Family concerned Al-Khawaja may be being force fed
 

Family concerned Al-Khawaja may be being force fed

Published Friday, April 27, 2012
The daughter of Bahraini hunger striker Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja said she fears her father is being force-fed in an undisclosed location, after state media claimed he was taking nutritional supplements.
The state-run newspaper Gulf Daily News on Friday said that human rights leader Abdulhadi, who has been on hunger strike for 79 days, had been drinking a nutritional supplement for the past two days.
The paper also said he was in “high spirits” but Abdulhadi's daughter Maryam, also a human rights activist, said her father would not be taking the supplements voluntarily.
“They could be just flat-out lying or it could be alluding to something else. I know that my father is not going to willingly drink or eat anything so if they are giving him anything it is by force,” she said.
“If he is awake and he is conscious and they are force-feeding him against his will according to Physicians for Human Rights that is considered torture.”
The Minister of Interior Sheikh Khaled bin Ali Al-Khalifa on Wednesday denied that the regime were not concerned about the prospect of Abdulhadi dying.
“The evidence (against him), the confession among other evidence, is being seen by the highest court in the country. The main issue if you are referring to Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja in particular I think that we have a big concern about his health and we hope that he will enjoy his health,” he told the BBC.
“We would like him, as he took a voluntary decision to take a hunger strike, to take a decision to get out of it,” he added.
The opposition Al-Wefaq party on Thursday condemned the government for refusing to reveal the location at which Abdulhadi is being held.
"The (failure) of security agencies to disclose the place of detention of al-Khawaja is considered a shameful behavior that exposes the claims of civilization and humanity by the authorities," an Al-Wefaq statement said.
"It is also considered as a challenge to all local and international laws and customs that require the announcement of the place of the prisoner and his health status and allowing his family and his lawyer to meet and talk to him freely," it added.
Maryam said that they had received no news of him since last Sunday, and was worried that his condition had deteriorated severely, urging authorities to let her father contact his family.
“Despite numerous calls (to the authorities) they have not provided proof of life. Not only as his daughter but as a human rights activist who has been working on Bahrain for a while I have learned not to trust anything the authorities say unless they can prove it," she said.
"So far they have not provided any kind of evidence that my father is still alive.”
Bahrain was the scene of pro-democracy protests last February until a brutal crackdown by security forces with the backing of Saudi Arabia.
Since then protests have continued, with thousands on the streets protesting against the Formula One Grand Prix last weekend.
(Al-Akhbar)

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