5 Bahraini Women Prisoners Declare Hunger Strike

Local Editor

Five political detainees in Bahrain's Isa Town Women's Prison entered the fourth day of a hunger strike today in protest of glass barriers in the visitation center and their harsh and ill-treatment by the prison officials.

Four detainees required medical attention on Friday, on the third day of their strike.

Detainees and their family member revealed that Hajar Mansoor Hassan, the 49-year-old mother-in-law of BIRD Director of Advocacy Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, was transferred at dawn to the Qalaa Hospital, where she was put on a saline drip. The authorities returned her to prison at 4.15pm. Hajar Mansoor Hassan is at risk of being sentenced on trumped up charges, in a reprisal against her son-in-law.

Three other detainees, Najah Al Sheikh, Amira Al-Qashami, and Medina Ali, needed medical treatment following a dramatic fall in their blood sugar levels and blood pressure after three days on hunger strike. A fifth detainee, Zainab Marhoon, is also on hunger strike.

The women are demanding an end to their humiliating and ill-treatment by prison staff, and the removal of a barrier in the visitation center. Inmates previously declared a strike against all family visits on 3 October, after the authorities installed a glass barrier preventing inmates from embracing family members on visit. The women are also demanding greater privacy during phone calls.

Hajar has said she will continue the hunger strike until the prison authorities' treatment of detainees improves, saying she would continue "until they consider us humans and not animals."

Head of the prison administration Major Al-Barduli has previously insisted that prison officers receives training on human rights. Yet the authorities' claims are challenged by the continued hunger strike, and reports of ill-treatment in Isa Town Women's Prison. The problems in the prison's administration, including increasing ill-treatment of detainees, appear to have grown since July, when human rights defender Ebtisam Al-Sayegh was arrested by the NSA and held there. Al-Sayegh was granted temporary release on 22 October.

On 24 October, Hajar was barred from making phone calls.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team