Women the latest target of Bahrain\u2019s crackdown
\nby News Source on June 2, 2011
\nKelly McEvers reports:<\/p>\n
The woman who spoke to NPR says she was taken by bus to a police station, blindfolded, and made to stand for five hours in a room. She was accused of working to bring down the Bahraini regime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey tried to force me to confess that I told people at my work to be against the regime,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Authorities showed the woman a picture of someone protesting at Pearl Roundabout. At the time, Bahrain\u2019s crown prince said it was legal to protest. Now, authorities say it\u2019s a crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey tried to force me to confess that a picture in a protest \u2014 that it is my picture. And it was really not my picture,\u201d the woman says.<\/p>\n
She was taunted about one of her relatives, who has been jailed without charge for many weeks. \u201cThey said very bad things about him,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd they told me that, \u2018Do you think he will come out of the jail? He will die in jail.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But perhaps the worst part of the ordeal was that the woman was detained at all. In an Arab culture, particularly in the Gulf, detaining a woman is the ultimate humiliation, going back to the days when the way one tribe defeated another was to capture and rape its women.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told me if I didn\u2019t confess they will let men come and \u2014 continue with me,\u201d the woman says. \u201cThey told me that.\u201d …source<\/a><\/p>\n