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| Arabia |
| Bahrain charging doctors over protest deaths |
| 2011-05-03 |
| Not sure what to make of this. Is the government going after medical staff who aided protestors, or did Sunni staff do the things alleged to wounded shiites (which wouldn't surprise me too much). Bahrain says it will charge a number of medical workers with causing the death of two demonstrators, broadening a crackdown on the opposition in the wake of protests that shook the Gulf island kingdom. Human rights groups say Sunni-led Bahrain has targeted doctors and medical staff who aided mostly Shiite protesters during anti-government demonstrations it crushed in March. Justice minister Khaled bin Ali al-Khalifa told reporters 47 medical staff would face charges, including about two dozen doctors. Not all of them would be prosecuted for causing the protesters deaths, but he did not specify how many would face such charges. He alleged the two protesters died because staff inflicted additional wounds on them or gave unneeded treatments. "The medical profession was strongly abused during this period," he said. Bahraini forces stormed the Salmaniyya Medical Centre (SMC), the country's largest hospital in mid-March as it set about quelling protests led mostly by the country's Shiite majority. Bahraini officials said at the time the hospital had become "overrun by political and sectarian activity". According to Sheikh Khaled, doctors inflicted additional wounds on a protester who arrived at SMC with a wound on his thigh, causing him to bleed to death. He said that in another case doctors conducted unnecessary surgery on a protester who was shot in the head, adding the doctors involved in these two cases would be charged with "assault that led to death". |
| Posted by:phil_b |