Bahraini protester tortured to death: opposition – Bahrain Freedom Movement

27/01/2012 – 3:15 p | Hits: 285

“The new policy is trying to minimize torture inside prisons, but the alternative is that they torture in other places, such as construction sites,” he said. Ebrahim said the yard where Yaaqoub was tortured has been previously used for similar purposes, but added that “no one can film the torture because it is easy to spot the person filming.”

An 18-year-old Bahraini activist who died Wednesday night while in police custody was tortured to death, an opposition politician alleged. 

Mohamed Ibrahim Yaaqoub was detained on Wednesday following clashes between pro-democracy protesters and police in the village of Sitra. 

Mattar Ebrahim, a member of the opposition Al-Wefaq party, said police notified the 18-year-old’s family at 1am on Thursday of the boy’s death. 

Police in the Gulf kingdom’s Central Governorate announced that Yaaqoub was detained “over acts of vandalism in the area of Sitra,” in a statement posted by the interior ministry on Twitter. 

“He died in hospital and the public prosecution has been notified,” the statement said. 

A YouTube video shows a man, whom Ebrahim alleged is Yaaqoub, running away as two police vehicles chase him. 

A building obstructs the view of where the vehicles reportedly struck Yaaqoub. 

But the vehicles are not what killed Yaaqoub, Ebrahim said. 

“Many people saw him (Yaaqoub) after his accident, and he was able to move. He was injured, but [it was] not a severe injury,” he told Al-Akhbar. 

The former opposition MP said security forces then tortured the protester in a yard opposite the Sitra police station, which was seen by witnesses. 

“Later he was tortured in front of the police station. Many people saw him [get tortured], and we met with some witnesses who confirmed that he was tortured outside the police station,” Ebrahim said. 

The interior ministry said on Wednesday that 41 police officers were injured in “orchestrated attacks on police forces” amid rising tensions almost a year after the eruption of democracy protests that were crushed in mid-March. 

The opposition said several protesters were wounded on Wednesday in clashes with police in at least four villages. 

A government-established investigation into last year’s crackdown found that authorities deployed systematic methods of torture on detainees. 

Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa vowed to stamp out abuse of detainees, but Ebrahim claims authorities have new tactics that allow them to torture protesters without accountability. 

At least 35 people were killed in a crackdown on Bahrain’s pro-democracy protests last year, but human rights groups allege the death toll was at least 45. 

Saudi Arabia and Gulf states sent troops into the country last year to crush the uprising, although protests have recently surfaced against the monarch’s autocratic rule.