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By Lloyd Mudiwa.
Authorities in Bahrain have dismissed eight medical professionals for convictions in connection with the protests during the unrest of February 2011 and has jailed a 17-year-old previously treated in Ireland for injuries inflicted by the regime, Irish Medical Times reports.
According to the Bahrain Rehabilitation and Anti-Violence Organisation (BRAVO), an eight-year-old boy also died last week as a direct result of respiratory complications from tear gas canisters shot into his home.
Irish General Secretary of BRAVO Tara O’Grady said 17-year-old eye injury victim Mohammed Al Jaziri, whom BRAVO brought to Ireland last summer to have his eye replaced in Temple Street Children’s Hospital after a tear gas canister hit him in the face, was last week sentenced to six months in prison on charges of illegal gathering.
“We have reason to believe this sentence is retribution for the fact his case was so broadly publicised, and that we treated him at the same time that Dr Nada Dhaif [Bahraini medic and human rights activist, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a military tribunal before she was acquitted on appeal] visited Dلil ةireann.”
Eight medical professionals have had their service to Bahrain’s Department of Health terminated on January 31 for convictions in connection with providing medical care to protesters during the Arab Spring of 2011, according to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). The organisation has called on the Bahraini health ministry to reinstate the doctors and nurse in their jobs immediately with compensation for lost wages, and also to compensate those who were tortured while in custody.
Of the seven physicians and nurse dismissed, four are also serving prison sentences, ranging from one-to-five years.
“These medical professionals were arrested simply for carrying out their ethical duty to treat injured people,” said Richard Sollom, Deputy Director of PHR. “They were then tortured, forced to confess to crimes they did not commit, convicted on trumped-up charges, and imprisoned unjustly. For them now to be forced out of their government jobs merely continues a long chain of baseless abuse by the regime.”
Sollom added: “These medical professionals should be treating patients, not languishing in jail or forced to seek alternate employment. They have lost not just their freedom but also their jobs, their income, and their standing in the medical community. These additional penalties may be intended as an additional warning to physicians that treating protesters might jeopardize their careers.”
Comment from the Bahrain authorities was not available before going to press.
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