Bahrain 1st-Hand: US Activist Radhika Sainath "Joining the Protests, Being Detained"

Police arrest protesters in Bahrain's capital Manama, 11 February

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On 11 February, Radhika Sainath, a civil rights attorney in New York, joined a demonstration in Bahrain on the eve of the anniversary of protests against the regime. She was seized and detained before she was deported to the US. On Mondoweiss, she has posted a two-part --- Part 1 and Part 2 --- account of her experience:

....The march towards Pearl [Roundabout] started. I tried to stay mostly to the side, so I could see what was going on. The peaceful marchers chanted “Down with [King] Hamad,” while waving red and white Bahraini flags. We were almost immediately met by riot police dressed in blue and white, carrying large automatic weapons.

They fired multiple rounds of teargas canisters, straight at the crowd—one of which flew within inches of my colleague Huwaida Arraf’s face.

“Police teargas nonviolent march now in #manama #BAHRAIN,” I tweeted. I wondered if they would start firing birdshot at us as they had done in the past. But I tried to stay, watch and tweet as the fumes enveloped us and the crowd ran, fumbling with a teargas mask given to me earlier.

It was my first experience with such equipment; at prior visits to villages earlier that week, I had used homemade remedies, inhaling onions, vinegar, wrapping my scarf around my nose and mouth and having milk thrown at my face. Surely this magic alien machine would make me impervious!

Alas it did nothing, and I felt my eyes sear as I gagged on the fumes, gasping for air as burning tears and snot ran down my face. I couldn’t see, but I needed to tweet. I was getting snot on the iPad as I followed the marchers running through the allies as the police chased after them. I paused between the flow of tears and tweeted: "Choking on teargas as police chase peaceful protesters #Babrain #ARABSPRAING." My spelling was terrible, iPads and tear gas don’t mix.

I followed the people through allies, hoping to escape the teargas until I stumbled upon several Bahraini police surrounding a woman in a black headscarf and flowing black abaya throwing her arms around a young man, perhaps her son, crying out in Arabic as they screamed at her.

Through the tears and the burning I tried to tweet a video of the youth, but the iPad was slipping. Then the police left the boy, and surrounded me. They were all Pakistani, mercenaries brought by the regime to put down protesters.

“You can’t photo,” one said.

“I’m not. I couldn’t get it to work,” I said putting the iPad away. They closed in and my back was against the wall. The women of the alley watched from balconies and corners.

“You are lucky you are Indian,” said one of the policeman. “If you were from Bahrain we would arrest you.”

My mind raced, how would Pakistani Sunni in a Bahraini police force feel towards an Indian Hindu at a mostly-Shia’a democracy march? There did seem to be a common South Asian bond, but I decided to air on the side of caution. “Oh I’m American,” I said. “But my parents are from India.”

They started questioning me about my attendance at the protest, how I go there, and why I was present. Did I know that "they were saying bad things about the Bahraini regime, that they were chanting down with Hamad"?

Do they allow people to say bad things about the government in America?” asked one. The others nodded at his logic, certain that I would now understand the outrageousness of the protesters’ actions.

“Of course. People said bad things about George Bush all the time. They hated Bush. And now lots of people protest against Obama.”

They were quiet, and I pressed on, telling them that I was in their country, Pakistan, a few years ago supporting the lawyer’s democracy movement. “The people hated Musharraf, and they went to the street.” I hoped I played my cards right—what if these guys liked Musharraf? But nobody liked Musharraf. I watched their eyes blink in understanding. They hated their dictatorship, but were supporting another non-democratic regime.

Eventually, they left, taking the youth with them. The woman thanked me, if I had not been there, perhaps they would have taken her too.

I walked back towards where protesters had re-gathered. Little did I know that in the next few minutes, I would not escape so easily.

In the alleys of Manama, a Bahraini police commander yelled at me that I had been disrespectful, as the other policemen dragged the young man away.  The woman who had tried to protect him with her arms and her body sobbed.  The youth was certain to be beaten, likely tortured.  She thanked me, though I felt I had failed. 

I hurried back through narrow alleys, past sand-colored homes and onto the main road, the sounds of percussion grenades guiding me to the site where the Bahraini democracy activists had since re-gathered.

Everything seemed cast in a soft white light.  Downtown Bahrain could be any city, small stores lined the broad main road, some open, some with ridged metal shutters pulled down over the glass.  Dozens of Indians, presumably workers or small businessmen, stood outside these stores watching the police, and a certain slender wavy-haired Palestinian-American walked away from police officers calling after her.

I kept my head down and my eyes affixed to the iPad, walking down the sidewalk, then turning left between two parked vans.  I avoided eye contact with Huwaida Arraf as she passed me, walking quickly away from the police officers pursuing her.

I walked further down the street, to what I believed was a safe distance away, and tweeted a photo of the police surrounding Huwaida.  I could not see them, there were a dozen of them, maybe more.  A number of Bahraini women had surrounded her and were trying to help.

One policeman looked over and yelled out at me “No photos.” I put the iPad down, tucking it in the back pocket of my messenger bag, then backed up the street a few feet and joined the group of Indian men watching.  The police fired several rounds of percussion grenades in the other direction.  BOOM BOOM BOOM.  The crowd around Huwaida scattered, leaving only her, the police, the Indians and me.  

Perhaps I could just blend in with the Indian shopkeepers and watch, I thought, as they loaded Huwaida into the van.  I tried to take another picture, but I noticed the police were looking at me.  A group of police approached and asked me for my passport. 

“We just need to see the name,” they said.

I held it out for them.  They leaned forward, squinting at my names.  One looked down at his Blackberry, and then looked up at the name.

“Haida hiyye,” he said in Arabic. “That’s her.”

I was done.  It was my name that had been on the first Witness Bahrain press release announcing our presence the day before.  Huwaida had posted almost all the video interviews of Bahraini human rights activists to our website.  They were after us.

A dozen policewomen surrounded me, shields out, and one stood directly in front of me.  Did they think I would flee?  I asked why I was being held multiple times, if I was under arrest, what laws I had broken and if I was free to go.  No one would talk to me.   From what I could see from behind the police, the street had cleared.  I looked at my watch. It was 4:15 p.m. 

No one would know I had been arrested.  They would think I had run from the tear gas as the people did in the villages every day and every night, taking refuge in the homes of strangers until the gas and the police cleared.  What would become of me?

They put me in a police van and took me to a jail in downtown Manama. It was filled with policemen in black combat boots — the riot police — staring, but saying nothing.  I passed the room where Huwaida was being held and was stuck into another.

I sat there for the next several hours, interrogated on and off. They wanted to see my photos.  I refused. They wanted me to name names. I refused.  I heard that my Bahraini lawyer had come to the jail, but been turned away. I asked repeatedly what crime I committed.

“We’ll get to that later,” I was told.

And then came the question, said in a slightly menacing tone that made one want to deny everything. 

“You support human rights, don’t you?” The police officer leaned in as if trying to trap me.  I paused.

“Of course I support human rights.”

“So you admit it!” 

They had got me. In Bahrain, supporting human rights was something akin to terrorism, and I had just admitted to it.

It wasn’t till about midnight when Huwaida and I were both taken to meet U.S. vice-consul Jennifer Smith, and her assistant, Ms. Joyce.

It was Ms. Smith who first informed us what the Bahrainis were saying about my arrest: I was at an illegal demonstration.  We asked them if we could speak to Ms. Smith alone, but the police refused.  Eventually, we whispered to Ms. Smith our primary concern, our footage had faces of numerous protesters, people who had given interviews but had asked that their identities be hidden. If we turned over this equipment, they could be tortured.

“You should have thought about that before you took the video,” Ms. Smith said.

Read full article --- Part 1 and Part 2....