Sunday, January 15, 2012

An appalling story from Bahrain

Badriya Ali is a 59 year old woman from the village of Sanabis. In April security forces raided her home to arrest her son, Ahmed Mushaima, who is 25 years old. They beat him severely in front of her, banging his head against the corner of an air conditioner repeatedly. Badriya screamed at them to stop beating her son, and an officer responded "shut up, we arrest women too". They then pulled her old sick husband from bed to arrest him, but he was so weak and collapsed to the ground, where they left him. Badriya fainted after watching her son being severely beaten. Before leaving, the officers wrote "long live Khalifa (the king's family name) " on the walls of her home.

Some of those officers were: Faisal Bakhsh, Khalid and Taher AlAlawi. They stole 4,500 BD (about £7,800), 3 phones, a laptop and Ahmed's wallet.

Since that raid, according to her daughter Zahra, Badriya went into deep depression.For a week she cried continuously, after which she fell completely silent. When Badriya's son was released she got a bit better, but a couple of weeks ago their village which is constantly under attacks by the security forces was invaded yetagain, and Badriya saw an old woman being chased by security forces in the street. Since that day she was terrified, and her family had to watch her constantly. She was afraid of any small sound, convinced they would come back for her children. She told her children that she couldn't take it anymore, and to let her go to the riot police so she can be killed.

Zahra says she was busy with her daughter for five minutes, only to find her mother had set herself on fire on the roof. She died of her burns today.

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