Alwaght- Jordanian guards as security forces at the detention center are beating Bahraini political prisoners up daily, a Bahrain-based human rights group said.
The detainees at al-Hawd al-Jaf (Dry Dock) prison on Muharraq Island, located four kilometers (2.5 miles) east of the capital Manama, “are beaten up daily by Jordanian police in places inside the prison which are not monitored by cameras,” Press TV quoted a statement by the Bahraini-German Organization for Human Rights and Democracy (BGO).
The rights organization said through “communication with the families of detainees,” it has obtained “numerous complains about detainees undergoing torture, harsh treatment, insult, beating, threatening, and solitary confinement by the prison's guards.”
A day earlier, The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) and other rights groups have expressed deep concern over the alarming situation unfolding at the Dry Dock Detention Center, calling on Manama to immediately and unconditionally cease the unjustified mass retaliation against prisoners at the detention facility.
They also called for putting an end to “the systematic practice of abuse and ill-treatment of political prisoners” in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.
This comes after the Bahraini regime’s Ministry of Interior claims that 17 detainees escaped from the facility on Friday, 3 June.
Since the beginning of the pro-democracy movement in February 2011, the prison population in Bahrain has swelled with political prisoners, growing exponentially into the highest incarceration rate in the Middle East. This is due to the criminalization of acts of assembly, association and expression.
In March of that year, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to the country to assist the Bahraini government in its brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests.
BCHR says it has received alarming reports from families of detainees in Dry Dock, specifically those held in buildings 16 and 17 used for the long-term detention of minors, alleging their exposure to abuse in retaliation for Friday’s escape.
Inmates have been subjected to various forms of ill-treatment amounting to torture. In the past week, prison authorities have forced detainees to break their ongoing hunger strike, to stand for long hours, and to remain blindfolded. Security forces physically beat, kicked and slapped the detainees.
