{"id":3262,"date":"2011-09-25T17:51:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T00:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3262"},"modified":"2011-09-25T17:51:09","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T00:51:09","slug":"bahraini-%e2%80%9csham%e2%80%9d-trials-condemned-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3262","title":{"rendered":"Bahraini \u201cSham\u201d Trials Condemned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bahraini \u201cSham\u201d Trials Condemned<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For Immediate Release: September 8, 2011<br \/>\nHuman Rights First<\/p>\n<p>Washington, DC \u2013 The military trial of 20 doctors and other medics who treated injured protestors during pro-democracy protests resumed this week, further undermining Bahrain\u2019s claim to respect human rights. The remaining doctors who had been in detention \u2013 some for many months \u2013 were released, but the charges against them still remain. Some are in extremely poor health after 9 days on hunger strike and are need of immediate medical treatment. Despite assurances that these cases would be tried in civilian courts, the cases are slated to proceed in military court and verdicts are anticipated by Sept. 29.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrying civilians in military courts that offer inadequate legal protections is a sham process,\u201d said Human Rights First\u2019s Brian Dooley. \u201cIt exposes the Bahraini Government\u2019s real intentions to crack down on peaceful activists. The United States Government should publicly condemn these trials and make clear that Bahrain\u2019s decision to prosecute people for peacefully expressing their views will have consequences for the relationship between the United States and Bahrain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Bahraini authorities announced on June 26 that they were transferring all cases from military courts to civilian courts. On August 18, government authorities made an about-face and announced that the doctors would be tried in a military court. Bahrain\u2019s military court does not meet international standards for a fair trial.<\/p>\n<p>Among those on trial is Roula Al-Saffar, the head of the Bahrain Nursing Society, who spent four months in detention before her release last year. She studied at Widener University in Pennsylvania and at the University of North Texas. She also worked for many years as a nurse at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn July, I spoke to several of the medics who have been detained, including Roula and others on trial today, \u201c said Dooley. \u201cI heard credible, detailed and consistent stories from them of torture in detention. The United States should not be aligned with a regime that perpetuates such abuses.\u201d  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.humanrightsfirst.org\/2011\/09\/08\/bahraini-sham-trials-condemned\/\">&#8230;source<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D3262&amp;text=Bahraini+%E2%80%9CSham%E2%80%9D+Trials+Condemned&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bahraini \u201cSham\u201d Trials Condemned For Immediate Release: September 8, 2011 Human Rights First Washington, DC \u2013 The military trial of 20 doctors and other medics who treated injured protestors during pro-democracy protests resumed this week, further undermining Bahrain\u2019s claim to respect human rights. The remaining doctors who had been in detention \u2013 some for many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3262#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[867],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262"}],"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=3262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}