{"id":5529,"date":"2012-02-01T13:11:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T20:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5529"},"modified":"2012-02-01T13:11:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T20:11:09","slug":"canadian-fugitive-in-bahrain-hiding-from-torturers-for-participating-in-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5529","title":{"rendered":"Canadian fugitive in Bahrain hiding from torturers for participating in Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘I saw death’: Canadian in Bahrain says he’s hiding to escape his torturers<\/strong>
\nBy Thandi Fletcher – 26 January, 2012 – Vancouver Sun<\/p>\n

Terrified that he will be beaten to death if he is dragged back to prison, a Kuwait-born Canadian citizen says he has gone into hiding in Bahrain after losing his appeal of his conviction for breaking the country’s illegal assembly laws.<\/p>\n

Naser Al-Raas told Postmedia News on Thursday that he is afraid he will be arrested If he shows his face in public.<\/p>\n

“My greatest fear is being tortured again,” he said. “I experienced it once before and it was like hell. This is my fear.”<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Al-Raas lost his appeal against a previous conviction on charges related to participating in pro-democracy protests.<\/p>\n

Bahrain’s Third Superior Court upheld Al-Raas’ five-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n

A former Ottawa resident, Al-Raas was sentenced in late October last year along with 12 others for having links to the demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Of the 13 convicted on charges of illegal assembly, rioting and incitement, Al-Raas said he was the only one not acquitted on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Believing his phone line is likely tapped, Al-Raas spoke with Postmedia News from an undisclosed location via Skype.<\/p>\n

During the interview, gunfire could be heard in the distance.<\/p>\n

“(The police) are attacking every village, every place to oppress the protesters,” said Al-Raas, occasionally coughing \u2014 something he blamed on tear gas fumes wafting into his hiding place from the street.<\/p>\n

“When I smell it, I feel some kind of, like I want to vomit. I’m sick,” he said. “(The tear gas) makes a big cloud which covers the whole village.”<\/p>\n

But Al-Raas said the sting of the gas was nothing compared to what he has endured over the past year in Bahrain.<\/p>\n

His ordeal began when he was visiting his five sisters there last March, he said. Al-Raas was working as an IT specialist in Kuwait at the time.
\n…more<\/a><\/p>\n

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‘I saw death’: Canadian in Bahrain says he’s hiding to escape his torturers By Thandi Fletcher – 26 January, 2012 – Vancouver Sun Terrified that he will be beaten to death if he is dragged back to prison, a Kuwait-born Canadian citizen says he has gone into hiding in Bahrain after losing his appeal of 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":[1998],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529"}],"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=5529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5530,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529\/revisions\/5530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}