The Arabspring have
showed us a different side of the Arab women, they have proven that they are
not only family or career oriented, but revolutionaries as well. Participating widely
in pro-democracy movements in their countries standing alongside men in the fight
for freedom “…defying the stereotype as victims of oppressive patriarchies”[1].
Indeed as seen by Manal Alsharif the woman who defied banning women from
driving in Saudi. Takaful Karman from Yemen was recently awarded the Nobel
Prize for peace; she camped for months outside the university of Sanna calling
on the Yemeni president to step down.
Bahraini woman is
no different than their peers in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. At first there was
the young Ayat Al-Qurmozi whose case was a matter of public concern around the
world. Ayat however was not the only one, at some stage between Feb and Oct
2011 there were over 300 women detained.
During the rule of
Hamad Bin Isa Alkhalifa women were given the right to vote in Bahrain (in 2001),
however and during the same era of his ruling (2011), women were arrested,
tortured and even raped for participating in pro-democracy demonstrations.
Doctors, nurses, teacher, journalists, students and the list go on. Roula
Alsaffar (hear here story here) for example was thrown in jail without a trail and
was subject to sexual abuse whilst in prison, and when she finally had her
trail (along with other 20 medics) in court they were sentenced to 15 years in less
than one minute.
Ironically the
current king of Bahrain has been labeled once a reformist and woman rights
“advocate” but then King Abdulla of Saudi was given this title once and he is
still lashing women. “But perhaps the worst part of the ordeal
was that the woman was detained at all. In an Arab culture, particularly in the
Gulf, detaining a woman is the ultimate humiliation, going back to the days when
the way one tribe defeated another was to capture and rape its women”[2]
This is only an indication at how much this regime
hates Shia, as Roula Alsaffar said in the above interview “…when you are in jail for 5
months and see over 250 women, all of which are Shia, you start thinking, is it
really a sectarian hatred?”[3]
And then there is the most provocative picture, the picture that shook Bahrain
when the mercenary forces (riot police) put the women on top of each other in
derogatory position, In front of hundreds of shoppers, to humiliate them while
making the arrest in the parking lot of the biggest shopping mall in the country.
Some of he women in the above picture have been sentenced to 6 months, charged with “illegal gathering” and “running over a police officer”. Initially police arrested 38 women that day 23/09/2011 and later released some of them.
List of women still in prison:
- Aqeela Almagabi
- Ashwaq Almagabi
- Muneera Duhaim
- Huda Duhaim
- Ibtisam Duhaim
- Nada Alkaiem
- Fatima Aljeeshi
- Laila Abdulla Kadhem
- Khadija Abdulnasser Hubail
- Zainab Salman
- Fatima Abduljaleel
- Narjis Abbas
There are other 4 girls who were not sentenced yet as
they are juveniles. In addition, I should not forget Fadhila Mubarak Almubarak who was arrested on 27/03/2011 and then sentenced
to 4 years in prison. She is still behind bars!
Jaleela Alsalman, former vice-president of the Bahrain Teacher’s Association was
arrested again after the police raided recently her house, after a very short
time of her release as she awaits the appeal hearing on 01/12/2011. Initially
she was sentenced to 3 years in a military court![4]
I have been trying to find the full list of women detainees for a while
now, could you please contact me if you have more information about them. Age,
area, occupation etc.. so I can update the post and put an action plan.
