\/revisions\/10611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}