Finian Cunningham
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| Stephen Harper |
This lack of action by the Harper government is in spite of the fact that the Canadian Consuls in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are fully aware of the case. The official silence may be due to a bilateral trade deal Canada is in the process of completing with the Bahraini regime, and also Ottawa’s increasing subordinance to Washington’s foreign policy and therefore unwillingness to upset an important US ally in the Persian Gulf.
Naser Al Raas (28), who resides in Ottawa, was caught up in the popular uprising in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom that erupted in mid-February while on a family holiday. He arrived in Bahrain on 6 March to visit his five sisters who live there.
But when the former Microsoft IT specialist went to exit the country on 20 March, he was stopped while boarding his flight by ministry of interior officers. Although Al Raas was travelling on a Canadian passport, he was hauled into a room at Bahrain’s international airport and detained for several hours during which time he was hooded, interrogated and physically assaulted. That was just the beginning of his nightmare.
He was then taken by his captors to the infamous Al Qala – the ministry of interior headquarters in the capital, Manama, and incarcerated for four weeks without any criminal charges being made. During his illegal detention, Al Raas was severely tortured.
The Canadian suffers from a rare lung and heart condition – pulmonary embolism. He has previously undergone two open-heart operations at the Ottawa Heart Institute and he requires constant medication. Around the time of arrest, his supply of medication, which he had brought from Canada, ran out. He has been without treatment for nearly four months now.
The sprawling grey Al Qala fortress in Manama is surrounded by an imposing 20-metre-high wall and is equipped with underground holding cells. It is notorious among Bahrainis as the regime’s “torture chamber”. This is where up to 1,000 civilians have been detained following the US-backed crackdown against the pro-democracy uprising that is challenging the unelected Al Khalifa monarchy, headed by King Hamad. Four people have been tortured to death while in custody in recent months, according to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights [1].
The fierce repression against peaceful demonstrators escalated on 14 March when troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded Bahrain to shore up the Al Khalifa regime. Two days before the Saudi-led military intervention, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates held a private meeting with King Hamad in Manama.
Despite condemnations by numerous human rights groups of the Saudi-led invasion and subsequent violations, Washington has remained a staunch supporter of the Al Khalifa regime, with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing it as a “key ally”. The US Navy Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain.
For one month, the family of Naser Al Raas did not know of his whereabouts or even if he was alive. They knew that his last movements were in the airport because he talked to a friend by phone just before his scheduled departure. However, for the next four weeks, the Bahraini government denied all knowledge of the Canadian man.
After one month of being held incommunicado, the Bahraini regime released Al Raas but with-held his passport. He is now stranded in Bahrain – without medication – pending a prosecution trial. On three dates in June, he was brought before a Military Court. It was during the opening hearing on 7 June that he first learnt of the charges against him.
Al Raas stands accused, along with 12 other men, of kidnapping a police officer and promoting crimes against the rulers. He recalls that during his interrogation period he was forced to sign a piece of paper. This has turned out to be a confession to the crimes he is being accused of – accusations that Al Raas denies.
The Bahraini rulers have shown boundless imagination in fabricating prosecution cases. For example, last month it sentenced an internationally respected human rights advocate, Abdulhadi Al Khawaja, to life in prison for “trying to overthrow the state while working for a foreign enemy”. The regime is also currently prosecuting senior surgeons and doctors that it accuses of “concealing machineguns under hospital beds” and “exaggerating the wounds of patients for propaganda purposes, resulting in the death of patients” [2].
All trials in Bahrain since the Saudi-led invasion have been conducted in Military Courts, with minimal legal counsel permitted to the defendants. In over 400 trials, confessions forced through torture are the sole basis for the prosecution case. In eerie show trial fashion, sometimes videos of defendants making confessions are even televised on Bahrain state TV before the verdicts are reached.
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