Bahrain Crackdown: Hunger Striking-Inmates’ Health Critically Worsening In Jaw Prison

Local Editor

The health conditions of Bahraini political activists Naji Fateel and Ali Haji are increasingly deteriorating over the past weeks due to a hunger strike they joined to voice their strong dissent against the dire living conditions in Bahrain’s notorious Jaw prison.

According to a report by the Britain-based Arabic-language Bahrain al-Youm news agency, the prison’s authorities are indifferent to critical conditions of Fateel, a human rights activist and member of the board of directors of the Bahraini human rights NGO Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights [BYSHR], and Haji, a political activist.

The report, citing an unnamed source from within the prison, also reported that the activists, who are strongly against the policies adopted by Bahrain’s Al Khalifah regime, have already entered their fourth week of hunger strike.

The sources further said that the inmates were suffering from pains in different parts of their bodies, particularly in stomach, adding that they were suffering from dizziness most of the time.

Fateel and Haji had previously joined other rounds of hunger strikes in protest against the non-fulfillment of their natural rights to treatment, demanding improvement of the service situation inside the jail.

Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.

They are demanding that the Al Khalifah regime relinquish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.

Manama has gone to great lengths to clamp down on any sign of dissent. On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to assist Bahrain in its crackdown.

Scores of people were martyred and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested as a result of the Al Khalifah regime’s crackdown.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team