Rights watchdog says Bahrain police using torture

After abolishing torture more than 10 years ago, Bahrain's security services are once more resorting to the practice to extract confessions from detainees, including many Shiite protesters, said a report released Monday by an international human rights group.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch published an 89-page report, based on interviews with detainees and a review of medical and court records, that alleged the repeated use of torture by security forces since the end of 2007.

"Torture is back in the repertoire of Bahrain's security services," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director of HRW. "The return of torture is especially distressing since Bahrain showed the political will a decade ago to end this scourge."

The alleged return to such coercive techniques comes as the small Persian Gulf kingdom has seen rising unrest by its majority Shiite population, who say they are discriminated against by the Sunni ruling classes.

"Many of those detained and tortured were young men from the Shiite Muslim community whose street protests against alleged discrimination by the government had regularly led to confrontations with security forces," said Stork at a news conference in the capital, Manama.

Representatives of HRW spent a week in Bahrain prior to Monday's release of the report to present their findings to the government, which denied the torture had taken place.

Stork and his HRW team met with Bahraini Interior Minister Sheik Rashid bin Abdulla al-Khalifa.

"We have already followed-up a number of cases following complaints from citizens about allegations of abuses during detention," the minister was quoted as saying by the Bahrain News Agency.

But the interior minister, who is in charge of the security forces, stressed his confidence "in public security procedures and the extent of discipline in maintaining the security while respecting human rights."

HRW noted that in at least one case, a court acquitted all defendants of charges after medical reports indicated they had been coerced into confessing. The use of torture violates Bahrain's own laws.

When Bahrain's current ruler succeeded his father in 1999, he enacted several wide-ranging reforms, including abolishing State Security courts, freeing detainees and banning torture by security services.

HRW, however, said the state has returned to its old ways under pressure from popular unrest.

"We found that techniques were used by several security agencies, including suspension of bodies from rests, the use of stun-guns, electric shocks, beating, and these were systematically employed during interrogation to extract confessions," said lawyer Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, who worked on the HRW report.

The small island nation is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet and is ruled by a Sunni royal family.